Chapter 37
Three Years Later
Itwirled in my chair, spinning around and around in the silence. Lunchtime was one of my most favorite and exhausting times of the day. Sometimes the quietness became consuming and overwhelming.
“Miss Cosi!” a too chipper voice sang, and I stopped moving, but kept my gaze locked on the speckled tiled ceiling. Fluorescent lights flickered as footsteps padded across the carpeted floor in my classroom.
“Miss Cosi, you must help this year,” Mrs. Wallace begged again.
Slowly, I took a deep breath and looked across my desk toward my classroom’s front door. “You know I don’t do any sort of drama stuff. I just do music.” I leaned forward and fidgeted with some papers.
She hustled into the classroom and bounded around the base of my rising seats. It was nice having the gradient steps for my classes. She plopped down on the seat nearest me as I spun to my left, placing my back toward the front wall and whiteboard.
“That’s exactly why you should help. It’s a musical this semester, and you know music.
Somehow, my students that take your singing class leave even better, despite the fact that not one of them have heard you sing.
” She pursed her lips and brushed some bright red, frizzy hair from her face.
I smiled. She was a kind woman in her mid-forties, still single with an over-the-top, bubbly personality.
Her outfits were always to die for. Classy, sharp, and with the times.
I dressed older than she did, as per usual.
“It’s still not the same,” I replied and spun away, facing the classroom door again. I tapped the whiteboard to my right with a marker. “I do singing lessons, music theory, and music composition. I don’t do dramas.”
She groaned. “It’s Phantom of the Opera this year,” she pressed, hoping to entice me. “Come on. You’ve been here long enough now that a couple of your sophomores are seniors. Don’t you want to help them?”
I chuckled. She was good. “And then I would end up wrapped up in drama every year. Because I will forever have seniors now.” I smiled and faced the carpeted stairs again. Windows against the back of my classroom let light shine in, brightening the quietness around me.
The peaceful emptiness, where something was still missing from my heart. I knew what it was, but I didn’t know how to get it back. I couldn’t get it back. Even after all this time…
She clicked her tongue. “At least think on it?” she asked once more, and I took a deep breath.
“My answer will still be no, but I’ll think about it.” I gave her a soft smile as she pushed herself up from the seat.
“That’s better than nothing.” She grinned and twirled out of my room. “Oh, hello, girls!” I heard her say right before the door almost swung shut.
Wow, I was popular this lunch period. Two of the seniors that she was talking about came dashing into my classroom, with five minutes to spare before classes resumed this afternoon. “Well, hello, Aurora and Luna.” I brushed out some wrinkles from my plaid short-sleeved sundress.
“Did you hear? Did you hear?” Aurora squealed, tossing her unusually long, blonde hair behind her shoulder.
“Hear what?” I leaned forward, loving how much gossip I was always involved in.
“Void is coming here! I can’t believe they’re finally holding a concert in our little town! Who would’ve thought that they, or anyone famous really, would decide to include Hazelwood, North Carolina,” Luna shouted, and my heart sank.
Everything in me ran cold. Time froze.
“Wh-what?” I gasped. It had been some time since I’d even heard a whisper about them. Once in a while, my students would talk about a new song, but it was never juicy enough gossip to include me, and I was grateful. I wasn’t sure what to feel if I was being honest.
I hadn’t left because I no longer cared for Asher.
The publicity of him being famous caused my lawyer to believe being around him at all would potentially set me up for even more danger…
Or for his reputation and band to be forever tarnished.
For possibly something to happen again. Sydney’s family was loaded, and Danny was well-to-do, which increased the likelihood that they’d have connections.
So, she’d given me instructions on how to disappear.
I’d fought it, but her voice turned into one in my head I couldn’t quite kick.
And I’d needed…
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I’d needed then, but it wasn’t there.
It wasn’t in California. It wasn’t back where everything had happened.
He might’ve been there, but I couldn’t be.
Danny was there and so was Sydney, and there was still a part of me afraid they’d come for me again, even though they were in prison now and Sydney’s parents cut her off the moment they’d discovered what she’d done.
My lawyer had had the same fear. Plus, there was a small part of me that couldn’t believe Sydney and Tera had gone as far as they had.
All those years meant shit to those two girls. But jealousy had done crazy things to them, and my therapist helped me find closure and peace despite never really getting answers.
However, the emptiness, although a different kind than before I left, still remained. And the silence in my head was deafening.
But Asher… None of what happened was his fault, yet I hadn’t been able to stay even though it wasn’t.
“Miss Cosi?” Luna said, again, and I blinked. Snapping out of my thoughts, I gave her a forced smile.
“I didn’t know you girls were into that stuff.” I pretended to have heard what they were saying.
“We’re into them, if that makes any difference.” Aurora giggled and leaned back in her chair, plopping her backpack down beside her.
“They’re like almost thirty.” I chuckled.
“They can be my daddies,” Luna stated, and my eyes popped wide.
