Torn

by T. N. King

  Miranda just nodded, underwhelmed by the plan. This was nothing new, she’d heard it all before. They’d been talking for weeks about needing a plan, needing to have something in place to deal with him, what other ideas did Caroline have that she hadn’t shared before?

  Caroline folded her hands together and leaned across the desk. “Is there a possibility we can go outside the school system to get you some relief? Anything we could take to the police or something?”

  Miranda shook her head, she’d had this conversation many times before. “No, that would make things a lot easier all around. But he’s good at covering his tracks. Believe me, I’ve talked to the police before.”

  It’s that guy, Miranda suddenly thought to herself. What was it Caroline had said? That he was thinking about joining the phys. ed. team, or something like that. It had sounded like they were friends or something, he could be doing her favor. Maybe that’s it, that’s why she couldn’t say anything about it, because he hadn’t given his answer yet. It seemed almost medieval, like one of the plays she was always getting the students to read, thinking that she needed a man to help her, a champion to fight her battles for her, but maybe that was the only way. It seemed to go against every feminist instinct she had, but maybe that was the key. Harrison didn’t respond well to women, especially if he thought they were criticizing him, always calling her a hag when they’d fought during their marriage, maybe a man saying something to him would change things. It had to change things, she told herself, there was no other choice. If this didn’t stop him, nothing would.

  Even though Miranda didn’t completely like the idea of someone else protecting her, a small part, deep inside, glowed warmly at the thought.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘Ms. Carter is a whore.’

  Miranda was heading towards the ladies room to freshen up. She had been grading pop quizzes and extra credit projects for the last 3 hours or so and needed to splash some cool water on her face. That’s when she ran into the big forest green letters spray painted onto the white stucco of the school wall ‘Ms. Carter is a whore’.

  Last week it had been ‘Ms. Carter is a lying slut’ and the week before it was ‘Ms. Carter sucks dick’. The words stopped Miranda in her tracks. She reached out and touched the paint it was still wet. Someone must have just done during the last passing period. The hallway was empty now and the culprit managed to escape free once again.

  Miranda wondered how long it would go on for. It’d been around 3 months now. How much longer could this be happen without someone getting caught? How much longer could she take it herself?

  “You shouldn’t be looking at that,” a low voice murmured.

  Miranda’s head whipped quickly towards the voice. However, she knew who it belonged to before she even had to look.

  Liam Stone. He was about a 100 feet away from her.

  She hadn’t even heard him sneaking up, perhaps she was too lost in her own thoughts. His eyes seemed full of some emotion that Miranda couldn’t quite place. Could it be concern? Miranda felt tears of embarrassment spring up in the corners of her eyes. She turned her head back towards the wall in hopes to hide them. What was Liam going to think of her now, Miranda cringed just imagining what it might be.

  She felt him moving closer towards her, a magnetic electricity emitting from his body. He stopped once they were standing directly shoulder to shoulder. Although shoulder to shoulder wasn’t an accurate description since he was quite a bit taller than her shoulder seemed to land somewhere just above his elbow. Now that he was so near, his scent washed over her a mixture of sandalwood and soap.

  “You shouldn’t be looking at that,” he said again, looking around. “Where’s the custodian to get rid of it?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing,” she said, trying to laugh, but it sounded fake and hollow. Hearing her own empty laugh caused a sudden wave of sadness to wash over Miranda and two tears escaped and rolled down her cheeks. She quickly brushed them away and took a staggered deep breath.

  Liam frowned. “It can’t be nothing if you’re crying.”

  “No, it’s really nothing.” She looked at the words again, and turned away, quickly wiping a hand across her eyes. “Teenagers will be teenagers, you know what they’re like. And with all the stress and pressure of doing report cards….” Her voice trailed off. How did this happen? How did she end up crying? She had to get in control of her emotions better. She didn’t know him at all. For all she knew he was already under Harrison’s control and was collecting information about her for him. No, she had to keep it together. Protect herself and reign in her emotions. She took a deep breath and as casually as she could, confronted Liam. “You don’t have to worry about those things. You haven’t seen how high emotions can get. I handed back some essays today, you know. I guess they weren’t happy with their marks.” She shrugged and turned away, hoping he had bought her performance.

  “Really?” he hollered at her back as she walked away.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  “You think this is all about a bad mark.”

  She took another deep breath and turned around looking him straight in the eye challenging him.

  He raised one dark eye brow incredulously at her, his dark eyes swirling with questions.

  “Sure.” Miranda shrugged. “Didn’t you ever get upset about a bad mark in school?” She wouldn’t let him phase her. Even if he was devilishly handsome with a bad boy charm that Miranda was trying very hard to resist.

  Liam gave a small laugh. “I didn’t really go to school much, not enough to worry about any kind of marks at all. Bad marks are pretty much the only marks I got.”

