What He Believes

by Hannah Ford

  I sighed and reached for my phone, which was sitting on the nightstand. I opened my email, my heart stopping when I saw something in my inbox from school. It was from someone called Dr. Cartwright, and the subject line was “Your Continued Enrollment.”

  “Shit,” I swore under my breath, sitting up in bed and wrapping the covers tighter around me.

  I opened the email.

  Charlotte,

  My name is Dr. Jason Cartwright, and I’m one of the counselors in the Office of Student Health and Support. I’ve recently been made aware that you’ve taken a lengthy absence from school – college rules require any student taking time off after a psychologically traumatic event to attend a counseling session in order to be cleared to resume classes.

  Would you be free to meet in my office this morning at 10:30? Please be aware that you will not be allow to return to school until we have met.

  Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

  All best,

  Jason

  I groaned and rolled my eyes.

  Great.

  Now not was I going to have to deal with everyone staring at me when I went back to school, but now I was going to have to meet with some bullshit school psychiatrist.

  What did they mean, a psychologically traumatic event? I hadn’t even been in touch with anyone at school, which meant they were going off of whatever they’d read in the papers or online. It wasn’t exactly a fair system – just because my life events had been publicized and had something to do with a professor at their university, why did they think they had a right to force me to have some counseling session?

  If I’d gone off somewhere and gotten myself into some other kind of trouble that they didn’t know about, I could have just come back and told them I’d been off finding myself, or sick with mono or something.

  I wanted to write back and tell Dr. Jason Cartwright he could go screw.

  But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to go back to school.

  So I typed a quick email back to Dr. Cartwright, letting him know how delighted I’d be to meet him in his office at 10:30 this morning. I even added a smiling emoji at the end of it, just to let him know how completely over my “psychological trauma” I was.

  I wasn’t, of course.

  But that wasn’t any of his business.

  I’d just finished sending the email when my phone began ringing in my hand.

  My mom.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I’d been avoiding her calls for days, ever since what had happened with Professor Worthington at Force. Noah had been pressing me to call her, to tell her what had happened, but I just couldn’t deal with it.

  I answered this time.

  I figured now that my day included meeting with the school psychologist, it was already ruined. I might as well totally decimate it.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “Finally,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks, Charlotte.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I’ve just…I’ve been really busy.” Docket picked his head up and looked at me, almost like he was admonishing me for interrupting his sleep. He moved up into Noah’s spot and laid his head on Noah’s pillow. I reached over and rubbed him behind his ears and he sighed in contentment.

  “Busy doing what?”

  “Just…” I trailed off and closed my eyes. My mother and I had never had the best relationship. Growing up she’d been very hot and cold with me, parading me around when it made her look good, ignoring me when I did something she didn’t approve of.

  And it wasn’t always clear what camp my decisions might fall into.

  My mother and her friends were the type that valued settling down, having children, marrying a man with a lot of money and a steady job so that they could stay home and take care of the children, or at least pretend to, in between trips to the salon and meetings with their decorators.

  They didn’t look at this as being lazy or shallow. In fact, they knew exactly the amount of effort, planning, and work it took to make sure you could land a man who could provide everything you needed.

  My mother had worked hard to land my father, but then he’d gotten sick and she’d realized her lifestyle was about to evaporate right in front of her. So she’d traded him out for a new model, my stepfather.

  “Charlotte?” my mom demanded. “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Mom,” I said. “Is there any way you could come to New York?”

  “To the city?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I just… I need to talk to you about some things that have happened.” I braced myself for the rebuttal. It didn’t matter how old I was or how long I’d had to get used to it – anytime I needed something from her was a chance for her to disappoint me.

  I could imagine her on her cell phone, sitting in her Range Rover, her hair highlighted and blown out, a Starbucks iced Frappuccino in her hand. I imagined her pursing her fuchsia lips (she’d worn the same color lipstick since I was a child, a shade by Chanel called Suspense) and flicking her hand, the way she always did when I asked her to do something she didn’t want to do.

  I imagined her filing through her internal list of excuses, of which she must have had thousands. I felt like I’d heard them all.

  “Okay,” she said, her voice softening.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised.

  The door to the bathroom opened and Noah came out, wearing just a towel around his waist. He frowned at me and mouthed, “Who is it?”

  “My mom,” I mouthed back.

  He nodded in approval. That was because he’d never met her.

  “Of course,” my mom said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Let me check flights and I’ll get back to you with plans, okay, honey?”

  “Okay.” We hung up and I stared at the phone in disbelief. “She’s coming here,” I said.

  “Good,” Noah said, choosing a tie from his drawer and then disappearing into the closet. “You told her what happened?” he called to me.

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to tell her when she gets here.”

  “Good thinking,” he said, reappearing a moment later in a pair of boxer shorts and dress pants, his shirt unbuttoned.

