The email had been vague, but ominous.

"Come see me during office hours."

Normally professors hope their students don't bother them during office hours, not invite them. This had to be about my final paper. I hoped that he loved it and wanted to hear more about my research, but I had a sinking feeling that the actual agenda was the opposite.

I pushed my glasses back up my nose, not that they were falling, it was a nervous habit I had picked up as a young kid when my glasses were too big for me. The door was closed, maybe there was already a student in there and when I knocked they'd tell me to come back later. That would be nice, it was a comforting thought as I rapped my knuckles on the door.

"Come in."

I let out a defeated sigh and opened the door. Dr. Swendle's office looked like an office supply store and a science lab had collided and the professor had accepted the event by putting a desk squarely in the middle of the chaos. Test tubes and petri dishes filled with various colors and textures of contents were strewn across his desk, though to his credit each was labeled and dated to fit into some sort of organization system. The back wall behind his desk was covered in retro lab safety posters with only one break in their continuity where he had hung up copies of his degrees.

"Elsie, glad you could make it."

By the look of hesitation on his face, I knew it was a lie.

"Clear off that chair and have a seat."

He motioned to an armchair nestled between two overstuffed book cases that was currently home to a closed terrarium. Judging by the yellowed glass and dry, cracking base, I was reasonably sure that the system had to have been enclosed for a least a couple decades, likely more. The professor taught human biology, but had a real soft spot for plants. The rumor was that his ex-wife was also a biology professor and was the current chair of the program. Blocked from teaching the classes he wanted, he slipped in plant biology wherever it would sort of, kind of, fit.

"I wanted to talk to you about your final paper," he cleared his throat and crossed his arms across his chest, "but I have a feeling that you already know that."

"I had an inkling," I responded. Hoping that the dilapidated base would not separate from the glass, I carefully set the terrarium on the ground and sank into the beat up chair. "I hope that you found it interesting."

"Interesting…" Dr. Swendle paused and leaned back in his chair with a bemused look on his aging face. "I can't deny that it does have some value as an entertainment piece, but it was meant to be a summation of your understanding of human biology, not entertainment."

"It does display my understanding of human biology," I countered, "and it also shows my aptitude for other animals' biological systems."

A strange look came over the professor's face, something between shock and realization. I wondered if he had truly thought that my final had not been a serious attempt. Perhaps it was a bit out of the realm of what he had in mind, but I had scoured the requirements many times to ensure I had covered everything he required to pass.

"I guess I have to say this more bluntly: a paper on the hypothetical biology of a centaur is not what I would call an acceptable capstone to a course." He sounded tired, more than usual, and he was not generally a peppy person. "Perhaps if you're looking to be a creative writer, you should pursue that as a major instead."

His comment stung and I winced at his implied comment that I was not cut out for biology. "If you read through my entire paper, then you would see that I back up my postulations in sound science, and even give different scenarios for the structure and placement of essential bodily systems," I argued.

"Oh I read it," he said with a dry laugh, "several people in the department have." Dr. Swendle shook his head and let out a long sigh. "Look, I didn't ask you to come by to defend your paper, I wanted you to fess up to this being a joke and bringing the actual paper with you."

"That is my actual paper," I stated, displaying my empty hands as proof that I hadn't brought anything with me.

The left side of his mouth twitched like he had almost smiled, but stopped himself. "So you're telling me that you wrote an entire final paper over the biology of a fictional creature and you seriously thought I would pass you?" I hadn't noticed the prominent vein on his forehead, but it was now very pronounced.

"My paper fulfilled every single requirement of the assignment."

"Except the part about the biology being real." His tone was notedly annoyed. He opened a side drawer in the desk and pulled out my thick, fifty page paper. "Also, I don't think half of these references you cited are scientifically reviewed, especially 'centaursarereal.com.' Now unless you produce a real final in the next five minutes, I think I've already wasted enough of my time."

"That is my real final," I asserted.

"Good luck taking this class over in the summer," he grunted, tossing my paper into the trash bin next to his desk. "Lucky for both of us I'm not going to be teaching it."

"My paper covers all the requirements, whether you think Centaurs are real or not." I was starting to get mad. Not the kind of mad where you start imagining throwing punches at someone, more of the kind where you get indignant and start repeating yourself out of the disbelief that they're not believing you're right. "You should understand that there are plenty of flora and fauna on the planet that have yet to be discovered. You, yourself, have spent more than one class period gushing about the exciting work of field biologists discovering new species nearly daily in the deep rainforests of the world."

"Yes," he admitted with a roll of his eyes, "things like insects and plants, not half-human, half-horse fantasy hybrids."