  Miranda sensed that there was more under his words. A darker past she didn’t know about. But she couldn’t risk letting him. Thanks to Harrison, she had to stay paranoid to protect herself. She gave him a small, bland smile and turned back to the writing on the wall, but as she did she surprisingly felt his touch on her shoulder. Miranda felt him slowly and gently turning her away from the words, as if he hoped to protect her from them. She was now facing him looking up into his eyes. The harsh cruel spray painted words were at her back. He rested both of his hands on the tops of her shoulders. She could feel their weight and their strength. Miranda imagined what it would be like to feel those hands run down her back and wrap around her waist. She imagined what it would feel like having those strong hands pulling her body up against his.

  “Do you know who did it?” he asked. His dark eyes bearing down on hers.

  His gaze was so strong, so powerful, so controlling that she wanted to look away, to break eye contact, but she didn’t. Instead, she just stared back trying to figure out the expression behind them. She moved her head back and forth, something between a nod and a shake.

  Liam exhaled and ran his hands through his thick dark hair and laced his fingers behind his neck.

  In a flash, Miranda recognized what the mysterious expression behind Liam’s eyes was. It was concern. Deep, deep concern. Could it really be that he was worried about her?

  Liam reached out to touch one of the spray painted letters, some of the dark green paint coming off onto his fingertips. He glanced his watch then up and down the hallways. He looked at Miranda again. “How long have you been standing here?”

  She could see the gears in his mind turning trying to deduce who could have done it. She didn’t know if she should or how to even explain the real truth to him. She saw what he was trying to do he was trying to get a time frame of when the vandalizing must have happened. Miranda tucked a strand of her hair that seemed to have slipped out of her ponytail behind her ear. She saw his eyes watch this small gesture. She wondered if anything got past him. “I don’t know. I’ve been in my classroom the last three hours grading and I stepped out to splash some water on my face.”

  Liam crossed his arms. “I walked past this hall on my way to football practice and I didn’t see anything. Some student must have painted it on the wall sometime after school. Pro
bably after most of the students had left. Hopefully, not many people have gotten the chance to see it.”

  Miranda nodded but could help but think that all of the students had and most of the teachers had already seem similar defamatory phrases spray painted about her. And those who hadn’t seen it would have definitely heard about it. She heard people talking about it all the time when they didn’t realize she was around. She heard girls in the bathroom talking about it, the librarians, even her fellow English coworkers. Everyone knew about it and soon Liam would know too. It would probably be best if the news came from her instead of Harrison. She took a long breath in and decided to tell him the truth. Harrison had probably told him everything already and so he might as well hear her side of the story. Even if it made her look already more stupid and weak than she already felt. “I don’t know why I’m being so cagey. You’ve probably heard it all by now. I know everyone else has. Everyone likes to talk about all the sordid details.”

  “All of what?” he asked.

  She scanned his eyes looking to see if he was being genuine or not. She couldn’t tell if Harrison had told him or not. But it seemed like he might know something. “You don’t have to pretend. Harrison generally loves to explain everything. He’s a big talker.” She watched him cross his arms and take a wide stance. She had seen that stance before. It was one that Harrison would take if he were disappointed with how his team was performing.

  “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s only my first day here and I just met Harrison at practice a couple of hours ago.”

  She looked at him from head to toe. She wanted him to be telling the truth. She wanted him to be a friend. He seemed like he’d be a great friend. An attentive listener, a protector, thoughtful and loyal. But what if she was wrong what if this was all a part of Harrison’s sadistic plan. To plant this man in her life that would get to know her and her darkest secrets and then stab her in the back and catch her in the act and somehow take her daughter away from her. She felt her mind getting lost in a swirl of questions again.

  “Miranda.”

  “Sorry,” He had caught her getting lost in her own thoughts.

  “It’s ok, I get lost in my own mind too sometimes. If you’d rather not talk about it, that’s okay too.”

  Her eyes found his again. They were soft. Warm. There was something in them that seemed to recognize what she was going through. “It’s not that,” she answered finally. “It’s not that I have a problem talking about it. I’d never survive here if I did.” She turned to him quickly and tried to smile. “You probably haven’t noticed it yet, but there’s a lot of gossip here. Even amongst the teachers, nothing stays a secret for long. I guess it would be better to hear things from me, instead of from Harrison. Or from the gossip.”

  She saw a flash of worry cross his face. Did he have a secret he worried about getting out? Miranda wrapped her arms more tightly around herself and steadily looking at the worlds on the wall. “We were married once,” Miranda said quietly, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

  She felt him looking at her. She waited for a response but realized that he was surprised, genuinely surprised and didn’t have one. This brought a spark of hope to her chest. Maybe it was true that he really hadn’t had a chance to talk to Harrison yet, to be brainwashed. She felt him shuffling from foot to foot awkwardly. Was he nervous or perhaps he was just uncomfortable and wanted to get through this conversation as quickly as possible.

