Chapter 8 Guilty Until Proven Innocent
GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT
STATEN
Maybe I spoke too soon. I normally know what I’m doing, but making a deal with Knox Mulligan? Have I lost my goddamn mind? Honestly, it probably flew off into the stratosphere when Knox’s car flung my limp body one meter to the right.
Nerves tangle in my belly like deep-sea catch ensnared in an angler’s fishing net. Despite the two-story library being quite spacious, the skyscraping walls make it feel claustrophobic.
Intricately carved lancet windows welcome the sun from beyond stained glass, projecting kaleidoscopic striations across the oak and walnut floorboards—the same wood used for the building’s Gothic-style wainscoting.
Old, flaxen, dust-riddled pages fill the labyrinthine shelves, some bound together by fraying thread, others shining with a mid-century modern glow.
And for the final, ostentatious singularity in a room of forgotten stories, a grand, spiraling staircase attaches to a balcony protected by ligneous lacework balustrades.
The silence is a nice reprieve from the outside world, accompanied by a nostalgic backing track of shuffling polyester book bags, ballpoint pens dragging over binder paper in unsolvable equations, and near-inaudible murmurs from hardworking students.
My knee bounces against the underside of a dark trestle table as I color-coordinate my erasable markers for the third time, lining them up in a perfect row.
My notebook is splayed out—the faded blue lines waiting to be overrun with Lit shortcuts and acronyms—and a stack of my past exams and papers offers more guidance in cracking Hardwin’s curriculum.
Here it goes. The first tutoring session of our arrangement—the precedent that’s going to set the pace for the rest of the month. I don’t doubt that I can turn Knox’s grade around. What I doubt are those baseless rules that I made up in the heat of the moment.
Why did I do that, you might ask? Let’s just say that I was, in fact, distracted by his ridiculously muscular body.
God, I was salivating over him like he was some juicy T-bone steak.
He was totally weaponizing the whole wet look.
Everyone knows everything always looks better wet!
And as much as I hate to admit it, I can see why Knox is a hot commodity.
I’d rather get hit by a car again and die than become some brainless puck bunny who follows his every move in hopes of getting a scrap of his attention.
Plus, Leif is the only guy I want to see naked.
Knox is just an…unmarked speed bump on the road to the Promised Land.
I.e., the botanical garden on the outermost skirts of town where Leif and I will inevitably get married.
I’ve already made a wedding collage on my vision board—boho-chic, muted floral arrangements, mourning doves that get released when I walk down the aisle. It’s all very systematic.
I got to the library with fifteen minutes to spare, and time doesn’t feel linear anymore.
Every second that passes, my stomach rolls and my pulse surges, anxiety carrying out its personal vendetta against my wired body.
Worst-case scenarios override my mind’s internal circuitry, far too theatrical to pose any actual threat.
Doing my job shouldn’t make me want to hurl.
I’ve tutored athletes of all kinds. Knox Mulligan isn’t special, and surely not because I dub him so.
My phone goes off. One p.m. He should be here any minute now.
I clench my teeth so tightly that I could loosen a crown, and my pointer finger scratches at the hangnail peeling down the lateral fold of my thumb. The sting, however, doesn’t compare to the infinite distention of time that triggers my flight response.
Knox—having somehow made it just in time—drops his backpack to the floor and proceeds to slump in his seat, bedecked in MU school spirit that inexplicably manages to enhance his appearance.
His hair is tousled, making it obvious that this man could be sleep-deprived, battling a hangover, or a volatile combination of both, and still look runway ready. It’s like he doesn’t even have to try.
“Hey,” he says, his tone husky with a subtle vocal fry—warmer than caramelized sugar popping against stainless steel. He fishes out his Lit binder, floating me a distinct whiff of his natural musk—earthy, unadulterated by the notes of his usual bergamot cologne. “You ready?”
I mean to say, “Yeah, I’m good,” but that’s not what comes out of my mouth.
Shock snuffs out my composure. “You’re punctual.”
“You’re surprised.”
Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
“I mean, I just…”
“Damn. Is my rep really that bad?” Knox jokes.
I can’t get too cozy with him. Remember that, Staten.
Weeding out all the ill-feeling between the cracks of my ribs, I push back my shoulders, applying a mask of professionalism that should’ve already been implemented. “What do you need help with?”
