The Crack in the Door

"Everyone thinks fear makes you run. It doesn’t. Sometimes it nails your feet to the floor and forces your eyes open."

I stepped into the corridor, my pulse going absolutely mental, breath coming in these shallow little gasps that made me feel like I'd just run from home to school in the midday heat. I stood there, frozen, just beyond his doorway. My legs wouldn't work properly—that weird disconnected feeling, like when you've been sitting wrong and your foot's gone dead, except it was my whole body. Some stupid part of me still expected Clarke to follow—to call me back, maybe crack and tell me something real, offer something other than that brick wall he'd just slammed up between us.

But nothing. Just the sound of my own breathing, too loud in the empty corridor.

My hands were still shaking from the confrontation. I pressed them flat against my thighs, trying to stop the trembling, trying to process what had just happened. The way he'd stood there with his fly undone, not even trying to hide it. The movement in the shadows. The fear in his eyes when I'd said "Ironsand."

Then, suddenly, a curse ripped through the air from inside his classroom. Not just any swear—something savage, raw, the kind of word Dad used when he hit his thumb with a hammer down in the shed, but worse. Violent. The kind of word that came from somewhere deep and dark. I flinched so hard I nearly jumped out of my skin, my shoulder blades hitting the corridor wall.

A second later came this massive thud—wood taking a beating, probably his fist meeting desk. My brain painted the picture without asking: Clarke, alone, losing his shit completely.

But then—Christ, and then—a sound that made every hair on my arms stand up, made my skin go tight and cold despite the warmth trapped in the building. A moan. Low at first, barely there, maybe I was imagining it. But no—there it was again, rising, muffled but urgent, the kind of sound that absolutely did not belong in a classroom. The kind of sound I'd only heard hints of, whispers of, when Michelle talked about what she'd heard through her brother's bedroom wall.

My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat, just stuck there like a lump of food you can't swallow. Everything in me—every sensible cell in my body—screamed to run. Get out, get home, forget this ever happened. Pretend I'd never come here, never confronted him, never heard any of this. That's what a smart girl would do. That's what a girl who wanted to live to see seventeen would do.

But that other part, the part that got me into trouble, the part that couldn't leave things alone, the part that had to know—that part held me there like I'd grown roots. My feet moved without permission, carrying me back toward the door on the worn lino that usually squeaked but now stayed silent, like even the building was holding its breath. Just to the side, where I could lean in and peer through that narrow gap where the door hadn't quite latched.

The sliver of light from inside cut through the dimness of the corridor. I could smell it now—sweat, something musky and adult and wrong. My heart was beating so hard I was sure he'd hear it, sure it would give me away. But I leaned in anyway, eye to the crack, and looked.

What I saw knocked all the air out of me. Like being punched in the stomach, but worse. Like drowning on dry land.

A body across his desk—a young bloke, senior maybe, shirt gone, pale skin catching the afternoon light that streamed through those tall windows. His hands gripped the edge of the desk, knuckles white. Face turned away from me, thank God, but I could see the curve of his spine, the way his body arched. And over him, Clarke.

Moving.

No—not just moving. Driving into him with this intensity that made my stomach turn over, made bile rise in my throat. His whole body was wound tight, every muscle standing out under skin that gleamed with sweat. His face—Jesus, his face was twisted into something I'd never seen before. Not quite anger, not quite pleasure—something darker, uglier, more primitive. Like he'd stripped away every pretence of being a teacher, being civilised, being human, and given himself over to something base and vicious.

The rhythm of it was brutal. Violent. The desk scraped against the floor with each thrust, this awful repetitive screech. But there was something else too—this terrible freedom in it, like he'd stopped pretending to be anything other than what he was. Like this was the real Clarke, and everything else—the history lessons, the wry jokes, the careful teacher persona—was the mask.

I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. My eye stayed fixed to that crack like someone had glued it there. My brain kept trying to make sense of it, to process it, but it was like trying to understand a foreign language. This wasn't just sex—I knew that much from the magazines Michelle had nicked from her brother, from the fumbling descriptions girls whispered about at sleepovers. This was something else. Something that felt like violence and power and rage all twisted together.

For a second—this insane, naive second—I thought my presence would shatter everything. That he'd sense me there, stop, pull away, scramble to cover himself, stammer excuses. That's what should happen when a student catches a teacher doing... this. There should be shame. Panic. Horror at being discovered.

But then Clarke's head lifted. Through the sweat-darkened hair hanging in his face, his eyes found mine through that gap, across the room. Our eyes locked.

He didn't stop.

He didn't even flinch.

