“Thank you, Sir,” Emmy whispered before she turned, heading out the door. She was glad that the Dean’s assistant wasn’t sitting at her desk when she stepped out of the Dean’s office. Emmy wiped her face with her hands, before she took a deep breath, hurrying down the corridor. She just wanted to get out of there and as far away from this place as fast as she could.
As she hurried along the corridor, she kept her head down, refusing to look anyone in the eye. She was not going to let anyone see she was crying. She was almost at the door when someone stepped in front of her, and she knew instantly who it was.
“Ms. Warner,” Finn said, and she could hear the concern in his voice. “Are you okay? What’s happened?”
“Like you don’t know,” she hissed as she looked up into his eyes. She was so angry he had lied to her, she couldn’t even look at him anymore. “Thanks for teaching me that I really can trust no one.”
Without saying another word, she pushed past him, hurrying down the corridor.
“Emmy!” Finn called out, but she didn’t stop. Nor did she stop when she crashed into Adam who happened to be walking in through the door, at the moment she was walking out.
“Emmy!” He exclaimed as he grabbed hold of her arms, stopping her from crashing to the floor. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” She insisted as she pulled back from him before she hurried around him and out the door of the building.
“EMMY!” He called after her too, but she didn’t stop or even slow down. Instead, she started to run as fast as her legs could carry her.
It wasn’t until she was almost home that she even realised she was actually sobbing uncontrollably. Still, she didn’t stop; she didn’t stop until she reached the safety of her little apartment. Once she was locked away safely inside her little bubble, she dropped to the floor and sobbed until there was nothing but blackness, as exhaustion claimed her.
Chapter 13
Finn stood in the hallway, watching her vanish out through the doors. His instinct was to go after her, but the fact that everyone was now watching him. He knew the right thing to do was turn around and walk back into his class.
Finn had two more classes to sit through that day before he could leave. It was probably the longest three hours he had ever spent in his life. As soon as his last class was finished, he didn’t even wait for his students to leave, nor did he head back to his office. Instead, he headed straight to the parking lot, and to his car.
He hardly remembered the drive to Emmy’s, as he spent the entire drive trying to figure out what the hell had happened to her, and more importantly, what she thought he had done.
He had no idea what had happened, but he knew he wasn’t going anywhere till he got some answers.
When he reached her apartment building, he pulled over next to the curb, climbing out of the car, almost before he even had the engine switched off.
Hurrying up the steps, he didn’t hesitate this time about pressing the buzzer on her intercom. He waited for a moment, before he pressed the button once more, this time holding his finger on it a little longer than he really needed to.
“Hello,” Emmy’s voice croaked through the speaker, and Finn didn’t know whether she was sleepy or if she was crying, maybe even both.
“Emmy, it’s me,” Finn said as he stepped closer to the microphone on the box. “Can I come in?”
“No!” She exclaimed abruptly. If she was sleepy moments earlier, she was wide awake now. “I have nothing to say to you, now please go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere till you talk to me,” Finn insisted, refusing just to walk away until he at least knew what she was so upset about.”
“No,” Emmy hissed angrily. “You don’t get to come here, demanding to talk to me. I trusted you, and you lied to me. I won’t make that mistake again. Now go to hell, Professor Murphy.”
“Emmy, open the door,” Finn pleaded into the intercom, but this time there was no answer. “Emmy, please.”
Again she didn’t respond.
“Look, I don’t know what you think I’ve done,” he continued into the intercom, knowing even if she didn’t respond, she could still hear him. “But I swear to you, I have never lied to you. So please, open the door so we can talk about this face to face.
Still, there was no reply.
Finn had no idea what to do next. He knew walking away was not an option, but he also knew she was never going to let him into the building.
Just then, the front door opened, and a middle-aged woman walked out of the building. Finn waited for her to pass before he reached out and caught the door before it closed behind her. Once inside the building, Finn hurried up the stairs to the second floor, and to Emmy’s apartment. He took a deep breath before he softly knocked on the door.
“Emmy, it’s me,” Finn said as she pressed his head against the door. “Please just talk to me.”
He wasn’t that surprised when she still didn’t respond, but Finn was not going to give up easily.
“Emmy, I don’t know what’s happened,” Finn continued. “But you have to believe me when I say, I have never lied to you, nor will I ever lie to you.”
“WRONG!” She exclaimed angrily as she suddenly swung open the door. “You promised me that you wouldn’t go to the Dean about Shelby, but you did. That makes you a liar!”
“The Dean?” Finn repeated, having no clue what the hell she was talking about. “I didn’t go to the Dean.”
“Yes, you did,” she insisted, as she pinned him with a stare. “Who else would it have been?”
“I have no idea,” Finn replied, holding her stare with his. “But it wasn’t me. I told you I wouldn’t, and even though I knew it was wrong of me not to bring this to the Dean, I made you a promise, and I never break a promise.”