Knox gestures to the entirety of his binder with a frown. “Everything? I don’t know. I’m just—I’m fucking lost.”
I didn’t expect him to admit his vulnerability so quickly.
I thought for sure I’d have to coax it out of him.
Masculinity is a staple in hockey; it always has been.
Ergo, vulnerability is the creature caged in darkness, hidden beneath the manufactured spotlight of outdated traditions and old-line beliefs.
Has he always been so trusting? And why do I sympathize with him?
Is it because I too have locked my own vulnerability away when it comes to my mother? No, that’s ridiculous.
I stare at him under the guise of well-mannered eye contact, but curiosity continues to shackle me. “Right. Um, maybe we should go over your old exam? See what questions you got wrong and where the common misunderstanding is?”
The back of my nape is suddenly on fire, and I sweep my hair into an impromptu ponytail, too uncaring to pat down any flyaways. I don’t always like wearing my hair up, but this constitutes an emergency.
Suddenly, Knox’s whole face flushes, and an uncharacteristic dart of his eyes tells me that I just peeled back one too many of his layers.
Something like shame—an emotion I didn’t think existed in his encyclopedia—waterfalls down his neck and over the ledges of his collarbones.
It’s strange seeing him so embarrassed. It almost…
humanizes…him, in a way. He’s not always the larger-than-life character he portrays himself to be.
He cringes. “I missed practically everything. I was still so caught up in the accident.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not this again. I don’t want to be defined in his mind as “the girl who almost became a statistic.” Even though I’m not Knox’s biggest fan, knowing that he’s never going to stop beating himself up over an accident isn’t a responsibility I want to bear.
Not to mention that every time I’m reminded of my dance with death, nausea overwhelms my sailor-knotted guts like a slow-acting poison.
Change the subject, Staten. Deflect.
A syncopated breath putters out of me, bouncing off our insulated haven. “Did you study at all beforehand?”
“Of course I did.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
For a split second, a frown cuts across his lips, and his eyes glimmer with firelight—firelight that crackles with jealousy.
Knox scoffs, and the sound is abrasive. “Not all of us can be teacher’s perfect pet.” Self-righteousness sharpens his tone, locked away for a deceiving fortnight only to be released on a distant moor.
The truth rives through me in the same way a bullet would, degloving tender meat from brittle bone.
The nine words shatter with the force of a pipe bomb in the unwelcome silence, and I stare down at the abundance of red markings littering Knox’s past classwork, starker than ichor flowing across the ivory bed of a semitranslucent wrist.
I can’t fathom failing a class. I don’t know how he isn’t more freaked out about this. A failing grade means no graduation, no graduation means no degree, no degree means no job, and no job means a future of poverty for me, my family, and my kids (if I can even afford to have any).
Then again, I don’t doubt that Knox’s priorities lie elsewhere.
He isn’t some sad scholarship kid like me.
This isn’t the end of the road for him, you know?
He’s got too much money to know what to do with, and people like him—people who hoard wealth and have a reputation worth knowing—will always find loopholes when the rest of us lesser folks have to play dirty to fight for the same privileges.
“At least I’m not some walking cliché who relies on his bank account to exempt him from working,” I spit, curling my fingernails into my thighs, left to disperse a riot of volatile anger that never truly disappeared from my rearview.
Maybe it’s been hibernating all this time, consolidating strength.
“Oh, so that’s what you still think of me then?”
“My opinion never changed.”
“Yeah, you just got better at hiding it.”
My head is spinning like I’ve been slammed with a nasty bout of altitude sickness, and I’m more than aware that the rising tide of our argument is no longer a hushed confrontation. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Knox shakes his head condescendingly. “You’re a hypocrite, you know that?”
“That really doesn’t mean much coming from you,” I retort.
Me? A hypocrite? Oh my God. And to think that I was going to help this son of a bitch.
He’s never going to change. He can apologize and buy my silence and put on this good-guy act for the rest of the world to see, but he’ll never genuinely have anyone else’s interests at heart.
The whole universe revolves around Knox Mulligan and his stupid hockey career.
“Do you even know why I need to play hockey? Or do you just not care?” he shoots back, the tendons in his upper body roiling, distending the cotton fabric of his hoodie.