I stood, half-twisting and almost tripping over my backpack I’d leaned against my desk. The stranger was gone. He couldn’t have left the room that quickly. Not without me hearing the doors. These days, I could hear my mother turn the knob on the stove even with earbuds in and my music cranked up.
Nathan shot me a dark look as he scooped his bag from the floor.
“Hey,” I said, my voice emerging like I’d eaten cigarettes for breakfast. I cleared my throat as I nodded toward the back of the room. “Did you see a guy by the doors? Dark hair. Baseball hat?”
Nathan glanced at the back row of desks. “No.” He slung his bag over his shoulder and started for the exit.
Frustration spiked. “You sure?”
Nathan stopped and swung back, his expression hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lawson. I didn’t see anyone.” Blue eyes dipped to my throat. “Maybe worry about your tie. It’s crooked.” He turned away and continued down the row of desks.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. When Nathan paused again, his shoulders stiff, I swallowed. “About the team.” As the room emptied, I lowered my voice. “It’s not what I wanted, all right?”
Slowly, Nathan turned his head just enough to meet my gaze. His brow furrowed, the anger giving way to confusion—and what might have been regret. “Then why’d you quit?”
“I…” Excuses formed and died on my tongue. “I’m sorry.”
The confusion in Nathan’s eyes cleared. “Yeah, you say that a lot lately.” He swung around and left, popping open the hall’s double doors with a shove that fell just short of a punch.
I watched him go, self-loathing clawing a deep furrow in my gut. After a second, I grabbed my backpack and followed.
Nathan was long gone by the time I entered the busy hallway. Thoughts of our conversation faded as I searched the sea of faces for the guy from the back of the room. But there was no sign of him, either. I’d probably imagined the weird anxiety. Hell, maybe I’d imaginedhim. Add another item to the list of bizarre shit that had happened to me since August.
My next two classes passed without incident, and then it was time for my meeting with Dean Welch. I ducked into a bathroom to wash my hands and fix my tie. My fingers itched to tear the damn thing off, but I smothered the urge and adjusted the knot more snugly against my throat. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew it wouldn’t involve wearing a miniature noose around my neck every day.
After I’d delayed as much as I could, I made my way to the dean’s office, which was on the same floor as the lecture hall. The secretary didn’t say anything when I entered, just pointed to Welch’s door, which stood ajar. I stopped on the threshold and rapped my knuckles lightly on the wood.
“Come on in, Mr. Lawson,” Dean Welch said without looking up from his computer. He was a tall, well-built man in his early sixties with a thick head of silver hair styled so precisely I suspected his barber snapped a chalk line on his neck before trimming it. Unlike Coach Gannon, the dean was a stickler for Christian virtue. During my first year, he made weekly chapel attendance mandatory, with no exceptions for students of other faiths. Rumor had it he’d spent the first half of his career as principal of an all-boys high school. As a result, his tolerance for dumbfuckery was exactly zero. His office was as bland and beige as a prison warden’s except for a colorful mountain bike leaning against one wall. Welch was some kind of off-road ultra-cyclist or something, which meant he rode long distances and carried his bike up mountains and shit.
More often, though, he was simply an ultra pain in my ass. He’d attended some snooty college with a robust Greek life, and he kept a fraternity paddle on the wall behind his desk. Maybe he wanted to remind everyone at Hale Valley he was better than us, or maybe he clung to the hope the school’s board of directors would introduce corporal punishment. Either way, the damn thing never failed to draw my gaze. A sickly, uncomfortable heat twisted through my stomach as I stopped before Welch’s desk.
The weird thing was, the discomfort was sort of…compelling in a weird way. I couldn’t say why, but something about it made me want to lean into it, like poking at a bruise. Any time I found myself in the dean’s office, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the smooth, polished walnut with Greek letters engraved in the wood.
“Sit down,” Welch said mildly, clicking away at his keyboard. His silver hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights. He focused on his laptop screen as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. A power play, designed to let me know my stupid internship was nowhere near as important as whatever spreadsheet or email he pretended to work on. I didn’t have the heart to tell him my father was a much better actor, especially when the role involved ignoring me.
Welch kept typing as I shrugged my backpack off my shoulder and sat in one of the chairs angled in front of his desk. Afternoon sunlight poured through the window and cast thick yellow bars on the floor. One of those big monthly planners spread over the surface of the desk, each square filled with precise, neat handwriting. Welch’s aftershave teased my nostrils, the bottom layer similar to my mother’s body wash.
Abruptly, I realized that wasn’t a figure of speech. The scent had layers, each one so distinctive I could draw it out like a slice of birthday cake. And I’d smelled the bottom one before, when I did dissections in high school anatomy class.Formaldehyde.It was irritating then, but now it was like someone took a blowtorch to my sinuses. Nausea rose, and I shifted in the chair as I took shallow breaths.
Welch stopped typing and pinned me with a stern look. At some point in the day, he’d applied Chapstick. The waxy, artificial cherry scent was like a bullet whizzing through the astringent cloud of his aftershave. The lines of his moisturized mouth tightened with unmistakable disapproval. “We’re supposed to discuss your internship today, Mr. Lawson. I wish that was the only thing we needed to discuss. I don’t like seeing you in my office for disciplinary matters.”
The feeling is mutual.Although, I was pretty certain he didn’t like seeing me anywhere.
“Do you know why you’re here this time?” he asked.
As it turned out, it was tough to talk without sucking more air into my lungs. “I received your email.”
He waited. When I didn’t elaborate, irritation flickered in his eyes. “And?”
Pissing him off was just as unwise as riling my father. Maybe more so, since Welch could expel me. Hale Valley Christian College had gotten its money’s worth out of my parents. Welch would probably love an excuse to deny me a degree just as I approached the finish line.
I plastered what I hoped was a contrite expression on my face. “I missed a few classes over the past couple of weeks. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He sat back in his chair, making it squeal in protest. “If you actually read the email, you know this problem spans more than just a few weeks. Your attendance this semester leaves much to be desired, Mr. Lawson.” Something malicious and condescending replaced the irritation in Welch’s eyes. “I realize you’re older than most of our students.”
Really? The fucker was going to remind me I’d repeated a grade in high school? “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“You’ve demonstrated a reckless disregard for rules in the past,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. He paused, the glint in his eyes tipping into unmistakable distaste. “You’ve pursued social interests that conflict with our values here at Hale Valley.”
