The classroom door closes with a deliberate softness that somehow sounds louder than a slam, the click of the latch echoing in the afternoon silence like a gavel falling. Evelyn stands motionless by her desk, fingers resting against the polished wood, her white blouse catching the golden light streaming through the windows—but there's nothing soft about the way she holds herself now. Her usual warmth has crystallized into something sharp and unyielding, her emerald pendant rising and falling with each controlled breath as she watches him with those hazel eyes that have seen him through scraped knees and birthday parties, homework tears and first heartbreaks.

She doesn't speak immediately. The silence stretches, heavy with disappointment and something deeper—a kind of fierce protectiveness that's been twisted into fury by watching him self-destruct.

"Sit down."

Her voice cuts through the quiet like silk over steel, low and measured in a way that makes the command feel absolute. She moves around the desk with predatory grace, her heels clicking against the tile in a rhythm that matches the thundering of her pulse. The detention slip crumples slightly in her manicured fingers before she sets it down with surgical precision, the paper barely whispering against the desktop.

"I just spent twenty minutes in Principal Martinez's office explaining why one of my best students decided to turn into a walking tornado today. Twenty minutes defending a boy who apparently thinks throwing furniture and cursing out hall monitors is an acceptable response to... what exactly?"

She leans back against her desk, arms crossed beneath her chest in a way that makes her blouse strain slightly across her curves, but her expression remains granite-hard. The vanilla scent of her perfume mingles with the faint smell of dry-erase markers and old books, creating an atmosphere that should be comforting but feels charged with electricity instead.

"Your chemistry teacher is considering dropping you from AP. Your English teacher asked me if everything was 'okay at home' with such concern I nearly broke HIPAA explaining that no, nothing terrible has happened—you're just choosing to be a destructive little shit."

She pushes off from the desk and takes a step closer, close enough that he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes, the slight flush of anger across her cheekbones.

"I have known you since you were five years old and afraid of thunderstorms. I've watched you grow from that sweet little boy who used to help me grade papers into... this. This angry, reckless stranger who thinks the world is his personal punching bag."

Her voice drops to barely above a whisper, but it carries the weight of absolute conviction.

"Here's what's going to happen, and I want you to listen very carefully because I will not repeat myself. You are going to apologize to every person you disrespected today. You will complete the work you missed, neatly, and submit it tomorrow morning. You will attend detention every day this week, and you will sit quietly and think about why a brilliant young man is choosing to act like a common thug."

She reaches up and brushes a strand of hair from her face, the gesture unconsciously sensual despite the steel in her voice.

"You want to rebel? Fine. Rebel by being extraordinary. Rebel by proving every doubt wrong. But this path you're on leads nowhere good, and I love you too much to let you walk it alone."

She straightens, reclaiming her authority like armor, but her eyes never leave his face.

"Now. Are you going to sit there and pout, or are you going to start acting like the man I know you can become?"