The silver envelope sits unopened on her desk beside her laptop. She picks it up and turns it over in her fingertips. The penmanship is almost too neat, not that her name is difficult to write. Sliding a finger beneath the flap, she tears it open. The letter inside is handwritten and she recognizes the writing immediately – Tristan’s.
Holly tosses it aside and flips open her laptop. She cannot bring herself to read the letter, but she can’t seem to throw it away, either. The thought of working on her thesis seems ridiculous now that she’s sitting here looking at her laptop. With everything going on, the activities of the past few weeks, the questions about her neighbor – Holly doesn’t know how to even begin to focus.
Why does her computer take so long to boot up? Her eyes flick back to the letter. She can see part of the first line, an apology. Holly turns her focus back to the computer, her home screen bearing a picture of her with Greg when they vacationed on the coast last summer.
She opts to change that first and foremost. Holly scrolls through pictures on her laptop searching for something that doesn’t have Greg in it. She comes to one of her with her dad and stops. They are smiling, heads tilted just slightly toward each other.
Holly remembers when they took it, just a few weeks before he died. They’d gone to a Seahawks game because her Mom won tickets. Holly wasn’t a huge football fan but her dad was. He’d bought her a whole get-up to wear and she’d humored him, even putting one of those face stickers on her cheek. Holly wipes at her face and comes away with tears across her fingers. Looks like she’s got a winner. Holly sets the new background and shuts her laptop.
“Never put off things that are better faced in the now.” Paul Chamberlain’s words come back to Holly like a slap in the face. Attempting to ignore the letter will just make it worse. She plucks the letter from her desk and flops on her bed to read it.
Holly,
I am so sorry for taking so long to return to you. It was not my intention to stay away so long or to miss any time at all with you. Things are complicated and I would really rather explain in person. Will you please give me a chance to tell you what happened? I promise to be honest, to tell you the truth about everything from the day I left until the day I saved you in the alley. Remember, Hol, I promised I would come back for you and I did. I fought through more than you can imagine to make my way back to you, to return to you from the darkest place on Earth. Please, Holly, please let me explain.
Always,
Tristan
Now she can say she read it. Holly crumples it up and throws it across the room, it doesn’t hit the wastebasket but falls just a bit short. She rolls to her back and stares at the ceiling. Remnants of glow in the dark stars can be seen at various intervals. Holly remembers putting them up, Tristan had helped. Looking around her room, Holly sees a lot of things he helped her with. One summer they painted each wall a different color when Holly couldn’t decide on just one. She buries her face in her hands. Her room is full of memories of Tristan. Even though she threw a lot away when he cut off contact, Holly knew where she could find plenty more. Her eyes flick to the closet. Did she really want to open that wound? Hell, who was she kidding, it’s already open, it’s a fucking gaping chasm of pain already.
She kicks off the bed and heads for the closet. The box she seeks is stuffed in the far back behind her old dresses and high school memory boxes. Holly digs through everything until she finds the old shoebox. She carries it back to her bed and tosses it in the middle. Holly paces around the bed, pretending it’s still an option to forget about the box. With a grumble, Holly settles on the bed and crosses her legs. She carefully removes the lid knowing what a huge mistake this is but unable to resist.
CHAPTER TEN
Holly wakes up to her cell ringing. Her face feels strange, skin stiff and eyes puffy from a night of crying. She wishes she could have left the box alone, its contents splayed across her bed while she’s tucked in a fetal position near the top. Holly fumbles for her phone, still in her back pants pocket for some reason. “Hello?”
“Holly!?” Carmen’s voice carries through the speaker. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, why?” Holly rubs at her eyes and yawns.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.” Carmen’s speech is pressured, not a good sign. “Can I come over?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m just waking up,” Holly explains.
“On my way,” Carmen says just before the line goes dead.
Holly sticks her phone back in her pocket. She has to clean this shit up before Carmen comes over. It’s nothing she wants to share, even with Carmen. Holly dumps everything back in the box, looks all over for the lid and finally finds it as the doorbell rings. She shoves the box in the back of her closet and flies down the steps to greet her friend. Carmen jumps in, calls a greeting to Holly’s mom, and drags Holly back up the stairs.
“You look like shit,” Carmen remarks.
“Rough night,” Holly mutters.
“How’s the thesis?”
“Not great. I didn’t really get much done.”
“That’s too bad.” Carmen walks around her room, peeks out the curtains, as if she’s looking for something.
“Carmen, what’s going on?” Holly wonders out loud.
“I don’t know.” Carmen regards her thoughtfully. “Some things are becoming clearer about your fate.”
