or their disciplinarians, we do at least have to maintain the appropriate seniority and boundaries to keep them out of trouble. They will push those boundaries at every turn, and considering you haven’t changed a bit from when you were a student... I don’t think you’re capable of dealing with that.”
“That’s not fair!” Summer protested. “I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t know me. You’ve spent all of five minutes talking to me.”
“One can generally make an accurate psychological assessment in less.”
“Well, your assessment of me is wrong.” Summer’s jaw tightened. “I can do this job. And since you accepted me, you can at least give me a chance before telling me how much I suck.”
So there was something of a backbone there, Fox thought—and wondered just what it was that had made Summer so shy, so withdrawn. Leaning back, he steepled his fingers. “You interviewed with Principal Chambers, did you not?”
“Y-yeah.” Summer nodded.
“And what did he tell you?”
“That no one else wanted the job.” Summer smiled faintly. He had a soft, sad mouth that seemed ill-used to smiling, yet was haunted by a perpetual ghost of warmth nonetheless. “And that my mother must be happy to have me back home.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Happy to be here.”
“I...” There—an almost imperceptible flinch. “She needed me here. She’s not young anymore, and it’ll be better for her if I’m close by to help.”
That, Fox thought, was not an answer. It was a reason, but not an answer to the actual question he had asked. He pressed his lips together, tapping his fingertips to his knuckles.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “We can call it a training exercise, or a psychological experiment—whichever suits you.”
“Am I a TA or a test subject?”
“Both, perhaps.” Fox tucked a loose lock of hair behind his ear. Irritating mess; he always meant to cut it, and yet... He let his gaze drift to the mantle. The butsudan resting there, its deep-polished rosewood glinting in the afternoon light drifting through the windows, its doors currently closed and its contents private...as they should be. Tearing his gaze away, he made himself focus on Summer. “Once per day, I expect you to do something outside your comfort zone. Challenge yourself to take on a role as a leader, or mentor. Challenge yourself to approach this job with confidence, rather than asking permission to do what you must do. If you cannot learn to be bold, Mr. Hemlock, at the very least learn to fake it in the necessary environments so that your knees knocking together do not drown out the lesson you are trying to deliver.”
Summer’s lips twitched faintly. “Pavlovian conditioning is a little 101 level, sir. Are you trying to make me assert my own authority?”
“I’m not trying to make you do anything,” Fox replied. “My only goal is to see if you can take the steps needed to face down a classroom of unruly, disrespectful children on your own. Do I need to hold your hand in that, or do you feel capable of attempting it under your own impetus?”
Summer plucked at his jeans. “The children don’t scare me.”
“Oh? Then what does?”
No answer. Simply a heavy silence, fraught with meaning, and yet—for all his understanding of psychology, of psychiatry, of the small markers that gave away intent and thought and emotion... Fox couldn’t quite read what that meaning might be. Not when the Summer he had known as a boy was necessarily a stranger to him, with the appropriate distance between teacher and student; not when the Summer he saw now was a new person, shaped by years of experiences Fox as yet had no insight into, and technically stood on almost equal footing as his peer and assistant.
And if he were honest with himself...no matter how he tried, no matter what clinical understanding he possessed...
He somehow always felt at one remove from other people’s feelings, observing them and yet never quite understanding them, the soul of his own emotions locked away.
Summer took a deep, slow breath, his shoulders rising and falling. “Every day? Does that include today?”
“You don’t technically start work until Monday, so you may take the weekend to consider, if you’d like,” Fox said. “Or you may start today. But that is still not an answer as to what frightens you.”
“Okay,” Summer said shakily, rising to his feet with wooden motions. “Okay then. I’ll show you what scares me.”
He stepped rigidly across the living room, navigating the low polished coffee table with an awkward