Time seemed to stretch, horrible and elastic. His eyes held mine—dark, wild, but fully aware. He knew I was there. He could see me watching. And he didn't stop.

If anything, something worse crossed his face—this look of defiance, maybe even victory. His lips pulled back from his teeth in something that wasn't quite a smile but made my blood go cold. Like he wanted me to see. Like this was part of something, some message, some threat. This is what I am, his eyes seemed to say. This is what you're dealing with.

With one sharp motion, he grabbed his shirt and ripped it open. The sound of tearing fabric was loud in the room. Buttons went flying, hitting the floor with little clicks like dropped coins, one rolling toward the door, toward me. His chest heaved, slick with sweat that caught the light, the hair there dark and matted. And his hips—God, his hips drove harder, more violent, each thrust making the desk scrape against the floor, making the whole thing shake. The sounds from beneath him got louder, desperate, raw in a way that made me want to cover my ears, made me want to claw my own eyes out.

But I couldn't look away. It was like watching a car crash, that horrible fascination that roots you to the spot even as your mind screams at you to turn away. Clarke's eyes never left mine. He was performing for me now, making sure I saw every second of it. Making sure I understood exactly what kind of man I'd challenged.

My breath broke apart in my throat, coming out in this tiny whimper that I immediately swallowed. I tore my eyes away, finally, finally able to move, stumbling backward so fast I nearly fell. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely use the wall to keep myself upright. My legs had gone to complete jelly, that feeling when you've been on a boat too long and the ground won't stay still.

Panic took over, pure animal panic, the kind that bypasses your brain entirely. Suddenly I was moving, running for the stairwell, my shoes slapping against the lino, not caring about the noise anymore, needing to get away, anywhere but here, anywhere but near this.

Behind me, one final sound chased me down the corridor—guttural, furious, almost triumphant. A roar that might have been completion or might have been rage or might have been both. Like he'd won something. Like he'd shown me exactly what I'd asked to see when I'd demanded the truth.

I crashed into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, my hand sliding along the railing for balance because my legs weren't working right. The sound of my shoes on the concrete stairs was too loud, echoing up and down the stairwell like gunshots, but I couldn't slow down. Couldn't stop. My skin felt too tight, like I'd touched something infectious, something that would never wash off. Like Clarke's eyes on me had left a residue, a stain that went deeper than skin.

The stairwell smelled of industrial cleaner and dust, normal school smells that now seemed to come from a different world entirely. How could anything be normal after what I'd just seen? How could there be maths tests and assembly and detention in a place where this could happen?

By the time I burst through the main doors into the afternoon sun, I was gasping, choking on air that tasted of dust and eucalyptus. The normal world hit me like a slap—the empty schoolyard with its patches of dead grass, the distant sound of a dog barking, a ute rumbling past on the street, someone's radio playing that new INXS song. Everything ordinary and wrong.

I bent over, hands on my knees, trying not to be sick right there on the asphalt. The hot concrete smell rose up, mixing with the nausea, making it worse. My mind kept replaying it—Clarke's eyes meeting mine, that deliberate ripping of his shirt, the way he'd gotten harder, more vicious, when he knew I was watching. The way he'd wanted me to watch.

That was the worst part, wasn't it? Not just what he was doing—though God, that was bad enough—but that he'd wanted me to see it. He'd used it as a weapon, as a warning. This is what I'm capable of. This is what you're messing with.

My mouth tasted of copper—I'd bitten my tongue at some point, hard enough to draw blood. I spat on the ground, the pink saliva disappearing instantly into the thirsty earth. My hands were still shaking as I straightened up. The school loomed behind me, all sandstone and shadows in the afternoon light, looking exactly the same as it had when I'd arrived. But it wasn't the same. It would never be the same.

Somewhere in there, Clarke was probably pulling his clothes back together, buttoning up with those buttons that hadn't been torn off. Maybe laughing. Maybe planning what to do about me. Maybe telling the bloke on the desk about the stupid little girl who'd thought she could challenge him.

I'd wanted the truth. Well, I'd gotten a piece of it, hadn't I? A piece that sat in my stomach like broken glass, cutting me up from the inside. Because this wasn't just about Sally Harlow anymore. This was about something sicker, deeper, older. The kind of secret that people killed to keep.

I started walking, then running, my feet carrying me away from Broken Hill High on pure instinct, down Garnet Street toward home. But even as I ran, I knew it didn't matter how far I went. What I'd seen through that crack in the door—that would follow me. That would change everything. It already had.

Because now Clarke knew that I knew. And worse—he'd wanted me to know.