  “We dated through college, and I just couldn’t stay away from him. We got married when I graduated, and then had our daughter. It was a trap, and I just didn’t see it until it was too late.” She was silent for a moment, and then turned to Liam, as if realizing what she had just said, “not that I think my daughter is the trap. Elise is a wonder, and I’m glad I have her. She’s the only good thing that came out of my relationship with Harrison. I don’t know where I would be without her. She gives me strength. The trap was having a child with Harrison as the father.”

  She turned to look at Liam to see how he was digesting things.

  His eyes looked concerned. He seemed to search her face for something.

  She glanced down and noticed that Liam’s hands were clenched into fists. “He just won’t let things go. Things fell apart, it happens,” she said, shaking her head. She thought about the violence. She thought about the bruises she had to cover up. She thought about the constant fear. She thought about his threats. The secrets that still hadn’t gotten out that never would because if they did she knew that Harrison would threaten her life.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, nodding slowly. “It happens.”

  Liam didn’t push her further which she was grateful for.

  “But he just can’t accept it. He hates that he failed at something so basic, and hates that we might really be better off without him.”

  “Some people are like that.”

  “Yeah, it’s just too bad I figured that out too late. Too bad, I didn’t see what he was doing, until he’d poisoned half the staff against me.”

  They stood together in silence, both still looking at the words. What was Liam thinking? For a moment, a new idea struck her. What if somehow their conversation got out and Harrison turned his squad of players against Liam just on the account of talking to her. A pang of guilt settled uneasily in her stomach. Although she had just met Liam, she wished the best for him. He was new to this school and she didn’t want him to be Harrison’s newest target.

  Suddenly, she turned, resting a hand on his arm, not even realizing what she was doing until she felt his skin flinch slightly in surprise at her touch. “I hope he’ll be good to you.”

  Liam’s eyebrows rose in surprise and then a small smile tugged on the corner of his lips. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve had to stand up to worse than him.”

  “I hope that will be enough then.” She pulled her hand back tentatively. She honestly wished she could have left it there. She wanted to fling herself at him grab him by the collar of his leather jacket and crush her lips against his. But if she did that there would be even more rumors about her spreading around school than she could handle already. So instead, she just wrapped her arms around herself. “Hopefully that will be enough, hopefully that will put him in his place.” Miranda turned slowly on her heels and walked away, a new kind of sadness spreading across her body.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Ah, Mr. Stone,” Caroline called. “I hope the rest of your first day has gone well and that you’ve acquainted yourself with the school.”

  Liam nodded in response and they walked down the hall.

  As they passed, she grabbed his arm quickly and gave a quick squeeze, the only hint showing how close they were. “We will be having a quick staff meeting tomorrow after school, to discuss something that has come up.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Caroline nodded, pleased with his response and continued down the hallway.

  Although Liam didn’t know how pleased she would be knowing the main reason Liam was going was because he hoped to see Miranda there. He thought of her laugh and the way she always seemed to be moving, floating almost. It was getting impossible to deny that he was attracted to her, he wanted Miranda more than he’d ever wanted another woman, even more than he’d wanted Caroline when they first started.

  But this was different, Miranda was different. He wanted all of her, he wanted more than just the release those other girls provided. He wanted to know what Miranda thought about before she fell asleep, what her favorite food was, what she did on lazy Sunday mornings. He wanted all of her, not just her body, not just the parts of her she showed to the public—he wanted everything. A wanting like this was bound to affect how he thought about her, and how he thought about the person who was hurting her. Yes, he’d figured this much out. Something was happening here at this school and even though he hadn’t met him yet, his gut told him it was all due to Harrison. Still, he needed to give the man a benefit of a doubt…unt
il he met him at least. Then again, his gut would tell him the truth about the man.

  Distracted by thoughts of Miranda and their meeting by the wall and that heinous graffiti he kept walking down the hall, until he pushed the big door of the atrium open, and blinked at the bright sun before running out to the football field.

  Time to find the truth.

  More than anything else, this all made him feel like he was a student again. The feeling of running out into the grass, towards the team already huddled in the field brought it all back. He almost expected Coach Hutchins to start yelling at him for being late to the practice.

  When Caroline broached her idea to him, for him to come in working with the team and mentoring the players, he’d thought a lot about Coach Hutchins. He had been a good man, and a good coach, the kind of coach he wanted to be to the guys, if it were possible. He still didn’t think he was good enough to be working with them, he didn’t know enough, didn’t trust himself enough to say what they would need to hear. Caroline had said the parents were excited at his arrival, they thought that as a championship player and Navy SEAL, he could teach their kids things no one else could, but they were wrong.

  Those things didn’t make him special, didn’t add anything to him, he couldn’t teach them anything different from what anyone else could.

  He jogged out across the sidewalk, scanning the area for Harrison, as he got closer to the field. There were small knots of players scattered across the field, some just watching the cheerleaders, while others tossed a ball back and forth.

  Only one person stood alone at the edge of the field, his head moving at he scanned the field. The man was one of the tallest people out there, his shoulders and chest broader than the students wearing their padding. It was clear the man had been a player once too, at least that meant he could understand the players better than some coaches who’d never played.