10
ST. ANNABEL
My day began sullen, not just because Harley left home without a word, but because it is nearing ten a.m and I have no caffeine in my system so I alternated with my only other source of beverage, canned wine.
I had been running late, assuming Harley was upstairs and waited in the living room, only to realise too late that she wasn’t there in the first place.
Usually, I get coffee on my way in from a different place because I never go into Coffea’d (I’m not allowed in there) due to the unfriendly service, so I steer clear.
My first class is Advanced Macroeconomics and the clock is moving like it has nowhere to be, but I would love to be anywhere but here. This is historically the worst performing module at our university, and that is why they had to bring in a new person in to make sure that stops.
Every head is bent low, scribbling away or typing diligently on their laptops, listening intently at our lecturer.
I rest my cheek on my hand as the man in question, David Lowe, discusses financial accelerators and macroprudential regulation but all I can think of is how his skin tone matched Harley’s.
Honey brown with cool undertones. They also have similar hair types although his hair is low cut with slightly tighter curls.
I sigh then continue typing on my phone instead of taking notes.
Stassie is informing me about the show she is having at the Barbican in June next year that her agent booked her, but it isn’t public information yet.
She is a famous classical musician, the piano in particular is her forte but she knows how to play over twenty instruments. Our family’s pride and joy.
As I text her back to tell her that I will make sure the others keep June free, I feel a nimble tap on my shoulder. I turn around to the sharp smile of my least favourite twin, Valentina Spinelli.
The twins aren’t difficult to tell apart, especially to someone who grew up around them like I have. They might have shared a face but Val is spiteful and unlikeable, the only person who honestly can tolerate being around her long enough is her sister.
“What?” I hiss under my breath, hoping David didn’t get a whiff that his class is being disrupted.
“I heard there’s some new scholarship kid in first year.
What do you know?” she asks, her sharp black nails softly tapping against the wood of the table.
This university had five to six thousand students, relatively small, so a singular addition shouldn’t stand out so much, especially considering we are still in our first lesson of the day.
However, it is no surprise that with a face and presence like hers, Harley stood out.
“Why would I know anything about that?”
“Doesn’t your boyfriend own the school?” she asks, pretending it’s innocent. She clicks her tongue, then her face clears up in false realisation. “Oh wait, I forgot. He’s not yours.”
“Fuck you,” I spit.
“I kid, I kid. Seriously, is there anything you can tell me?” she asks.
“Nothing. Why is this any of your concern?” I whisper, confused by the conversation at hand and her insistence on knowing. “Where did you even hear about this?”
“Can’t reveal my sources.” Has to be Wren Hasan, the two were best friends.
The truth is that she is far too obsessed with others’ lives because hers is entirely too miserable to deal with.
There are too many of us walking around like that, caging in the way we feel because we are all a range of personality disorders bubbled into one, suffocating from the stench of our lives.
“I know nothing, Val. Bother someone else with your parochial gossiping,” I reply, glaring.
“There’s no need to be so catty, darling.”
“Don’t call me darling.” With a glare, I turn back to face the class and notice David is staring at me as he speaks, and my chest flutters with trepidation, but being saved by the bell stops me from dwelling on it any further.
“Ms. Bass, can you please stay behind for a moment?” our lecturer calls out. Perhaps I spoke too soon… I give him a forced nod.
“Have fun,” Valentina’s sultry voice says behind me and it causes a shiver to creep down my spine. Again, I glare.
The rest of my course files out and the door shuts, leaving us engulfed in the silence of the large theatre.
David continues to pack up his desk, not engaging as I stand there shifting. Silence is the opposite of a reprieve. I hate it; I can feel my brain closing in, like a fist tightening in my chest. These days I try to learn to sit with it, because now the noise has become too much.
He gently leans back on his desk, his sleeves are rolled up with muscles bulging out of them, inked with tattoos.
He doesn’t look like a regular teacher, I am sure he is in his early thirties at best–chiselled jaw and a face you’d expect on magazine covers instead of teaching young adults exchange rates.
“I’m aware it’s only been a week but it has been three two-hour lectures where you are the only person who refuses to participate in conversations,” he finally says, his voice steady and soothing.
“I’ve seen your grades and work. You’re the brightest student on paper, and somehow you put no effort in my very interactive lectures, and I’d like a reason for it.
” I preen internally at the compliment, although I am already well aware of this.
It’s strange, something in me tells me I can be honest with him, so without further thought I try it. “I don’t want to be here,” I say plainly.
He raises an eyebrow, implying I continue, so I do. “My father chose my course for me, I do what he wants.”
“This is your final year. I’m confused, is this only just registering to you?”
“No, I’ve always thought so, but there’s been a recent change in my life that has left me less than motivated to even want to be in this room with these numbers.”
“And these changes are impossible to ignore when you’re in my class?”
I nod. He looks unconvinced, “You are aware how this makes you sound entitled?”
“I get how it sounds but it’s not that. Have you ever loved something so much but had to give it up because of choices beyond your control?”
“I’m thirty-six years old, Annabel. There’s nothing you’re living through I likely haven’t experienced myself.”
“Exactly, so you understand.”
A soft smile touches the tip of his lips and I see no real judgement in his eyes. “I have a solution for you if you’re willing.”
Giving him the go ahead, he says, “Like you said you have no choice but to complete your course, what you do get a choice on is enjoying what you’re learning.