“I’m sorry, what?” I gasped, and Luna grimaced.
“Right, I forget you’re kind of old and it’s inappropriate to say something like that around a teacher,” she mumbled, pulling her lips between her teeth. That wasn’t why I’d reacted that way. Something stirred in me that I hadn’t felt in years.
Since Asher.
“Anyway, even though that music genre isn’t really our thing, or your thing, it’s really incredible music lyrically, and the talent of all of them,” Aurora gushed as Luna sat down beside her, and I spun in my chair to face the two girls.
“Right? And the lyrics that the Dark Banshee comes up with…” Luna added with a dreamy look in her eyes as she flopped back against her chair.
“They’ve been kind of hauntingly painful the past couple years, though,” Aurora said, and Luna nodded.
“Yeah, like he’s desperately yearning for something just out of his reach.” She sighed. “It’s beautiful.”
I furrowed my brows, actually tuning into what they were saying. “What do you mean?” I asked, and the bell rang, indicating that lunch was done.
Groaning, the two girls sat up. “Can we please have a lesson about how you do the screaming and vocal fraying stuff that Asher Stone does?” Luna begged, snatching her book bag from the ground.
My heart leapt to my throat. I hadn’t heard his name spoken out loud to me since I’d left.
“I don’t know, girls. I’m not really—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know screaming and metal and that stuff isn’t really close to classical music, but come on. They’re coming in concert on Saturday. It’s Thursday, is this not the perfect timing?” Aurora added, whining.
“Get to class, you two,” I stated and swung away from the chairs. They both groaned and stomped out, leaving me once more in silence. It was my prep hour. I was one of the lucky ones who ended up with good timing for it.
But I couldn’t seem to focus. Not today. I had things I needed to print off, grades to put in and assignments to work on, but my hand slid to the chain dangling around my neck. Tugging it up out of the neckline of my dress, my fingers brushed across warm metal.
I glanced down at the familiar necklace. The charm he’d given me. But mostly, I studied his ring.
The one thing that I hadn’t managed to let go of and get rid of when I’d escaped to a new life. A life that was good in general. Or it should be. I wasn’t hurting for money or a place to live. I wasn’t in danger.
I spun the ring between my fingers, my eyes staring at the nothingness around me. Why couldn’t I hear it? I was fixed. I’d worked hard to heal from everything, but I still couldn’t hear it. I hadn’t been able to hear the music in three years, and I was beginning to hate the silence in my head.
Taking a deep breath, I plunked the ring back down into my dress, hiding away the singular evidence that kept Asher and me tied together. Dwelling on things wouldn’t change that. I snatched a couple papers from my desk that I needed to copy and stood up.
Walking around my desk, I exited the classroom and mindlessly wandered the empty hall. A few straggling students sprinted toward whatever period they were late for while I made my way around a corner and then headed to the main office.
A couple muffled voices bounced off the walls as I approached, rounding another corner, and then I froze.
“A Miss Duval. Miss Cosette Duval. I’m looking for her,” a voice I recognized asked again. My body remained cemented in place.
A voice so deep and eerie, one that had stolen my heart once before.
One that still owned my heart.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have a Miss Duval in our English department. Look,” our receptionist said, and I heard the scraping of plastic on top of a counter. She must have spun the computer screen so he could see.
More footsteps entered the open common area, and a faint humming I also knew by heart filled the tension swirling within me.
“Oh, hello. I recognize you,” Mrs. Wallace said in her sing-songy voice.
Please no.
“You do? I thought he looked familiar, too,” our receptionist replied. That same scraping sound happened once more.
“Sorry to bother you. I didn’t mean to sound frustrated,” Asher politely said.
A tear slid down my cheek.
“It was no bother. I’m sorry I couldn’t find Miss Duval for you,” she said.
“Miss Duval? You mean Miss Cosi?” Mrs. Wallace asked, and my stomach dropped.
No.
“Cosette Duval,” Asher stated.
“Well, everyone here knows her as Miss Cosi, but yes. She’s in our music department. Probably the best—”
I didn’t wait for Mrs. Wallace to finish. Spinning on my heels, I sprinted away. Back down the dark hallway, away from the common area where what I just heard wasn’t happening. Denial. Why was he here?
No, he wasn’t here.
It had been three years; he wasn’t looking for me after three years. This was all in my head. Aurora and Luna brought up Void, and that’s why I’d imagined him in the office area.
What I needed was a moment to cool down in my classroom. A moment to bury myself in so much work that I would forget about their brief conversation informing me that Void was coming to our little town.
A town I’d chosen so specifically because it was supposed to be the last place someone famous would come. It was the last place anyone, including my parents, from my past life would find me.
If he were here, if anyone from that life showed up, I would have to confront feelings I wasn’t ready to deal with and possibly be reintroduced to danger. I was still trying to hear that music in my head again.
But it also had been three years. Maybe…
I dropped my paper down on my desk and braced against it as the door clicked open behind me.