8
The shame is too much that I can’t bear to look at them. I took a cab back to Gabe’s house, intending to grab my bags and find a cheap hotel until I figured out what to do next. But once I arrived, Gabe was in the kitchen with Cormac. I slipped up to my bedroom and shut the door behind me, realizing I’d have to call another cab to leave again.
I refused to answer, knocked on my door, and stayed in my room, avoiding bumping into them; then, I left early in the morning before they woke. To keep doing what I’m doing is all I know, and why I’m overreacting like this is only because of the way Blake looked at me. I could handle clenched jaws and angry-fisted hands when they first discovered what the Four did, but to look at me in such a way triggered me to run. But I have nowhere to run to, so I stay here until my self-applied burn has worn off.
There’s a silver hatchback up the drive, a similar model to my old car, but I slip past it in the dark and wait for my cab to arrive to take me to campus. I assume this car is my replacement, but I don’t pay too much attention to it.
A light flickers on in the house, and I ignore it, staring into the darkness. I hear footsteps behind me and startle as Gabe's calm, solid frame appears before me. He is wearing nothing but boxers and a form-fitting T-shirt, and I try to look anywhere but at him.
“Key,” he states, stepping toward me. I’m graced by his cologne, which is fresh even after a night’s sleep. “For your new ride.”
“Thanks, but I already ordered a cab,” I sigh, realizing how stupid and juvenile I must seem given his maturity and leveled-out demeanor.
“Here, take it anyway,” he insists, handing me the key. “You never know when you’ll need it.”
I swallow over a lump in my throat. “Thanks,” I reply, taking the key from his hand while squirming at my behavior. It’s not their fault I’m like this, but when I’m triggered, I don’t know how to deal with the storm of emotions going through me, so my only path out of it is to physically hurt myself or dive into a state of isolation, rejecting company. I’ll rise again like I always do.
“Take care out there, won’t you?” he states, walking away from me. I glance at that backside moving in boxers, and I may have found the thing that’s pulling me out of my doldrums.
“God, I’m pathetic,” I groan under my breath as my cab turns down my road. I have a last-minute change of heart. It makes more sense to take the new car so I have a ride back home again. Stepping onto the road, I hand the cab driver some cash, apologize for wasting his time, and explain that I have a ride.
Once the cab drives away, I unlock my new car and am about to climb inside. I see Gabe at the kitchen window watching me, and I shoot him a half-hearted wave. Okay, he won. The scene of pine greets me when I climb inside, and I snirt in laughter for the first time in 12 hours at Blake’s attempt to make a worn-out car seem fresh and new. Cute, very cute.
Under Gabe's gaze, it takes me a couple of minutes to work out the steering of this silver beast before I start her up and back out of the drive. It runs better than my old yellow hatchback, and I noticed it’s also a Toyota Corolla, like my trusty yellow car. I wonder if Blake chose this make deliberately. There is no reason for these men to be so lovely to me, but here we are staying at Det. Gabe’s house, using a car they bought me, and covering my tracks after my first kill.
My interrogating mind wonders why they’ve gone to such an effort, and perhaps I shouldn’t trust them so easily, but they’ve yet to give me a reason not to trust them.
I work two hours in the university gardens and then have my Sports Science class with Cormac afterward. We haven’t seen each other since he drove me home while I was giving him head, and then, oh man , Gabe turned up.
Brushing that embarrassing thought aside, I had the urge to swim a few laps in the Olympic pool to help clear my head, but staying away from the crime scene was the intelligent thing to do. Besides, the police likely have a large portion of the parking lot cordoned off to extract evidence.
The library is quiet and mostly empty this morning, and there’s a table in a private corner by the window that I choose to work on an assignment before my shift in the garden starts. Considering everything that has happened lately, I still manage to hone my focus on the plant biology assignment serenaded by the birds chirping on the ledge outside and the polite whispers of students nearby.
Time flies by so quickly. Before long, it’s time to go to work, but just before I leave, I check my phone to find a message from Z.
Z: Where u at?
Me: Uni. Library. You’re up early.
Z: No, I mean…are u still at your apartment. I knocked last night, and you weren’t there. Had booze and green. U missed out. Your loss.
