Page 59 of Catching Fire

Even as she felt the disappointment coursing through her system, she could see Dr. Morales picking up on it from where she sat.

“Dr. Marchand,” she said it with the proper accent and inflection and Seline appreciated that Morales didn't butcher her name. Though probably the woman did it out of her own understanding. “I'mnot letting you go.”

Seline knew she shouldn’t look so surprised, but her head had snapped up, and her expression betrayed her once again.

This time, Dr. Sonia Morales tipped her head and offered a small smile. “Do you have any idea how hard I worked to become department chair?”

“I want to believe I do, but I probably don't,” Seline answered, hearing the French tilt her accent just a little more. Her heart raced now, wondering where this conversation was going to go.

“I want good researchers in this position but I also want good teachers. We’re here to produce papers and get grants, but we also have the students to consider. You are both.” Then Morales glanced somewhere over Seline’s shoulder, and for a moment she almost turned her head to see. But the department chair was merely checking her options. “If you repeat this to anyone, I will deny I ever said it. But Wexler is not as good of a teacher as you are.”

Poor Wexler,Seline thought even as she felt her heart swell. She'd worked so hard at teaching. It was good to hear that it was paying off. Morales was still talking though and she pushed her attention back to catch anything important.

“I would love to tell you that mine is the only decision that matters for your tenure track. But what I can tell you is thatIwant you here and I'll fight to keep you here, regardless of what William Treat Sanders has done or does in the future. That’s not on you, and you don’t deserve to be penalized for it.”

“Thank you!” Seline fought back tears and figured the meeting was probably coming to an end.

“Again,” Dr. Morales reinforced, “it’s not solely my decision. So I'm not going to make promises that I can't keep, but I am on your side.”

This time, the woman surely saw the wetness gathering at the edges of Seline’s eyes, and Morales graciously motioned that she could go.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Seline gushed.

“How about I get back to you on Friday with the decision? And then, if I get thego ahead, we'll have you back in the classroom the following week.”

“That will be wonderful,” Seline was gathering her bags, fighting to keep the tears from falling. She realized she'd said it as though she had the position back already, but she wasn't going to fumble over explaining herself.

Standing up abruptly, she draped her coat over her arm, her bag clutched tightly in one hand. She held the other out to Dr. Morales for a good firm handshake. “I hope to be back in the classroom and in the lab next week.”

Morales nodded at her as though she expected the same, and Seline breathed easier as she left the office. Still, she didn’t offer a proper goodbye to the administrative assistant who sat at the desk out front, but instead waved over her shoulder so that one less person would see the tears that were now happily dripping down her face.

She made it through the hallway without any incidences, ducking her head so as not to be caught by the one student walking by. She took the connecting bridge to the parking garage, thinking she would climb into her car, lock the doors, and finally let out her tears there.

She had just taken a deep breath and looked up when she bumped square into the man coming the other way.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Kalan looked at the email on his phone, his heart thudding.

“K, come home quick. Mom had a heart attack. Tried calling but it didn’t go through. –Deja”

Again?

He wasn’t sure his mother would survive another heart attack. The one three years ago had brought all three kids running. But he sure as hell was running again now. Deja was in Chicago with his Mom, that was the good news. The bad news was obvious.

He’d been on his way to buy a new shirt for his date with Seline tonight. Or the date he hoped she’d say yes to. It was a little last minute, and now it wasn’t at all.

As he sat in his car in the parking lot, having not yet gone inside, he felt his breathing constrict to the point that worry became a white-hot poker in his chest. His skin felt clammy at just the thought of losing his mother. He told himself she’d made it through the last time she’d make it this time, too, as he punched awkwardly at the tiny buttons on the screen of his phone.

He needed a flight. He needed to go home and pack! Or did he?

Cranking his neck around, Kalan looked into the back seat, seeing the black ripstop nylon bag he always carried. He had to trust that he had all the essentials in there, it looked like a flight was leaving Lincoln in just under five hours. There was another leaving in three.

He was probably two hours from the airport. It was cutting it too close to buy the first ticket, but hopefully he could buy it at the ticket counter if he made it to the terminal in time.

Kalan hit the gas.

The drive was tense and he dialed his mother’s number only to swerve around another car. The other driver was just trying to pull into his lane, but Kalan had only barely missed getting hit. He couldn’t be on the phone and drive. Not in this traffic.

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