Page 46 of See Me After Class

"Did you find anything?"

What was I supposed to say? All that was left was to call a spade a spade and admit I was just about as in control as a cat in a yarn store. Who knew I'd take the role of an errant student so seriously? The cherry on top of the mess was how clueless I felt. I had no map, compass, or sense of direction.

"No," I muttered. "I'm considering leaving."

"You can't."

The quiet determination with which Hartley delivered the words halted me in my tracks.

"You can't leave, Dessie," he continued. "I don't profess to know a lot about you, but from what I've seen and, well, survived" —he chuckled a little sadly— "you're not the type who can live with the idea of defeat."

But he didn't know how utterly out of my zone I was. I had begunenjoyingwhatever was happening with—to—me. And that was wrong. Right?

My life had become a big faux-pas. All I had ever done after coming to this damned institute was mess things up. At no point, neither with Leon, nor with John, had I managed to stay in control.

It was one thing to enjoy getting fucked by them, but a whole other thing to submit like I was a naughty student who needed to be put in place. I'd done that, and to make things worse, I had no answers. Nothing.

"It's like I'm talking to a brick wall," Hartley spoke playfully. "So, I'll hang up, but before that, I'll ask you a question. Let's say you give up, the way you gave up on us?—"

"That wasn't?—"

"Shh. I'm not done. Let's say you do. Can you go back to your life in Newhaven and live out the rest of your days knowing you didn't get justice for Oswald?"

"I—"

Click.

Hartley had me between a rock and a hard place. He was right, though. My leaving at this juncture would haunt me for the rest of my life.

But I needed a better plan. I crossed the room to the little corner where I'd kept my bag. I opened it and took out a big leather notebook. The first order of business was to build another identity, one that wouldn't limit me to my father's institute. Maybe it was this place and how suffocated it made me feel, even with all the openness around me.

You couldn't expect free skies around closed people.

"Okay. Time to make a few phone calls," I muttered to myself.

The afternoon sunhid behind a thick envelope of gray as I navigated the winding roads of Connecticut toward the city side of Stillingbrook. Anticipation thrummed beneath my skin, a tangible vibration that resonated with the rhythmic purr of the car engine.

My eyes kept lingering on the little sticky note I had attached to the driving wheel.

Interview with Dr. Alistair Thorne.

I hated interviews unless I was at the other end of the table. I resented the stupid questions that were oddly personal and, at times, even offensive.

Best get it over with, Dessie.

Dr. Thorne's office, located in the heart of Stillingbrook city, was housed in a peculiar building. It looked like a Frankensteinian patchwork of architectural styles that seemed to defy gravity, leaning precariously like a tipsy old man. The mismatched windows, each a different size and shape, blinked at me curiously.

I pushed open the creaky mahogany door, entering a space that conjured vivid memories. The scents of old books and pipe tobacco, familiar aromas from the library of Oswald, washed over me, transporting me back to a different time, a different life.

Thorne, shrouded in a swirling cloud of pipe smoke, sat behind an antique oak desk, tinted with the patina of age. His face, a landscape etched with the marks of time, was obscured by the haze, but his eyes were obsidian shards glinting in the filtered sunlight.

The interview that followed was a psychological ballet. Thorne's questions, sharp and precise, were designed to dissect my past, my motivations, the very fabric of my being.

"So," he fired at me. "Oswald's death. Shocking stuff."

"Why do you say that?" I fired back.

He looked stunned by the bluntness of my question.

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