Even the other students could tell that Mr. Miller was deliberately targeting me, but while some felt sorry for me, they still chose to avoid me—afraid of drawing his fire onto themselves.
Even my desk mate, who had once been close to me, began to drift away after a few attempts to comfort me when Mr. Miller retaliated.
Gradually, I was completely isolated by the entire class.
I had to eat alone in the cafeteria, spend breaks without anyone to talk to, and during P.E. when we formed teams, everyone would pair off, leaving me behind.
Sometimes my homework wouldn’t even be collected, which only gave Mr. Miller more excuses to “make an example” of me. Every time he criticized me, his spit flew, his eyes gleamed with excitement, as if he was savoring the moment—hoping I would finally break, beg him for mercy, and admit I was wrong to stand up to him, just to feed his twisted need for control.
But I still refused to submit. Instead, I kept living my school life on my own terms.
Whether my homework was collected or not, I did it carefully. No matter what score I got, knowledge didn’t lie. As for being socially isolated in class—as long as it didn’t turn into physical bullying, I didn’t care.
A few students who couldn’t stand watching this would quietly slip me notes, advising me to just apologize to Mr. Miller. After all, we were just students, powerless to fight back against a teacher, and we’d still have to live under his thumb for the next three years of high school.
I simply thanked them for their concern but didn’t take their advice.
If you want someone to destroy themselves, first let them become overconfident.
My repeated silence made Mr. Miller believe I was afraid of him—that just a little more pressure would make me bow to him. Under that mindset, his actions grew increasingly excessive, and he could no longer control the degree of his punishments like before.
By now, Mr. Miller was addicted to crushing me, unable to stop himself. But his retribution was already on its way.
A few weeks passed, and at the end of the first month of school, per school regulations, the homeroom teacher was to inspect the dormitories.
Mr. Miller practically had his tail in the air, unable to hide his excitement. It seemed he had been drinking quite a bit—he reeked of alcohol as he kicked our dorm door open, his sharp eyes sweeping across our beds.
But we were well prepared. We knew he would be looking for trouble, so we had cleaned everything to perfection.
First, he checked our beds—every single one was folded as neatly as a block of tofu, and even when he pulled out a ruler to measure, he found nothing amiss.
A flicker of disappointment crossed his face, and we all breathed a quiet sigh of relief. One of my roommates even shot me a discreet thumbs-up.
Next, Mr. Miller ran a wet wipe across the floor, looking for dust, but again, he was disappointed.
Before he came, I had personally wiped every inch of the place. Not a single speck of dust remained.
Everything was arranged in perfect order, sunlight reflecting off the spotless floor. Even the most obsessive neat freak couldn’t find a flaw—it looked like something out of a showroom model.
If there had been an award for the cleanest dorm, ours would have taken first place without question.
But this only made Mr. Miller more upset. He had come here specifically to find fault, and now that he couldn’t, his bottled-up anger was looking for a target. His eyes almost seemed to spit fire.
Suddenly, his gaze landed on a corner of the wardrobe—where a small box held a delicate model.