Emmy’s shoulders slumped, as tears suddenly pooled in her eyes, and Finn knew that the fight she had inside her moments earlier had suddenly vanished.
“Then who told him?” She asked as the tears trickled down her face.
“I don’t know,” Finn replied, as he watched her closely. His first instinct was to take her in his arms, as he had done when she was upset before, but something stopped him. Something deep inside him had changed, he knew at that very moment what it was. Seeing her standing there, crying almost broke him, but what he was feeling deep down, in the depths of his soul scared the hell out of him. He had fallen in love with her.
Right at that moment, he knew if he held her, he would never be able to fight the feelings that were growing inside him and wrapping around every fiber of his being. He loved her more than he had ever loved another human being.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she wiped her face with her hands, then stepped back to allow Finn into her apartment. “I should have trusted you.”
She turned, walking back down the entryway, towards the living room, leaving Finn standing at the door, wondering if he should just turn and leave.
He knew leaving was the right thing to do. He knew that being there was breaking every rule, because he knew it was no longer as innocent as it had been before, but he just couldn’t walk away from her.
Slowly he stepped inside and closed the door behind him before he made his way down along the hallway to the living room, where he found Emmy sitting there with her head in her hands.
“What happened in the Dean’s office?” Finn asked choosing to remain next to the doorway.
“He had a copy of the picture that was on my locker,” Emmy said as she looked up at him finally. “Whoever gave it to him, found it on my locker before I got there today.”
“She put it up again?” Finn asked as he stepped further into the room. Emmy gave him a look, and he knew there was something she wasn’t saying. “Emmy, how many of these has she posted on your locker?”
“Including today,” Emmy sighed as if she knew she would have to admit something she didn’t want to. “Four.”
“FOUR!” Finn exclaimed as he looked at her in d
isbelief.
“There was also a couple in my bag that she must have slipped in somehow, during class,” Emmy continued, clearly knowing there was no point in lying about it now. “Plus there was a couple passed around the classroom too. There were different messages on them, but they all pretty much meant the same thing.”
“Jesus, Emmy,” Finn asked as he walked towards her and sat down on the seat next to her. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“And what would you have done?” She replied with a question.
“I would have insisted that you go to the Dean,” Finn admitted honestly.
“And that’s why I didn’t tell you,” Emmy sighed sadly. “Not that it matter’s now because, in the end, he found out anyway.”
“Why are you so afraid of the Dean finding out about this?” Finn asked, having no clue why she didn’t want anyone to know what Shelby was doing.
“Because, since I was eighteen,” Emmy replied as she looked up at Finn, the sadness in her eyes was almost too much to bear. “My life has been a disaster. I’m tired of being the victim. Tired of being the girl that everyone is talking about. I just wanted to be like all the other nameless faces in the crowd.”
“I know when your mother died, it must have been so hard,” Finn said, trying to reassure her. “But it was a long time ago, and what happened wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Emmy sighed, and Finn wished he knew what was going through her head at that exact moment. “Do you know what it’s like to be the girl who saw her mother murdered in front of her? The night my mother died, I was standing right beside her. When he shot her…”
She stopped and closed her eyes, as if she was remembering that night once more.
“I was covered in her blood,” she continued in a whispered voice. “Someone got a picture of me being led out of the store by a police officer, with my mother’s blood all over my face and my clothes. That was on the front page of every newspaper. When I went back to college three weeks after the shooting, everyone looked at me like I was from another planet. When I walked into a room, it fell silent. I was dating a guy from my class at the time, and he wouldn’t even talk to me. He said he didn’t know how to deal with the people staring.”
“That must have been so hard,” Finn said, wishing more than anything that she hadn’t had to go through all of that.
“I tried to stick it out,” Emmy shrugged. “But it was just too hard, plus my dad wasn’t dealing with things very well, so I decided to take some time off, you know to be there for him.”
“I suppose I understand that,” Finn said as he continued to watch her closely.
“Me and my dad were finally starting to get through it” she continued. “When my dad received this envelope. He wouldn’t tell me what was in it, but I knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good. He took down all the pictures of my mom in the house, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Then he started drinking. At first, it was one or two, enough to get him through the day but then it got worse, he became mean. He would hit me sometimes; he said I looked like her, and she was a whore.”
“Jesus,” Finn exclaimed, stunned by what she was telling him.
“One night when he was passed out from his latest binge,” Emmy said as fresh tears danced in her eyes. “I went into his office and started to search; I needed to know what was in the envelope. But then when I found it, I really wished I hadn’t. It was pictures of my mom with some other guy, they were having sex. My mom had been having an affair before she died. I don’t know who with, not that it really mattered to me anyway.”
“I’m sorry Emmy,” Finn said as he reached out, taking her hand.
