FALL SEMESTER, 2025

The Santa Ana winds arrived early that September, carrying heat and restlessness across Los Angeles. Dr. Adrienne Cole stood in her office on the fourth floor of Taper Hall, watching students stream across campus below. First day of the fall semester. New faces, new names, new students who would sit in her classroom and perhaps—if she did her job well—discover something about themselves through Plath and Sexton and Lowell.

She'd arrived at 6:30 AM, two hours before her first class. Not because she needed the time to prepare—her syllabi had been finalized for weeks, lesson plans meticulously constructed during the summer—but because she always arrived early. Early meant surveying the space, noting the exits, observing who else was in the building. Early meant control.

Her office was small but she'd made it precisely her own: minimalist desk with only her laptop and a single stack of papers, three walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves organized by period and author, one window that overlooked the quad. No personal photographs. No mementos. Nothing that revealed anything about Adrienne Hartley or Adrienne Walker. Only Dr. Adrienne Cole, Assistant Professor of English Literature, existed within these walls.

She touched the silver signet ring on her right hand—her grandmother's ring, the only physical object that connected her to the person she'd been before—and turned from the window. Her first class, "Confessional Poetry and the American Experience," started at 9:00 AM. Twenty-two students enrolled. She'd memorized their names from the roster, studied their photos in the university directory, prepared herself to be present and professional and careful.

The classroom was on the second floor. She arrived at 8:45, positioned herself behind the desk with her back to the wall, facing the door. Students began trickling in at 8:50, some chatting excitedly, others looking nervous or tired. She watched them choose their seats, observed the social dynamics forming in real-time—who sat together, who sat alone, who commanded attention, who shrank into corners.

At precisely 9:00 AM, she stood and smiled. "Good morning. I'm Dr. Cole. Welcome to Confessional Poetry and the American Experience."

Her voice carried the practiced warmth she'd perfected over three years of teaching—genuine enough to put students at ease, distant enough to maintain boundaries. She moved through her introduction smoothly: her academic background (Columbia MA, USC PhD), her research interests (trauma narratives, women's poetry), her teaching philosophy (literature as a lens for understanding human experience).