Is it the curvy, aurally gifted goth girl's big mistake I will wind up grading, or will I be grading my own mistakes?

My name is Russell Carlton. There are two things in life that are off-limits to me. One: my former radio career that seems to have blacklisted me. Two: the students at the small, for-profit college where I teach radio broadcasting. My girlfriend wants me to quit and work at the same company she works at, becoming a cog in the machine for more money.

But even if I can't be on the air, radio is freeing. So I'm in this educational cage of promises that aren't for me. That brings me to Jennifer Chance. She is the 18-year-old, bewitching, gothic elocutionist on our college radio dial. She would have a future in radio and the music business.

Except I'm going to have to fail her. Trust me, I don't want to fail her. Jennifer's presence in my class wakes the ghost in my memory that tries to tug itself free of its chains and escape the shadowy part of my head, knowing that I want it and I just misplaced it.

Her final project kept me up all night in more ways than one, but it doesn't follow the college's stupid morals clauses that they would audit. Her project wasn't satire. It wasn't comedy or a political statement. This was heat. Heat that I've missed for the past five years. To make matters worse, she doesn't believe she sent the wrong file, with the final day of term approaching. I have to force a confrontation with her or fail her.

If I fail her, that memory can't escape and it will die. If it dies, it is one more reason to sell my soul to the man and his capitalistic path. I'll have to abandon any hope to go back to doing what I loved. I mean my girlfriend of the past 11 years just wants what's best for me, right? Right?

Do I deny my past and agree to settle for a future that someone else sets me on and lose myself, or I do embrace my past and lose everything else I have, out of stubborn pride and self-worth?