Kelly Connolly stacked up the last of her papers, slid them into the small messenger bag sitting by her desk, and headed out of the school, nodding to the janitor on the way out. Parent teacher conferences were winding down, the last one with Tessa and her father. She was pleased with the girl's progress - reading her file, she had been worried that the young woman would be a problem, but she was polite, hard working, and while not the top of her class, certainly one of Kelly's better students.<br/><br/>Kelly could use more Tessa's. Barely two years out of her Masters, she was still learning the ropes, dealing with boys who couldn't take their eyes off her ass long enough to look at their assignments and...she sighed softly...stammering like an idiot in from of one of Tessa's father. Whether he knew it or not - and she really hoped he didn't - he had basically found every button she had and pushed them all at once. She could keep up the veneer of assertive calm in front of her students, but it had started to crack within minutes in front of him. She...missed that part of herself, long buried by her career and moving and a thousand other things that told her now was not the time to make so much of her life beholden to another.<br/><br/>She walked out into the parking lot, heels clicking on the asphalt, until she saw movement in one of the cars. A young girl, her back arched as she rode someone, her breasts bare...<em>Tessa!?</em>. And that was her...her father. It had to be.<br/><br/>Shocked, Kelly hurried to her car and drove off, wrestling with what she had just seen. By rights, she should report this, but if she did...Tessa's father would lose custody, and that girl's life would be shattered. She didn't want to do that. Maybe if she could talk to Tessa, make sure everything was okay...<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>As she passed out graded homework assignments, she set one on Tessa's test. "87" was printed in bright red digits and circled, and next to it was a note in her teacher's neat, feminine handwriting. "See me after class."