Holly’s taken aback at this. “Really? How?”
“What did you do last night?” Carmen scrutinizes her. “What made you cry?”
Biting her lip, Holly considers where to start and ultimately decides it’s best to lie a little. “I opened my laptop to get started on my thesis but saw my background was still a picture of me and Greg so I decided to change it. Going through my pictures, I found the last one I took with my dad and started thinking about him and how I never came around enough in the weeks before he died. Obviously, I didn’t get to my thesis because I bawled my eyes out about my dad.”
“Lie,” Carmen says flatly. “Try again.”
Holly frowns. Carmen is strangely focused, almost harsh. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Holly, I need to know,” Carmen coaxes. “It may make a difference.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it, Carmen,” Holly replies firmly.
Carmen’s brows furrow in disapproval. “How can I help you if I don’t know what caused things to change?”
“Is it really that bad?” Holly presses her fingers against her temples and massages them.
“Possibly.” Carmen says it carefully. “There is some type of supernatural occurrence converging on you, Holly.
Holly’s head snaps to attention. “What?”
“I was cleaning up last night after my shift and that warlock called me out of the blue,” Carmen explains. “I went to him and he said that things changed and that something is coming for you.”
“That’s not a ‘possibly’ then, Carmen.” Holly slides down the wall and drops her head in her hands.
“He doesn’t know if it is good or bad, Holly.” Carmen kneels in front of her. “It could mean another supernatural is coming to help you. That’s what I’m trying to figure out though, that’s why I need to know what happened to change things last night.”
“I went through my box of memories,” Holly says into her arms. “My memories with Tristan.”
Carmen touches her arms lightly. “Is there anything else you did last night?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Holly mumbles. “I cried myself to sleep and slept until you woke me up this morning. Maybe it wasn’t anything I did, maybe it was something I didn’t do. This fate shit sucks.”
“Sometimes.” Carmen sits back on her heels. “I just figured it had to be something you did, research on the internet, an email you sent, I don’t know. I guess it could be something you didn’t do.”
“So this warlock guy, is he just monitoring my life waiting for things to solidify?” Holly feels a little sick at th
e thought of some creepy guy watching her life.
“Something like that,” Carmen explains. “He watches people of interest for a number of us; if something changes significantly, he is alerted. I don’t really know how it works but he lets his contact person know as soon as he senses something relevant.”
“I see.” Holly doesn’t really see.
“When do you go back to classes?” Carmen asks.
“Tomorrow evening. I’m supposed to go see Dean Kaplan around six.” Holly wonders what’s in store for her there. She guesses her TA job is over, which means far less money. It’s a good thing she doesn’t have to pay rent anymore.
“Maybe I should go with you. Like moral support.”
“How would I even begin to explain that?” Holly looks up at her friend. “I can’t really have you following me all over campus, can I?”
“You won’t have to,” Carmen argues, “I can keep my distance but stay close enough to help, just in case you need me.”
“There’s no point in arguing with you, is there?” Holly asks.
“Nope.” Carmen grins. “You wanna talk about last night?”
“Nope.” No need to go down that road again.
“Whatcha doin’ the rest of today?” Carmen asks.
“I should be working on my thesis.” Holly gestures toward her laptop. “But I’ll probably hang out with Mom, do some laundry, and mope around a bit more.”
“Sounds thrilling.” Carmen sprawls on her bed. “I think I’ll join you.”
“Naturally.” Holly pushes off the ground. “Make yourself at home.”
“Always do.” Carmen traces figures in the air with her finger. “What did the letter say?”
“What letter?” Holly plays dumb.
“You know what letter. I know you read it.”
Holly frowns and then spills. “He apologized, begged me to listen to his explanations for everything.”
“I see.” Carmen continues to trace shapes in the air. “Are you going to listen?”
“No.” Holly begins collecting her dirty laundry into the basket.
“Why not?” Carmen rolls to her side to watch Holly.
“Why should I?” Holly doesn’t meet her friend’s gaze. “He left; he cut off contact for years and now he wants back in my life? In the middle of all of this shit? I don’t think so.”
“I see.” Holly knows she doesn’t see. She can feel her friend’s eyes boring into her.
“I’m not giving him the chance, Carmen. I don’t care how much you disapprove.” Holly affirms her stance.
“Then you might as well let your mom hook you up with Mr. Richie-Pants next door,” Carmen teases, “or you are going to end up a crazy cat lady.”
“Really? You’re going there? It takes you exactly ten minutes to get surly?” Holly throws it back on her friend.