"Actually it's a bit more than half-horse, that's a bit of an incorrect belief. Most depictions of centaurs have more like three-fourths of a horse body attached to approximately half of a man. What that describes is more of a satyr, though those are half-man, half-goats."

"Look, just get out of my office," he sighed. To further cement that he had made his final decision, he turned his attention back to his stack of finals to grade and picked up a pen.

"But I'm set to graduate next week," I protested. "This is incredibly unfair given that nothing in your instructions indicated that it had to be an officially recognized aspect of human biology. Your specifications say that I only had to discuss and analyze the evolutionary path a selected part of the human anatomy took to develop into what it is today. I did that."

"Guess you're not graduating." Dr. Swendle shrugged, not looking up from the paper before him. "Again, please get out of my office."

"This isn't fair," I grumbled. It was hard not to let my foot sway "accidentally" a little bit too far to the left and knock over the terrarium. "I've already been conditionally accepted to grad school, if I don't pass this class, I won't be admitted to the program."

"What isn't fair, Ms. Jones, is your continued wasting of my time. Out of my office, now."

Angry, I got up and snatched my paper from the trash and tried to exit as dramatically as possible. In reality, it wasn't very dramatic, I couldn't even bring myself to slam the door behind me, it seemed too rude. It's not really his fault, I thought, It's big biology. They don't want people to think that cryptids could be real, because then there's a whole world of biology and anatomy that they can't fully explain. I knew I could have gone back in, apologized, and asked for another day to write a different paper, but I had my pride to protect. I had played to their rules for four years, I wanted to just once have them think outside their little sphere of academia, though I supposed that waiting until the very final class I needed to graduate was a bad call on my part.

My father is going to kill me. He had already flown grandma and grandpa down for the graduation so that we could have a week of family time before the big day. This was a big deal, because they lived across the country and neither side of the family could normally afford to splurge on plane tickets. The last time I had seen either grandparent in person was ten years ago when dad and I roadtripped to see them. This was bad, very bad, considering hiding out at a friend's place until it blows over kind of bad. It wasn't that I thought my dad would go psycho and unreasonably angry, I was afraid of his cold, quiet disappointment. He had given up so much to raise me and get me through college and here I was throwing away my chance to finish on time due to a chance I took to be authentic about my ideas to bust the walls of traditional biology wide open.

Lingering outside Dr. Swendle's door, I was desperate for a way to avoid going home. My father was due home with my grandparents at any moment and I didn't want to have to confess that there was not going to be a graduation. I needed time to think of a good way to break the news or the perfect excuse that wouldn't make this seem like it was my fault. I didn't think it was, but I could see how it might be interpreted that way. Out of options, I did what I always do, call my best friend, Jessica.

"Dude, really? Who actually uses their phone to call anyone anymore?" She sounded tired, knowing her I had just woken her up even though it was already two in the afternoon.

"If I had sent a text, would you have been awake to read it?"

"Whatever…' Jessica sighed heavily and there was the sound of muffled movement as she sat up in bed. "What is so important you had to call?"

"I'm not graduating," I blurted out, then eyed down each side of the hallway to make sure no one had heard me.

"Oh my god, what did you do? I can't believe you managed to screw this up."

I had met Jessica my freshman year of college and she settled into my life as a sort of mother I'd never had. My own mother dipped out when I was barely six months old, leaving me with my father and going off to who knows where. Jessica had taken it upon herself to fill a matronly role that I wasn't always sure I needed in my life. It was nice when I needed a shoulder to cry on or ask for advice on subjects I definitely didn't want to discuss with my dad, but she too was good at making her disappointment known.

"I technically didn't do anything," I said, "my final fits technically fit the outlined requirements of the assignment."

"See, when you have to say it 'technically' fits, that should be when you worry. You wrote it about a unicorn or something, didn't you?"

"Centaur. It's for human biology, unicorns likely don't share any human DNA or body parts."

The phone went silent, even her tired breaths into the phone ceased.

"Jessica?"

"I can't believe you actually did it." Her voice was quiet and distant, like she was holding the phone away from her while she stared at it in disbelief. "I was entirely joking, but no, you really did submit a paper… a FINAL, about one of your cryptids."

"It fit all the requirements," I protested. I had a gut feeling that no matter what I said, I wasn't going to turn this around on her. "I cited all my sources and explained in great detail the human, hybrid, and equine body systems."

"Your grandparents came all this way and spent so much to see you graduate?" Her voice sounded closer again. "How are you going to explain this to them?"

"I don't know," I admitted, "that's why I called you."