I was meant to pick a phd student to be my teaching assistant but you’re miles ahead of any of them, so you’re going to help me teach my first years.
” Now it is my turn to raise eyebrows at the finality of his statement.
“You need to find a way to fall in love with it in a context where it isn’t so serious.
Watching eager-eyed students fumble their way might bring some much needed perspective and also provide you some joy in the hilarity of it all. ”
“Can I say no?”
“No,” he says, with a sharp, barely-there smile that brightens his serious demeanour.
“I’m going to be in the showcase in December, and we don't receive our roles until tomorrow, there has been a minor setback. Along with our rehearsal schedule too, so I’m not sure how busy I will be.”
“Leave that to me.”
Wait. “Are you telling me you can find the results early?” A slow, surprised smile works its way onto my face, wondering how he would manage that, as Gigi was nothing if not strict and secretive.
Picking up on what I am alluding, “Tsk tsk, that’s between me and Gi.”
“Gi?!” I exclaim at the familiarity in his words. A full blown smile is now on my face, “You call her Gi?”
“See you on Wednesday, Annabel.” He dismisses me with a wave of his hand.
???
Sitting in the canteen with MJ, I told her a brief version of how I have somehow landed myself with a TA position, so we spent the last hour stalking David but couldn’t find anything online about him. No social media presence whatsoever, not even LinkedIn, it is baffling.
“Imagine s'il était un criminal , ou pire qu'il ait fait de la prison?” MJ asks. Imagine if he were a criminal and had been in jail?
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a familiar cloud of dark hair with a huge canvas in hand, so I get up so suddenly and noticeably that whatever suspicion that arose will be entirely my fault.
“Can you just stop?” I shriek, her footsteps slow only slightly, but enough for me to catch up, “I waited for two hours and you left without telling me! What if you had died or something?”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“If you must know, I've been told that’s a very admirable trait of mine.” Not particularly.
“What do you want?” she yells, stopping abruptly this time. It is a little out of character for her. The last couple days I have been attached to her limbs and she has simply glared or muttered insults under her breath, but nothing loud. I hadn’t noticed before but she is angry. Is that at me ?
“I just wanted to know you were okay,” I say.
“I am fine. Just fucking fine, I don’t need or want your worries and help,” she continues, glaring at me with a hatred so fierce, all I could see is our father’s eyes.
I feel an arm on my shoulder but shrug it off.
She tactfully lowers her voice to spit more venom, “I’m the daughter of your father’s whore.
” A hysterical laugh pours out of her, “Maybe you should be more worried about your idiotic mother, she was the one who was cheated on after all and stayed.”
Her eyes shadows a hurt that mirrors mine.
I hadn’t even taken in just how much of an upheaval the whole situation must've been on her. That is what I wish I said to her, that I understand; instead, I slap her as soon as the words leave her lips, “You’re the worst thing to ever happen to me and I wish you never existed.”
I turn around and come face to face with Arden who eyes me with looks ranging from pity to disappointment, his hands tightly gripping my arms. “Don’t say anything else that you’ll regret two hours from now.”
I push him off me as hard as I can and it is then I realise the crowd that we have drawn and even worse behind Richard Junior was Richard Senior.
“Ms. Bass, Ms. Banjo, I’d like to see you both in my office.”
Fuck, this is going to get back to father.
???
Richard Senior is not usually around, he comes by once every other month just to keep up appearances.
He is too busy to deal with the petty ins and outs of the students in this way, we are not children.
However, I’m guessing he has taken a particular interest this time seeing how it’s me, and the lack of fights that normally don’t happen here. It is utterly beyond.
I have only ever been in his office a couple times for academic reasons, so I feel chastised sitting in here right now like a child who threw a tantrum and is being told off by a parent.
There is too much familiarity especially for a man I hold resentment towards because of how he treats his children.
On his desk sits a picture of Katherine smiling, she was so beautiful with her bright blonde hair and a light in those brown eyes that never dimmed, until it did.
Arden isn’t the only one who lost her, I did too.
Richard clicks the door shut and carries his tall and imposing body round to sit down when he notices me staring at it and proceeds to shift the image out of my sight, his irritation clear.
He is the picture perfect replica of his son; dark hair that is now greying and blue eyes with a hint of green.
Unlike his son, he is stern and cold, there has never been a person I have wanted to be around less.
He looks between me and a barely calm Harley and asks, “Can one of you explain to me why you are having physical altercations on school grounds?”
Neither of us answer.
“Behaviours like this aren’t allowed on my premises,” he looks at me, “you of all people should know better, Annabel.”
“It won’t happen again,” I grit out .
“Make sure it doesn’t.”
Then he looks at Harley distastefully, it borders on–
“William went over my head to the board to get you into this school for reasons beyond my comprehension,” he says, “But I will have you and him know this is still my school. There will be no more of a day like today. Is that understood?”
“Understood,” but she isn’t looking at him when she says that, she’s glaring at me.
“Annabel, the next time you see my son tell him I’d like to speak to him. I’m going to be here all day.”
I’m definitely not doing so but I give him a nod to placate him.
“You’re both dismissed,” he says.
Harley gets up before he even finishes speaking and as the door closes behind us, I try to run after her, “Please wait, I’m so-”
“Leave me alone, Annabel. I mean that,” she says as a parting gift before walking away without looking back.