Page 38 of Fall From Grace
Maybe I don’t want to test her, like I test my typical prey. Maybe I simply… want her. Maybe the curiosity in me has bubbled to new heights.
She’s broken thanks to her ex. Broken, and yet her mind is still something else. No one has ever made me quite as curious before, and I’d be rash to simply throw her into a maze. Perhaps I should see what she’s made of outside of my maze.
If I tell her to run, would she run for me?
The prospect is too enticing, and the more I think about it, the more I decide that’s what I want. Of course, she can’t know it’s me. I’ll have to bring out my mask—an old, flat theater mask, one with sharp side angles and no mouth or nose, save for two small nose holes and two slightly bigger holes for your eyes. A blank slate, painted black. A simple mask, but one that would suit its purpose.
The only question is how will I get to her? She’s gone out to a party before, but it’s clearly not her thing. She didn’t go out at all this weekend—I am going to see her during my office hours next week, but I can’t take her from there.
No, I have to wait. Have to be smart about this.
Luckily, I’m no stranger to waiting.
Monday rolls around, and when it’s time to teach the intro class Wren is in, I try not to stare at her too hard while I preparemy lecture. Straight out of the gate, she seems distant, like she’s trapped inside her own head, a prisoner to her thoughts. She must’ve been pretty deep in those thoughts all weekend, because she hardly left her room, and she barely said two words to Sloane anytime her roommate came to visit her.
Is it because of the guy beside her? Logan Crew. I can only assume he’s the reason she wants to meet later—perhaps she’s changed her mind and no longer wants to work with him. Perhaps he did something to make her uncomfortable.
That possibility pisses me off.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan try to talk to her, and she mutters something without looking at him, pretending like she’s busy writing something down in her notebook. He frowns at her, but he persists, not giving up until she finally brings her eyes to his, and only then does his frown turn upside-down.
Logan Crew. There’s not much on him online, for some odd reason. He seems to have slowly distanced himself from all social media during his later years of high school, before he withdrew himself completely from it. He’s twenty-three now, which means there are a few missing years in between, where his life wasn’t chronicled by random pictures and angsty posts.
Which is odd indeed. Being what I am, who I am, I know people, and I know that someone like Logan is the kind of guy who would never step away from the possibility of talking to more girls and sliding into their DMs. People like him always have thousands of friends and even more followers, men who want to be him and girls who would love to become his object of affection, thinking they can change him or something.
And that is where most would be wrong. You can’t force someone to change; they have to do it of their own free will. They have to choose. If they do not make the decision themselves, they are doomed to repeat history, to never grow, and peoplewho don’t grow become stagnant and stale, nothing more than husks.
Do I believe that people can change? Yes, and no. Nothing is impossible, and yet, when faced with the choice, most people would rather not put in the work. They’d rather cling to something familiar than walk into the unknown.
Class begins, and I lecture like I have nothing but academics on my mind. I play the part I was born to play. I’m much better at this than my two brothers—it’s why I took a job in the public view and they cling to our inheritance while they play their bloody games behind closed doors and high iron gates. My inner beast is more refined; it knows patience. I do not keep it locked away, rather, I have the beast inside me trained to wait.
I’m also not blind when it comes to what the opposite sex finds attractive, and I know I tend to hold women’s attention much more easily than I do men. I take care in my appearance. I work out, I’m well-manicured. I dress well, although that isn’t hard to do when you put me in a room with college students wearing pajamas or next to my colleagues whose fashion choices never expanded past the nineties.
Brown corduroy slacks? I’d rather die.
So, I lecture. I play the part I was born to play. After class, a few students come up to me and tell me what the topic of their group presentation is going to be about. The deadline is Friday, so there’s still plenty of time for everyone else.
I can’t help but notice, however, that Wren packs up faster than the speed of light and hurries out of the auditorium faster than Logan can keep up, a feat, truly, since the latter is always ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
Logan goes after her, of course, but her legs are surprisingly quick, given how short she is.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll see her soon enough.
My office is a small corner room in the old psych building. About as big as a bathroom with a tub, with as much room to walk around in. My desk and my chair, the chair I have for students should they want to come see me, and my few bookcases take up the majority of the space. The air conditioning is either ice cold or broken; there is no in-between. Point is, it’s not a very respectable room.
But, that said, it’ll have to do.
I keep it clean, but still, I tidy up. Make sure my books are lined up perfectly, dust my desk and the keyboard. I make sure there isn’t a single thing out of place so that by the time Wren arrives, there will be nothing for her to turn her nose at.
I’m not saying I want to impress her, but, well, impressionsareeverything.
My official office hours begin, and I sit at my desk and fiddle with the computer, making sure I look busy. We didn’t set an exact time, so she could theoretically stroll in anytime, but based on what I know about Wren, I don’t think she’s a last-minute kind of girl.
And she’s not.
She appears in the hall promptly at three, and she knocks quietly, as if I don’t immediately notice her.
My door is open, but I say anyway, “Wren. Come in, come in.”