“I call ‘em as I see ‘em, Hol,” Carmen chuckles, “you may be heading straight for crazy-cat-lady-ville.”
“Can’t, I’m allergic,” Holly retorts.
“At least you’re on the verge of smiling,” Carmen shoots back. “I didn’t think I’d ever see that again.”
“Not a lot to smile about lately.” Holly snorts. She heads toward the door with a heaping basket of laundry, only half of which really needs to be laundered. “You coming with me?”
“To do laundry? Hell no.” Carmen makes a face. “I hate laundry.”
“What do you do about your clothes then?” Holly asks.
“I send it out,” Carmen responds nonchalantly. “Always have, always will.”
“Huh.” Holly didn’t know what she expected but not necessarily dry cleaning services. “Can I ask how you afford to do that?”
“Money is not an issue for me.” Carmen sounds bored. “We’ve been over this, Holly.”
“You don’t have to hang out with me if I’m boring you,” Holly reminds her friend and slips out of the room before Carmen can hit her with a pillow.
**
“You’re not wearing that to meet the Dean are you?” Carrie Chamberlain shakes her head at her daughter’s attire.
“It’s not a formal meeting, Mom,” Holly reminds her, “it’s just a check-in after what happened.”
“I don’t like you going back there so soon, Holly.” Her mom folds her arms over her chest.
“Carmen is going with me, Mom. It’s going to be alright,” Holly assures her again. “I can’t stop living my life because of one psycho.”
“I know.” Her mom is not convinced but Holly can’t spend another minute just sitting in the house waiting for life to happen.
“Mom, I’m going to be just fine. Carmen will walk me all the way to Dean Kaplan’s office, we’ll meet and then come back home.” Holly gives her mom a hug and whispers in her ear, “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay?”
Carrie Chamberlain’s arms squeeze tightly around her daughter. “I love you, Holly. I hope you know that.” She steps back and disappears into the kitchen leaving Holly stunned in the hallway.
“See, she really does love you,” Carmen comments softly, just loud enough for Holly to hear. “We should get going. You don’t want to be late.”
“You’re right.” Holly grabs her bag and throws it over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“She’s not wrong, you know.” Carmen has the decency to wait until they are halfway down the street, well out of her mom’s earshot. “About you going back too soon. Maybe a change of scenery would be good. You can transfer to another school; nobody would blame you.”
“My mom got to you, didn’t she?” Holly glances at her friend from the corner of her eye.
“Does it matter? Things are devolving here; you’ve been through a lot,” Carmen continues the argument.
“This is my last semester, Carmen. I’m going to finish my thesis and graduate from this school on time. No delays, no transfers.”
“Okay, just thought I’d put it out there.” Carmen raises her hands. “I’ll let it go.”
“Thank you.” Holly sighs. “I really don’t understand why Dean Kaplan wants to meet at this time of night.”
“Maybe she had a busy day?” Carmen suggests.
“I guess. It just seems odd.” Holly has been wondering about it since she got the message on Friday.
They walk the rest of the way in contemplative silence. Holly imagines a dozen scenarios with Dean Kaplan, each as likely as the next. They walk through the double doors into the lobby, mostly empty at this time of night, and Holly leads the way to Kaplan’s office. Only a few doors are lit indicating that most are empty.
“I’ll be right here in case you need me,” Carmen assures her as she slips into the shadows of the long hall.
Holly knocks on Dean Kaplan’s door and enters when asked. Somebody is sitting in one of the two chairs opposite the Dean’s desk but Holly can only see the back, a male judging by the width of his shoulders.
“Ah, Holly,” Dean Kaplan gestures for her to take the empty chair, “thank you for coming by this evening. I wanted to introduce you to the professor you will be working with for the remainder of the term. Holly Chamberlain, this is Professor Patrick.”
The man stands and turns to face her. Holly chokes down her surprise and forces her arm to extend and shake hands with him. He smirks and bows slightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Chamberlain.”
“And you, Professor….” Holly trails off and sits down, careful to avoid looking at her new instructor.
“Professor Patrick is one of our adjunct professors and his TA has received a fellowship overseas so it seems natural to pair you for the remainder of the term.” Dean Kaplan ignores the obvious tension in the room and continues to rave about how compatible they are.
When she finally stops talking,
Holly is on the verge of screaming, she just wants out of that office and away from all of this. Carmen’s suggestion about transferring seems more feasible now. She almost asks what her options for a transfer would be but
soon finds herself dismissed. Holly bows out of the office as politely as she can.
“That was fast,” Carmen comments as she joins Holly in the hall.
“We need to get out of here.” Holly grinds her teeth, suppressing her frustration.
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