28. Asher
28
ASHER
E xam time is one of the strangest moments of the year. The campus is equally busy and empty at the same time; classes are half on pause, and most teachers like myself are just hanging around waiting to answer any last-minute questions to help those few students scrape by on a pass.
Some days, it’s a great distraction. On other days I sit by the phone waiting on the call from the dean to tell me I’m out of a job. The call doesn’t come, but it makes the days without Emma drag on much longer.
With two beers in hand, I knock on the door to Caspian’s somewhat reconstructed studio and head inside. Caspian sits by the window with reams of paper at his feet. His head is forward, hair hiding his face from view, and there’s a line of tension across his bare shoulders while he works.
“Casp?” Approaching, I glimpse a few paints dotted around him and when he leans up, he seems to be trying to repair a canvas that was destroyed when his studio was ransacked.
“Hey Ash. Oh, thanks.” His eyes fall to the beers and he holds out one hand.
I give him the drink, then settle down onto an upturned box.
“Thought you’d be home by now,” Caspian says, dragging one hand through his long hair and pushing it away from his forehead.
“Emma has an exam today,” I reply. “Guess I was just…hanging around.”
“Hoping she’ll change her mind and want to see us?” He lifts one brow as he twists off the beer cap.
“Something like that. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help myself.”
“You gotta respect her decision.” Caspian drinks deeply for a few moments while I nod.
“I do. It’s not that. Her dad called me.”
Caspian pauses and darkness flashes through his eyes. “What did he say?”
“He won’t report the pictures if I stay away from her. He says I have to choose. Emma or my job.”
“Fuck, man. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I told him straight that I choose her, and that’s when he threatened me with the pictures. I almost told him to do it, dared him to, but I stopped myself.” My attention drops to my own beer. “It wouldn’t just hurt me. It would hurt all of us.”
“And her,” Caspian murmurs. “She puts on a strong face but you saw how she was. Her mother hits her, and she shuts down. I keep thinking we should have done more that day. I don’t know what, exactly. Just…more.”
“I know that feeling. That’s probably why Finn is hanging around the exam hall. Keeping an eye from a distance.” I drink slowly and cast an eye around the studio. The carnage is lesser than it was the first time I saw it all, but it still pains me to see so much of Caspian’s work destroyed. “Did security get any leads on who did this?”
“Nope.” Caspian pops the P and sighs deeply. “There was barely anything on the cameras. A leg, maybe an arm. Whoever it was, they were good at hiding. Same for the dark room and whoever stole the pictures.”
“What are you thinking?” I stare at him, seeing a slight nervous tick at his jaw.
“I think it was a student. Or another teacher. No one else would know to dodge the cameras like that, y’know?”
“Have you pissed someone off?”
“Not that I know. You know me,” Caspian chuckles. “I’m as chill as they come. There’s just something really fucking weird about all this.”
“You’re telling me.”
“And you know something?” He uses the bottle to point at me. “I’m still pretty fucking convinced I saw someone that night at the cabin. Which, I know, is fucking insane because we were in the middle of nowhere, but I swear I saw… something . Makes me feel like I’m going crazy.”
“Finn’s still certain he locked the door.” He’s never wavered in that claim, not once.
“It’s like there’s something more sinister going on, y’know? Like some fucker is playing all these games and we’re just caught in the web.” Caspian leans up with a deep sigh and takes a drink. “Or I am fucking insane.”
“Maybe you’re on to something.” Thinking of the bigger picture, things start to slowly slot into place even if there’s no end goal. “I mean, if you think of everything that’s happened…individually, it’s all just bad luck. But together?”
“How far back do we go?” Caspian asks.
“Well, there’s those pictures getting sent to Emma’s parents. Before that, the pics were stolen and your studio gets wrecked. Before that, the cabin, right? Where you think you saw someone and Emma nearly got lost. Before that…the drugging?”
