I didn’t bother looking back at him as I said in an abrupt tone, “You want something?”
“Your name?”
I wrote the date on the top of my page. “Why?”
He laughed quietly. “Because it’s polite and I’m new—transferred to this class a few days ago. I was in the eight o’clock class, but there was a conflict.”
I remained silent, but I felt his eyes still on me. I didn’t like it.
“Be nice to talk to someone in this class.”
I thought about it. And I really had to think about it hard because I didn’t like strangers and to me everyone was pretty much a stranger. I doodled on the corner of my notebook while he shuffled through his bag beside me.
“I’m Lac,” he said as he placed his laptop on his desk and opened it.
I didn’t say anything and it may have been rude, but silence was my best friend. It kept people out.
Being a prisoner for endless years taught me one important lesson: life wasn’t precious; it was cruel and selfish and people looked for ways to make their lives better by using others. Make themselves happy. Human nature, I guessed. But I wasn’t happy and didn’t pretend to be, nor would I pretend to believe that it would change. I accepted who I’d become and I didn’t regret when a few months ago, I coldly stared at Alexa and pulled the trigger.
I hadn’t once felt remorse for ending her life or the two men she’d hired to kidnap Ream and Kat. And I should have. I killed and I had no emotion over it. I never hesitated or thought twice about it. I merely pulled the trigger, poured gasoline all over the basement and set it on fire.
Olaf thought I died with them. Deck assisted in the investigation of the house fire I started, meaning he knew people who knew people and it was squashed and deemed an accidental fire. And to keep anyone from knowing I survived it, Deck made certain the bodies were unrecognizable. That guy was scary and had too much power.
The thing was, my jagged pieces were beginning to show through, like today in the cafeteria. It was like a paper cut that was merely an annoyance at first, but it was getting infected and I was afraid the pus would ooze out and make me fragile again like I had been in the beginning. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d never let that happen.
And then there was Crisis. He was breaking through. There was a burning spark that contained my smiles, and I felt as if . . . that maybe I could trust him with parts of me. Never the secrets, but the parts of me that lingered from before all the bad.
Dr. Neale said, “Today, heads-up is fifteen minutes. Go.”
I wrote. I’d planned on writing about my run this morning, but my mind took over. The purpose of the exercise; no planning and no thinking about every sentence and just write whatever was sitting on the edge of your mind. No constrictions. And that was why it was so hard for me.
Partway through, I glanced over at Lac when the clicking from his fingers on the keyboard stopped. He must have noticed because he titled his head and looked at me.
I expected him to frown because I’d been rude before, but instead, he cocked a half-grin and nodded to my notebook where my hand was paused over a half-written word. “Looks intense.”
I’d written two pages with messy scribbles lining the page. “Not so much.” Maybe to others it would be, but they were just sporadic ramblings about . . . I looked at my page and started reading, just what we weren’t supposed to do as it was an exercise in freeing the mind from constraints of grammar and rules. But I had rules all my life and now . . . I didn’t have any, so I read what I’d written then stopped. I tore it out of my notebook and crumpled it up.
“That bad, huh?” Lac chuckled and it was a nice sound, kind of soft.
Yeah, it was bad. It had been a rambling about Crisis. How he made me smile, the feeling in my stomach when my phone vibrated, knowing it was probably him texting. The way my heart raced when he showed up today and how he didn’t push me when I’d had a minor glitch and froze.
“Is there a problem, Haven?” Professor Neale asked and students shifted in their seats to peer in the direction he was looking.
I raised my chin a little and clearly said, “No, sir.” I hadn’t realized he even knew my name.
“Heads-up are not to be judged by you or anyone else. Next time, I’d prefer if you didn’t crumple up your work in the middle of the exercise.”
There were a few snickers, but it didn’t bother me. They had no idea what it was like to feel embarrassed or made to feel like nothing but an object.
“Yes, sir.” I met the eyes of the few students who were still looking at me—each one of them turned away first. I put my head down and started writing again until he announced time was up.
I looked at my page and saw Charlie written over and over and over again. My breath hitched and my heart pounded so hard against my chest that it hurt. I quickly closed my notebook, put it in my bag and pulled out my textbook, trying desperately to swallow the lump in my throat that was crawling upwards, ready to break apart the buried memory that brought with it horrific anguish.
Why? Why did that come up now? It was gone—over. Charlie happened years ago. Why didn’t it just go away?
Stop.
I closed my eyes and sang to myself. It took two verses before a wash of cold settled over me. My heart slowed and my hands uncurled from the death grip on my textbook.
I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead, listening to Professor Neale.