  “So now I have to deal with that,” I said.

  “We’ll deal with it together,” he said. “It’s good that she’s coming here.” He sat down on the side of the bed and Docket rolled over, exposing his stomach for a scratch.

  Noah obliged him.

  “You don’t know my mother,” I said. “She’s crazy.”

  “Oh, I know crazy,” he said. “Trust me.”

  His phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket, frowning as he looked at an alert on the screen. He began reading something, his eyes darkening as they moved down the screen.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is it something about the Lilah Parks case?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It’s something about the Charlotte Holloway case.”

  He held the phone out to me, and I looked at the screen It was an article in the New York Post, about the attempted murder of a law student (me) at the hands of her law professor.

  I scanned the article, looking for whatever was making Noah’s eyes darken. But as far as I could tell, the article was nothing new, the same facts that had been reported by most of the newspapers in New York – Force had been shut down, the Professor was facing murder charges, Noah Cutler had been cleared of all charges, etc etc.

  And then I got to the good part.

  “We reached Pamela Holloway at the Holloway home, who told us that her daughter may have been dating the professor. ‘I had a feeling she might have been involved with someone,’ Pamela said. ‘Charlotte doesn’t make the best choices sometimes. She must have just gotten mixed up with the wrong character.’ “

  The article went on to speculate how the professor and I may h
ave gotten together, how we were probably at Force to partake in some kind of kinky BDSM play that had gotten out of hand.

  ‘Story developing’ it said at the end.

  My mouth dropped. “I can’t believe this!” I said. “She knew this whole time! She knew this whole time and she didn’t ask me about it. Why the hell would she pretend she didn’t know?”

  “You tell me.”

  I thought about it. “She wants a moment.”

  “A moment?”

  I nodded. “She wants to come here and have me tell her in person, so she can wring her hands in front of me and make it all about her.” My heart pounded. “I don’t want her coming anymore. Why the hell would she say I was dating Professor Worthington?”

  “It’s not true,” Noah said. “So what do you care?”

  “I care because it’s printed in a newspaper.”

  He reached out and took my hand. “Charlotte, a lot of things are going to printed about you in the newspaper. There is going to be a trial. You will have to testify. The prosecution is going to try and tear you apart, make you an unreliable witness. You need to be ready for that.”

  “This is different,” I said.

  “Because it’s your mother.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  He squeezed my hand. “You’ll get through it. We’ll get through it.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  He tipped my chin up. “Don’t let this ruin your day,” he said. “Don’t give her that power.”

  I could tell from his tone that he knew what he was talking about, and I suspected perhaps it was something he’d had to tell himself in the past.

  “I won’t.”

  “Good.” He kissed my lips, then stood up and began buttoning his shirt. “Should I stay with you this morning? I can go into the office late.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I have to meet with the school psychiatrist, anyway.”

  “The school psychiatrist?” Noah frowned as he straightened his sleeves and began to tie his tie. “What for?”

  “It’s required I want to go back to school.”

  He nodded. “Get it over with.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  He picked his suit jacket up and slid it on. “You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He kissed me good-bye, and then he was gone, leaving me alone with Docket.

  ***

  Two hours later, I stood in front of the administration building. Ivy snaked its way up the bricks, seemingly taunting me. I’d thought it would feel weird to be back at school, that it would remind me of Professor Worthington and all that had happened, and it did. But instead of giving me all kinds of horrible flashbacks, instead I felt empowered. I was excited to be back at school, excited to get back to my old life.

  How can you get back to your old life when Mikayla and those girls are still in trouble?

  The thought tugged on my mind. And it was a valid question. How could I move on so seamlessly?

  I’d been lucky that night at Force, lucky that Noah had known where to come and find me, to rescue me.

  But what about Mikayla and all those other girls? How could I just leave them there?

  One step at a time, Charlotte, I told myself. You have to go to this meeting. Starting to get your life back doesn’t mean you won’t be able to help those girls. You need to take care of yourself, too.

  I had another brief flash, back to that phone call I’d gotten yesterday and Noah’s reaction to it. He’d been right of course. Whoever had been on the other end of the line had probably been some kook, someone who’d read about me in the paper. But what was going to happen when there was actual evidence about where those girls were? Because I was still determined to find Mikayla.

  I took in a deep breath.

  First things first, I told myself, and began climbing the steps of the building. It was quiet inside, a few students and administrators milling through the halls, but nothing like the nightmare scenario I’d had in my mind, the one where everyone was staring and pointing at me.

  I was able to make it to Dr. Cartwright’s office without anyone even giving me a weird glance.

  I paused outside the frosted glass door, and then I knocked.

  “Come in,” a deep male voice answered from within.

  I turned the knob and walked in.

