“We miss you, too. Whatcha got going on? Anything new?”
“Nah,” I lie. “All the same. Classes, studying. I went deep sea fishing, and I got picked to go to a student conference in Miami.”
“Well, sounds like you’re keeping busy then.”
“I’m trying. How are you and Carl?” I ask, hoping I remembered the name of her new husband correctly.
“We’re good. We moved out of public housing and into a little rental place.”
“You did? That’s awesome!” Momma’s never lived out of public housing. For that matter, neither have I. That is until now. “Is he being good to you? Good to the twins?”
“He loves the twins.”
I smile. “Good, Momma. You deserve all the happiness.”
“Thanks, sweet girl.” In the background Carl mumbles something, and Momma tells me, “All right, we’re fixin’ to take the twins to the park, so I’ll call you later.”
“Bye.” I click off and sit for a second. Maybe Carl’s going to last. He sounds okay, and heaven knows she needs a nice guy for a change.
I make a mental note to call Levi and get his take on it.
That night, Riel takes me back to the dorm, and Gillian’s already here. “Look at you on time,” I joke.
She makes a face. “You’re rubbing off on me.”
“Listen, I found a self-defense class I’m going to take. It’s still a month away before it starts, but do you want to do it with me?”
She throws an awkward punch into the air followed by an equally awkward kick. “Yeah, I’m in.”
“I think you might need it more than me.”
The next morning, I check my inbox and Director Williams has scheduled me in to see him on Friday. That’s five days. Five days I pray Abbie keeps her big mouth shut.
Monday goes by, then Tuesday, and I don’t see Abbie or Peter. Maybe they both drowned somewhere off the coast of Hawaii. On Wednesday, I go to the doctor. He lets me take my sling off, and as he’s examining my ribs, he says, “One more week and you should be back to normal. It’s a good thing your rib didn’t actually crack.”
I lower my T-shirt. “Yeah, good thing.”
“Other than that, how are you doing?”
“I signed up for a self-defense class.”
The doctor nods. “Good. Don’t be helpless. Be proactive.”
“That’s right. I’ll be ready next time.”
“What?” The doctor snaps his eyes to me. “That’s no way to think. There won’t be a next time. They will find the guy.”
“Okay,” I agree, because that’s what he wants to hear, but my attacker’s final words echo in my brain. This isn’t the end. Either way, I will be ready.
After the doctor’s visit, I call the investigative officer. He’s not there but some other cop tells me they still don’t have any leads.
“What about Bud?” I ask. “Did you question him?”
“Not yet. Mr. Hamns said he went to visit family up in Alaska. When he returns we’ll have a talk with him.”
“Well, when did he leave?”
“According to Mr. Hamns he left right after your attack.”
An icy chill crawls down my spine. “After my attack?”
“I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no evidence that directly links him to your assault. So for now we wait until he returns and then bring him in for questioning.”
Am I the only one who sees that just because he says he’s in Alaska doesn’t mean he really is? He could be hiding out, waiting until I’m alone. Waiting to attack again.
“Be cautious,” the cop tells me. “We’re doing everything we can on this end. I promise.”
Be cautious? What a ridiculous thing to say. What does he think I’m doing, running the streets naked, yelling for my attacker to come back out? I start to ask the cop about Manny, and his phone rings.
“I need to take this,” he tells me. “I’ll call you if anything surfaces.”
When I get back to the dorms, I catch site of Abbie and Peter stepping from a limo that’s obviously brought them in from the airport. So much for my fantasy of them drowning off the coast of Hawaii. Like Gillian, I suppose they can just come and go as they please. Someone like me would never get away with missing three days of classes. I wouldn’t want to miss three days. Not voluntarily.
I duck into the dorm, change clothes, and head straight to the academy’s fitness center. I do a light round of weights before heading into the MMA room to find it empty. I’ve been watching a ton of YouTube self-defense videos and start off kicking a bag, practicing the moves. Then I move on to punches. After that, I practice restrain and release moves, though there’s no one here to practice with me, but I still go through the motions.
I take a water and stretch break and start all over again. When I glance up at the clock, two hours have gone by.
“Hey.”
I look over to the door to see Riel standing there. He walks toward me. “What are you doing?”
I wave around the room. “I’m skilled in mixed martial arts now, haven’t you heard?”
