“A new guy?” Dana said, leaning against the wall next to Jennifer.
Jennifer nodded.
“His name is Griffin. Aunt Rebecca is dating him. My dad worked for him before he disappeared.”
Dana placed her hands in her jacket pocket, feeling a rush of chilly wind. She wasn’t sure how far she should get into the plight of home-brewed domestic issues, but she also thought that perhaps it was a good chance for the girl to vent without judgment.
“So, they were dating for a while, were they?” Dana asked.
Jennifer shrugged.
“I don’t know. I heard them fighting before my dad went away,” Jennifer paused, feeling the weight of her own words. “Griffin threatened to fire my dad.”
Dana had the urge to crouch again but didn’t want to make the girl feel childish. Instead, she remained leaning against the wall, speaking to her directly, as an equal.
“Well, maybe Griffin and your dad disagreed,” Dana said calmly. “Perhaps, too, if they’d worked together a while, Griffin would be sad about your dad. And Rebecca might be, too, about her brother. Grief can bring people together like that sometimes, you know?”
Dana’s words did not affect Jennifer, who continued to toy with the rock beneath her shoe, shrugging intermittently. The bell rang, and it was time for the students to go inside for lunch, so Dana placed a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder before departing.
“You can talk to me about anything, okay?” she said reassuringly and with a warm smile. “I’m always here for you.”
Jennifer gave her a quick, forced smile and then trotted away with her classmates.
Dana used her lunch break as an opportunity to dig into the background of the Griffin person. After having taught Jennifer for a few years, she knew a bit about Dennis, so she first looked up his name and came across the location where his plane had supposedly gone down.
Dana frowned as she cross-referenced the location of Griffin Malone’s private island, realizing that the crash had occurred just outside of it. There had been no police report filed about it, nor any investigation. Griffin had refused to allow search and rescue to look within a five-hundred-yard radius of his island.
Why had Jennifer’s father been declared dead when they had never found a body?
She couldn't find any more information after finding the supposed location of the crash. She then heard the abrupt ring of the school bell and had to get back to work.
It wasn’t her life, nor was it completely her business, but something about it irked the intuitive side of Dana’s nature.
Why did her aunt tell her that her father was dead when there was a chance that he wasn’t? Jennifer was old enough to know about the complexity of plane crashes and the retrieval of evidence and remains. Why did her aunt Rebecca keep that information from her?
And how the hell does that Griffin fellow factor in?
Dana had to place her concerns on the shelf since she still had a few more lessons to go that day. She continued to notice Jennifer’s lack of passion and did what she could to encourage her with her positive attitude, but it didn’t do much, if anything at all.
Jennifer was picked up in a secret-service-looking car, one that Dana had not seen before. Dana watched as Jennifer hopped into it like a puppet being held up by invisible strings.
Dana could go to the counselor and try to work with her on Jennifer’s depression. That was the only approach that the school was going to allow and what would be appropriate. She could make her concern with the counselor official, just in case further action needed to be taken.
Dana blew out a huff as she gathered her things after another long, tiring day. She had been yawning through it, joking with her students that she’d had a long night of bingeing streaming shows.
But she had been thinking about Rux as her eyes drifted closed. She knew that man could certainly find a way to calm her with his hands and his mouth.
Dana smiled to herself as she made her way home, cooking an instant dinner in the microwave and then sitting in her bedroom to look out over the city.
The clashes and smashes of the world around her brought her serenity, making her mind drift away from all of the problems and focus on the matter surrounding her.
When she finished, she thought about givingThe Swana go for some practice. She had the sudden urge to get naked and take a photo of herself with the cello between her legs, caressing it until it sang for Rux to hear and be insanely jealous about.
Dana managed to avoid the impulse, giving herself an early night to bed and falling asleep to many other sultry thoughts.