He stood up abruptly, knocking the chair back. “That’s worse,” he said, eyes wet. “That’s so much worse. Because now I know what it felt like to matter to someone. And you’re taking it away.”
She would give it to him in two years, at graduation, when he was no longer her student. When the power was gone. When their two paths had straightened out into separate, parallel lines.
INT. PRINCIPAL HARTLEY’S OFFICE – NEXT DAY
MARCUS For you. You said you killed your last one. This one’s harder to kill. Like you.
He left. The door clicked shut. She heard his footsteps jog down the hallway, then fade.