He moves closer and comes to a stop right in front of me. He touches his finger to my forehead, and I catch my breath. “You need to relax. Do some yoga or something.”
“Yoga?” I choke out.
“Get in touch with your chi or yen or whatever it is you’re supposed to channel.”
Yeah, right. Just the thought of yoga bores me.
He glances at his watch. “Picked up another shift at The Windbreaker. Mind watching Mar?”
“Sure.” I never mind watching Mar. “I’ll have Gillian drop me off.”
He nods but doesn’t immediately move away. Then his eyes drop to my neck, and I’m acutely aware of a bead of sweat tracking across my skin. He watches it as it trails over my collar bone and disappears into my cleavage beneath my tank top.
Swallowing, he takes a step back and clears his throat. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I tell him, wanting to reach for him. Wanting him to reach for me.
He takes another step back and it’s like the Grand Canyon is now between us. Why does he think I want so much space?
“Okay, I’ll see you later,” he says, and I watch as he walks out the door.
I need to figure out how to get rid of this—whatever this gap is—that’s between us now.
Chapter Forty-Eight
A couple hours later, Gillian pulls into the RV park, and I hop out of her Bug.
“Do anything I would do,” she teases, and I roll my eyes.
Mar swings the door open. “Hi!”
Riel rushes past. “Late.” He waves to Gillian, jumps in his Jeep, and peals out.
Once I’m inside, I immediately lock the door and check that the windows are secured, too. Mar and I do the usual dinner and homework. After she goes to bed, I settle down on the couch to doze until Riel gets home. He works harder than anybody I’ve ever met. Between school, taking care of Mar, and full time at the Windbreaker, the guy never seems to have down time.
He’s amazing.
I think about the upcoming meeting with Director Williams. I’ll talk to Riel immediately afterward. I’ll tell him everything. Hell, I’ll beg him to understand if it comes to that. I don’t want to lose Riel.
Then I think about the first time I met him and how he got embarrassed to be caught looking down my shirt. Oh, how I adore him.
More thoughts whirl through—sitting on the beach, those wonderful words he spoke to me the night of the flat tire, sweeping me up in a hug when Mar won her swim meet—and as my mind drifts it lulls me to sleep.
I barely register Riel unlocking the door and coming in.
I barely register him picking me up off the couch and carrying me to his bed.
Pressing a tender kiss to my cheek.
Snuggling in behind me…
Something tickles my nose, and I brush at it. A soft giggle floats through the air, and I open my eyes to see Mar holding a
hair ribbon poised above me. Behind her the early morning sunshine filters in through the blinds. I slept the whole night, cozied in, just like before.
She giggles again, and I give her a not-so-disciplinary look as she glances over my shoulder to Riel. With a mischievous twinkle, she puts her finger over her lips for me to stay shushed and runs the ribbon over his nose.
Something tells me she does this a lot.
His face twitches, and he buries his nose into the pillow. I get into the fun, making a face at Mar.
She runs the ribbon over his ear, and Riel mumbles something. She touches his neck ever so slightly, and his eyes shoot open.
Mar screams, and Riel lunges over me to grab her. He tackles her to the bed, and the three of us roll across his comforter. We squirm and try to get free. Riel lifts Mar’s shirt and blows a raspberry on her belly. She kicks and breaks free to run shrieking from his room across the fifth wheel.
He rolls and pulls me under him and lifts my shirt for the same.
I push at his shoulders. “Don’t you dare!”
Riel shoots me a naughty look, and pushing the hem of my T-shirt further up, he buries his mouth in my navel and blows.
Laughing even harder, I dig all ten fingers into his hair and pull. “Enough!”
He stops with the raspberry, but doesn’t lift his head, and my laughter slowly falls away as I become acutely aware of his warm breath on my stomach.
Slowly, very sensually, he nibbles two, soft and warm, delicious bites and then brings his eyes up to meet mine. We hold each other’s gaze, neither one of us saying anything, and the longer we stare, the heavier my heart thuds.
In the living room, I hear the TV turn on, and I come zooming back to reality. “Mar,” I whisper.
“I know,” he whispers back. Then he caresses his fingers over the skin he’s nibbled, sending liquid heat straight to where I really want those fingers, before sliding my T-shirt back into place and crawling from the bed.
I watch him head into the bathroom. There was definitely no gap between us there.