“Emma got drugged at the club but nothing happened, right?” Caspian rubs at his jaw. “Which makes no sense, I mean why do that to someone if you’re just going to take them home and tuck them into bed? To scare her?”
“Maybe?” I lean forward. “Maybe to scare her enough to seek comfort in someone but then she didn’t.”
“And before that, her car,” Caspian adds. “Is that part of it? Or no?”
“I…” That’s where my theory crumbles. “I don’t know, actually. Maybe it’s all connected or maybe it’s just bad luck.”
“So where do I fit in? Why my studio?”
I drink deeply, trying to find a path in everything that’s happened, but if there is one, I can’t see it. “Maybe the studio isn’t related? Maybe we have two things happening here: everything with Emma, and then your studio is just some random disgruntled student?”
“So, coincidence and there were two assholes skulking about that night?”
“Maybe. I mean, can you think of any other reason?”
“No.” Caspian groans. “Unless Maria is back in the states. She’s crazy enough to come here and fuck up my shit but she wouldn’t have avoided the cameras.”
“Ah, Maria.” I smile fondly. “You know, I did like her style in setting your car on fire. I hated that piece of junk.”
“Fuck you, man. That car had been mine since I was seventeen!”
“ Exactly ,” I chuckle briefly, then sigh. “But she wouldn’t target Emma.”
“So Emma is just … really unlucky?”
“Um…” A small, soft voice rose up from behind us. We both turned to see a girl standing in the doorway, clutching a folder to her chest. Her red hair is scraped back and she nervously pushes her wireframes up her nose.
“Meghan.” Caspian sets his beer aside. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to drop off my portfolio but I heard you talking about Emma.”
Oh . That Meghan.
“I’m sorry,” Caspian starts to say but Meghan waves her hand and shakes her head.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I was just…when you started listing all those things, you missed one.”
“We did?” I glance at Caspian.
“She gets a lot of hate online these days. I know the internet is a cesspool of trolls and people behind screens, but I know it bothers her. It’s been pretty consistent for a month or two now.”
My phone is in my hand, and I immediately look up Emma’s social media. I’ve spent a lot of time admiring her pictures, but I never click into the comments since social media isn’t my forte. The first picture of nature is pretty clean, comment-wise. The next one of her, though, is intense.
“Fuck,” Caspian murmurs, reading over my shoulder. “What the fuck does that mean, you’ll get what’s coming to you?” He straightens up and looks at Meghan, who wanders closer. “Has she said anything to you about who this is?”
“Uh no.” Meghan’s cheeks flush and it hits me. They had a falling out. This is the girl who judged Emma for being drugged. Now she stands here acting concerned? I almost want to give her a piece of my mind, but Emma had made excuses for her.
Maybe not my place.
“These comments are horrible. And there’s so many, what the fuck?”
“Does Emma have a jealous ex or something?” Caspian asks, retaking his seat. “Some of those definitely read like rejection.”
“She’s had a few exes, although her last was a complete asshole. He got her so worked up that her sleepwalking was pretty bad,” Meghan replies.
My head snaps up. “Who?”
“This guy called Gary. He’s graduated now, but when they broke up a few years ago, he took it really badly. He spread a lot of horrible rumors about her and things got pretty dark for a while.”
“Gary,” I repeat slowly. “Last name?”
“I’m not sure, it’s been a long time but you might be able to find him deeper in her socials.”
It wasn’t much, but it was a start. An angry ex, not over a breakup with her? It was better than my growing theory of the boogie man.
“Thank you, Meghan.” I flash her a tight smile and she nods.
“It’s no problem. I really should get going. I’m sorry, again, for interrupting.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Caspian assures her. “Thank you.”
“Oh, Meghan?” I call to her just as she reaches the door.
She turns to face me, her brow lifted as she waits for me to speak.
“Emma misses you,” I say softly. Something painful flashes across Meghan’s face. “She misses you and honestly, she could really use her friends right now.”
If we can’t be there for her right now, maybe they can.