“I decided that I was going to go back to school,” Emmy continued as she wiped the tears that were once more trickling down her face. “My dad didn’t really want me to go back to Stanford, so he called in a few favours and got me into Berkley. I thought going there would make him happy, but it changed nothing. He was still drinking and would even turn up to class drunk. Imagine being the kid of the professor that is wasted every day. He was put on administrative leave, but that didn’t stop him from turning up drunk to my classroom. He would burst in and tell me I was a whore just like my whore mother.”
Finn was speechless, but for the first time, he understood why she had been so reluctant to go to the Dean about Shelby.
“Then one day, I was called to the Dean’s office,” Emmy said as she finally looked up at Finn. “There were police officers in the office waiting for me. They told me that my dad had been killed in a car accident. But it turned out that he was drunk and had caused the accident. He killed a pregnant lady, and her little girl too.”
“Oh, my God!” Finn exclaimed as he held her hand tighter.
“I thought it was hard being the kid of the victim,” Emmy continued. “But it was nothing compared to being the child of the killer because that was what my father was. He was a killer. He killed that lady and her two children.”
“What happened after that?” Finn asked unsure if he should or not.
“After that, I left Berkley,” Emmy shrugged. “I got a job in a bar, which is where I met Gabby. She was the first person that never looked at me like this broken, pathetic creature. She taught me to be tough, and to take care of myself. But then last summer, out of the blue, I got a letter from a solicitor. My mom’s mom had died; I didn’t really know her; she and my mom had fallen out years before I was even born. She was a wealthy woman, and she had left me her entire estate. A week later I got a letter from Stanford informing me that I had been accepted, that all my tuition had been paid for. I thought it was a mistake, but when I called the college, I was told there was no mistake. My grandmother had called the Dean and had offered to fund some new project if they would consider me for a place, from my original application when I was eighteen.”
“Wow,” Finn said as she looked up at him once more. “That’s quite a story.”
“That’s why I didn’t want to go to the Dean about Shelby,” Emmy sighed, blowing out a deep breath. “I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I thought if I just ignored her, she would get bored, and move on, but now it’s too late for that. She is going to be suspended, and the Dean said, more than likely, once the investigation is over, she will be thrown out of Stanford for good.”
“But that’s a good thing,” Finn assured her.
“Is it?” Emmy asked. “Everyone will be talking about me again. Everyone will find out about my mom, and maybe even my dad. I don’t know if I could pick up the pieces once again. I don’t know that I would even want to.”
“Emmy,” Finn said as he looked into her eyes, “You are stronger than you think you are. And what happened with your parents, I know it must have been awful, and I really don’t know what you went through, but I know that what happened, happened to them, you can’t let it define you for the rest of your life.”
“I know,” Emmy shrugged. “I just, I can’t fail at college again. This is all I have ever dreamed of, and I am scared it is going to be taken away from me once more.”
“I will never let that happen,” Finn replied with a smile, as he leaned forward, softly kissed her on the forehead. “I promise you; I will do whatever it takes to protect you, to keep you safe. You belong at Stanford, and I will never let anyone, or anything take that away from you again.”
“Why would you do that for me?” Emmy asked as she looked up into Finn’s eyes, “Why do you even care?”
“Because I care about you,” Finn replied, giving her a smile. “I care about you a great deal, and I think that, if you let me, I will show you that life doesn’t have to be this hard. And I will show you that people can surprise you.”
“I would like that,” Emmy whispered as she smiled up at him.
Finn wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him. As he did, he closed his eyes and wished that he didn’t feel about her the way he did.
But he had made her a promise, and he meant every wo
rd of it. He would push his feeling aside, to do whatever it took to make sure she never had to feel sad or hurt a single day in her life again.
Chapter 14
Over the next couple of weeks, the investigation into Shelby’s misconduct continued. There was an official hearing set for the week after Thanksgiving. Dean Webber wasn’t very happy about the delay with proceedings, but Shelby’s parents were in the Far East on business, and they insisted that they should be there for their daughter.
Until then, Shelby remained suspended. Even though it wasn’t what Emmy had wanted, Finn knew she was happier without Shelby being in the class.
Finn also found that he was now looking for reasons to spend time with Emmy. He told himself that it was just that he enjoyed her company, but deep inside, he knew it was more than that. The fact that Emmy seemed to like his company too made it harder for him to stay away.
There was just something about her that he liked. He found that he was able to just be himself with her, in a way he had never been before. She got his sense of humour, she understood his passion for books, as she had that passion too. It felt like the first time that someone could see the true him, and just get who he truly was. It was just an amazing feeling.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, Finn was out running some errands, when he found himself pulling up outside Emmy’s apartment building for some unknown reason. He could say he was just driving by, but only if you consider at ten block detour driving by.
When he climbed out of his car, he hurried up the steps to the front door of her building and quickly pressed down on the intercom. He wanted to see her; it was that simple.
“Hello,” Emmy’s bubbly voice came through the intercom. Finn instantly smiled when he heard it. He loved just how much happier she had seemed the last couple of weeks.
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