Half an hour later, she locked the door of her classroom, twirling her keyring around her fingers as she made her way to the exit. The light in Lily’s room was still on, and Eva didn’t know why but she found herself glancing inside through the glass panes of the door.
Lily sat behind her desk chewing on a pen, music playing loudly enough for Eva to hear it in the hall. She couldn’t make out the words, only the thump of the bass, a world away from the Vivaldi Eva had been listening to when Lily had interrupted her. A frown crossed Lily’s face, her head shaking as she read the page in front of her, and she scrawled something furiously with the pen.
The movements were familiar to Eva from when she was grading, because some of the answers they managed to come up with made her wonder if she’d been in the room teaching them all at.
Another thing they had in common, Eva mused, though their similarities were vastly outnumbered by their differences.
Blonde hair fell in front of Lily’s eyes, and when she raised a hand to brush it away, she glanced toward the door, as though she could feel Eva’s presence. Eva ducked away, her heart thumping in her chest, praying she hadn’t been caught, because what on earth would Lily think?
Nothing good…why would she? Eva had made sure not to give Lily any reason to.
Chapter 9
Lily stretched her arms overher head and smothered a yawn. Just one more exam to grade, and then she’d finally be finished with the pile of papers that had been sitting on the corner of her desk for the past week.
Opening the first page, Lily frowned. Half of the questions hadn’t been answered—and most of those that had bore the same three words:I don’t know. Lily glanced at the name on the front of the paper and sighed.
She should have known.
Carly had been quiet as a mouse since moving to the front of her classroom, but Lily had noticed her attention waning in class, her reluctance to verbally answer any questions—even for candy—extending to exam papers. Lily had tried talking to her after class, offering tutoring sessions and pointing Carly in the direction of resources to help bolster her understanding of what they were studying, hoping she’d see an improvement on this exam, but Carly had barely scored any marks at all.
Students in an honors class required a certain GPA to continue, and Carly was close to toeing the line. It was time for Lily to take more drastic steps to intervene, because there was no way she was letting Carly fail out of her class.
Lily would never give up on a student without pursuing every possible avenue.
Alisha was Lily’s first port of call. She smiled and waved Lily inside when she knocked on the door of her classroom. “Something on your mind? You don’t usually look so serious.”
“I’m worried about a student.” Lily held out Carly’s exam, letting Alisha leaf through the pages. “I don’t know what to do to help her. I’ve tried offering her extra help, asking her if there’s anything I can do, anything she needs, but…I don’t get much back.”
“You won’t,” Alisha said, twirling a pen between her fingers. “Carly’s a unique kid. I don’t know how much of her file you’ve read…?”
“All of it.” Lily taught a lot of kids, but she did her best to familiarize herself with anything that could help her teach them better. Some had ADHD, some had memory problems that meant things like homework and lab instructions needed to be repeated several times, others had medical issues that sometimes required sensitivity. And then there were the kids like Carly, the ones who had been mistreated and abused by the people who were supposed protect them. “I know she has problems with men, and sometimes with authority, but she’s never shown that with me. She keeps her head down, for the most part.”
“Because she doesn’t want to cause any trouble.”
Lily remembered overhearing Carly’s conversation with Eva in the hall. That sounded right, but how could Lily assure Carly she wasn’t like some of the other teachers she’d come across?
And how the hell had Eva, of all people, gained Carly’s trust?
But then Lily thought of Carly’s attitude that day with Denny—quick to anger, reacting first and thinking later—the way she always seemed to keep to herself, and maybe it made sense after all.
And maybe Eva had the answers Lily was seeking.
Lily just hoped Eva would be willing to share them.
“I think I have an idea,” Lily said, beginning to back toward Alisha’s door. She hoped Eva was still around. “Thanks for your help.”
“I don’t feel like I really did anything,” Alisha said with a chuckle. “But you’re welcome, all the same.”
* * *
Lily breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed the lights were still on in Eva’s classroom. She knocked on the door, and Eva glanced away from her laptop, surprise flickering across her face when she saw Lily.
“Can I talk to you?”
Eva waved her inside. “If you must. What’s wrong?”
“It’s Carly. I don’t know how to get through to her.”