Me: I’m staying at a friend’s house at the mo. Got broken into.
Z: Fk, I’m sorry. What friend? I thought I was your only friend.
Me: Cormac and his father, Det. Gabe.
Z: Ho ho. Get it on.
Me: lol. Hardly. I’ve barely seen them.
Z: Did the thieves take anything?
Me: I haven’t gone through it yet. Someone pissed on my bed.
Z: WTF! At least we know it wasn’t Blake. He wouldn’t stoop so low.
Me: No, it wasn’t Blake.
Z: Have u heard about your old coach? Got slain.
I swallow over a lump in my throat. I must face this conversation head-on because people won’t stop talking about it just for my benefit. Hell, it’s giving campus gossip to make their day seem more exciting.
Me: Yeh, Cormac told me.
Z: Are u sad?
Me: No.
Z: Probably his wife after she found out he was cheating.
Me: Nah, I don’t think murder is her style.
Z: Shit happens when you’re pushed too far.
Her words cut too close to the bone, as if she knows but is pretending to be oblivious. I think I’ve mentioned Lyons twice since I returned to Torres, and even though she knows what happened to me two years ago, I didn’t tell her who did it. Did she put two and two together? My head is so full of scenarios, past conversations, and memories that now I wonder if something slipped.
I swear I haven’t told a soul, and I was always careful about never mentioning one of the Four fuckwits, unless someone brought them up in a conversation, unaware of what they did to me.
Blake found out. He only found out because he followed me like a freaky stalker. I take a moment to compose myself before answering innocently.
Me: True. Anyway, I’ve got a shift in the gardens. I’ll catch up with you later.
Z: (:
Avoiding eye contact with students and staff has always been my job. In the past, it was because I liked to keep my distance and was hesitant to open myself up to people due to trust issues, but now I do it for a slightly different reason: fear. I fear they’d read my guilt and see that my hands are stained in blood.
Throwing myself into gardening has typically been my therapy. Still, today, as the warm sun caresses my neck and birds twitter happily in the branches above where I work, I can’t relax. Every flap of a bird wing, every snapping twig, every moving shadow makes me jump. It’s an impending doom sensation expecting to be either jumped again or arrested by police, and I’m unsure which one is worse.
The skin on my forearms is scratched and bloody from pruning diseased wood off rose shrubs, and I barely notice the pain from piercing thorns because my head is a million miles away. My phone beeps, and naturally, because I’m constantly on edge, I jump at the sound, but I’m so thirsty for a familiar, comforting company that I strip my gloves instantly and lunge for my phone.
It’s a message from Blake, and I sigh in relief that he doesn’t view me as a nutcase write-off to never contact again. It’ll also allow me to apologize to him for overreacting yesterday.
When I open the message, it’s blank. There is not a single letter or quotation mark in the text box. I message back:? No message. Are you trying to contact me?
My dad has done this in the past: He’s supposed to call me, but he carelessly sends a blank message instead with clumsy fingers. Expecting a call or a reply to my message, I sit down in the shade on the cool grass, rehearsing what I will say to him.
Five minutes passed, and still no reply was received, so I swiped to call him, and his phone went straight to voicemail. That’s weird. He sent me a blank message, then turned his phone off.
I can’t keep dwelling on this mystery, so I finish my shift in the gardens and head to my next class, expecting to see Cormac there. This is his favorite class, taught by an ex-Olympian, because it inspires promising athletes, so I was surprised to find him not here.
My stomach turned when our tutor decided to do a tribute to Coach Lyons. Unfortunately, several students in the class hadn’t heard the news, so he had to explain what happened. He said that Coach Lyons was found in his car in the Olympic Pool parking lot early yesterday morning and shot dead.
To make matters worse for me, the class then spirals into a debate on who may have murdered him and why. Interestingly, some classmates were quick to make the accusation that a disgruntled person was out for revenge. I’m starting to believe that many students within the Sports Science School knew what Coach Lyons was like. The traveling fingers and hands and the offer to coach teenage girls one-on-one and early in the morning when the pool is empty of people. The only people who seemed genuinely upset were our tutor and the students who didn’t know him.
It’s a unique perspective to murder someone and then to sit listening to people try and guess how it is, even though I’m right here under their noses.