  A man was sitting at a desk by the window, wearing a navy blue button up and typing something into a computer. He was about thirty, with close-cropped dark hair and tan skin.

  “Charlotte?” he tried, his tone friendly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m here to see Dr. Cartwright.”

  “Please,” he said, standing up from the desk and walking over to me. “Call me Jason.”

  He stuck his hand out, and I shook it. His grip was strong and firm. This was Dr. Cartwright? I’d expected him to be a little old man in a tweed blazer with corduroy patches on his elbows, not someone so young and attractive.

  “Nice to meet you,” I managed.

  “Please, have a seat,” he said, sitting back down at his desk.

  I surveyed the seating options.

  There was a chair in front of his desk, and then a couch sort of wedged in at an angle over to the side. I hesitated, not sure where to sit.

  “You can sit wherever you’re most comfortable,” he said.

  Still, I hesitated. Wasn’t there some kind of weird thing where psychiatrists would try to figure out your mental state based on whether you chose to sit in the couch or the chair? I thought I remembered something about that from one of my undergrad psych classes. Either that or someone had told it to me and I’d filed it away as fact.

  “Oh, God,” Jason said, laughing. “Trust me, I’m not going to judge you on where you sit. That’s a total urban legend.”

  “Okay.” I smiled and sat down in the chair.

  “Let me just pull your file up,” he said, picking up his iPad and tapping at the screen. “Okay. I have to start by telling you two things. One, anything you say in this session is totally confidential. It’s against the law for me to tell anyone what we discuss here. Second, you don’t need to be nervous. This shouldn’t take long.”

  “Great.” I nodded in relief. This was going to be easier than I thought. Jason was nice enough, and it seemed like he wasn’t planning on grilling me about anything. In fact, this seemed to more of a formality than anything.

  “So you were out of school because you were involved in an altercation with a professor, is that correct?”

  “Yes.” I nodded and pulled nervously at the sleeves of my sweater. “Professor Colin Worthington. He abducted me and then he…he tried to kill me.” It was strange saying the words out loud, and a flash of panic flooded my body, along with a shot of adrenaline.

  Jason nodded. “But you were able to escape.”

  “Yes, my boy -- um, my fiancé was able to get to me in time.” I shook my head. “Sorry, I just got engaged yesterday.” I held up my ring, not to brag, but to show him that I was stable, that I was moving on, that I had a support system. “My mom is coming out here soon, too, “ I said. “So I have plenty of support.”

  But Jason wasn’t listening. Instead, he was staring at the marks on my wrist, the ones Noah had left there last night. When I’d held up my hand to show him my ring, my sleeve had slipped down.

  “What happened to your wrist?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “Oh.” I quickly pulled my sweater down. “I’m … that just… “ I wracked my brain, trying to figure out how the hell I could explain. It wasn’t like I could just claim to have fallen down or something. The marks were obviously from being tied up. So I did the only thing I could do. I lied. “It happened with Professor Worthington. He tied me.”

  Jason tapped something on his iPad, making a note. “They look pretty raw.”

  “Yeah, well, they haven’t healed.”

  He looked up and smiled at me. “Tell
me about your fiancé.”

  “Noah.”

  “Yes. How did you meet?”

  I squirmed in my chair. Why was he asking me all these personal questions? “I was working on his case,” I said. “He was one of Professor Worthington’s clients, and I was assisting him.”

  “And you two began a romantic relationship?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But what do these questions have to do with whether or not I’m allowed to come back to school?”

  “I’m trying to get an idea of your mental state and what kind of support system you have in place.”

  “Noah is a great support system.”

  “Have you had any nightmares since the incident?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to lie to him. I didn’t. But the questions he was asking me, all of them felt like they were a loaded gun, just one second away from going off in my face.

  “No,” I lied. “No nightmares.”

  “Any flashbacks?”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Charlotte,” he said. “It would be completely understandable and normal for someone who’d been through a trauma such as yours to be having some after affects as they worked on processing what happened to them.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I’m doing well. I really am.”

  He pursed his lips, like he was going to say something else. But then he nodded. “Okay.” He turned back to his iPad. “Any depression?”

  “No.”

  “Suicidal thoughts?”

  “No.”

  “Difficulty concentrating?”

  “No.”

  “Do you feel as if you’re ready to come back to school?”

  I could tell he was running through a checklist now, one of those forms they probably made him fill out for each person, just so they could have a record of it. I felt the band that was around my chest start to loosen a bit. This really was just a formality.

  “I’m definitely ready,” I said confidently.

  “Do you feel you will be able to handle your course load effectively?”

  “Definitely.”

  Jason ran his eyes back down the checklist, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. Then he looked up at me. “Is there anything else you want to talk about today, Charlotte? It doesn’t have to be about what happened with Professor Worthington. It could be about anything. Your family, your relationship.”