Chapter Forty-Nine
After I get myself together, Riel drives me back to the dorm acting like nothing happened on the bed.
Trying not to analyze it too much, I let myself into our room to see Gillian already up.
“Hey,” I greet her. “What are you doing up so early?”
Classes don’t start for another hour, and Gillian’s one of those roll-out-of-bed-and-get-ready-in-ten-minute type of girls.
She glances at the arm sling hanging off my desk chair. “How are your injuries?”
“Getting there. Although kickboxing’s a slow process.”
“That’s…good.”
I tilt my head and study her. She seems nervous. “Are you okay?”
She sighs. “I’ve really been thinking about what happened to you, and it’s wigging me out.”
She seemed fine yesterday when she dropped me off at Riel’s.
“Actually,” she admits, “a lot of us girls were talking about it last night.”
I get really still. It’s not like Gillian to “talk” to other girls. Gillian’s infamous around the academy for her independent, I-don’t-care-what-anyone-thinks persona.
“What’s really getting to us—”
Us? When had she become an “us”?
“—is that you think you might know the attacker, right?”
I nod.
Gillian throws her arms up. “It could be anybody. Do you realize that? How much do we really know the guys here on campus?”
“I doubt it’s somebody here,” I say, thinking of Bud and Manny.
“Not somebody here?” Gillian challenges. “You don’t know that.”
I study her for a second, trying to read her mood. “Are you mad at me?”
She doesn’t immediately respond, and realization slowly settles in.
“Some of the girls are saying you brought all this on,” Gillian quietly admits.
“What?” I gasp.
She cringes.
“Just because I don’t put out for every guy who smiles at me, I’ve brought this on myself? You’re unbelievable!”
“I didn’t say I believed it,” she counters. “I’m just telling you what everyone was saying.”
“I’m sorry, but how has me being focused on studies instead of guys made me the bad person here?”
She doesn’t respond to that, and I just stare at her in utter disbelief. I don’t know what to say.
She takes a breath. “And Abbie told us—”
“What Gillian?” Anger spurts out of me. “What did Abbie tell you and all your new best friends?”
Gillian flinches. “That your mom’s a stripper, your older sister got busted for meth, your dad’s in jail, your ex is wanted for murder and rape, and you helped your ex steal a car.”
My whole body goes numb. There it is. All my garbage in spoken form.
Silent, knowing seconds tick by, and with each one something hot claws its way up and comes out, “And everyone around here’s so perfect!”
“I’m your best friend!” she yells back. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
Quickly, I replay her words. “Wait a minute. Did you say Manny’s wanted for murder, too?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Does it look like I know?” I snap, grab my cell, and run from the dorm. Students sidestep me, whispering, obviously already in the “know” about my trashy existence. I’ve got to talk to Director Williams as soon as possible.
Levi picks up on the first ring.
“Please tell me you know something about this murder thing,” I immediately say.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d been attacked?”
“How did you find out?” I counter.
Levi sighs. “Mom said the police have been crawling all over the area. Manny’s wanted for murder of Rachel, rape of that high school girl, and the attack on you.”
An icy chill skips across my skin. “They think he’s here in the Keys?”
“Yes, Viola, they do. Apparently, he jumped bail.”
My heart stops. My God, Manny’s here. He’s really here. He’s the one who attacked me.
“Miss Burnett?” I hear from behind me and whip around.
Director Williams’s secretary stands behind me. “Dr. Williams would like to see you please.”
Chapter Fifty
Excuses and justifications gather on my tongue, but I swallow them back and sit straight in my chair. It’s past time to fess up and take whatever discipline is involved.
Director Williams stares at me across his desk. “Miss Burnett, I don’t think I need to tell you what I’ve heard today.”
“No, sir.”
“But I would like for you to tell me your side of things.”
“The meeting I scheduled with you tomorrow was to discuss this exact thing.” I look down to my hands folded in my lap. “Too little, too late I guess.”
“You outright lied on your scholarship essay. Are you the first student around here to lie? Of course not, but that scholarship is worth a lot of money. It is the only scholarship we offer each year. It is a prestigious scholarship. One that only the best of the best receives.”
I lift my eyes to his. “I know.”
He levels me with a disciplinary look. “What’s your side of this?”
I think about all the students around here. Their easy, full-ride lives. None of them have had to work for anything. They take it all for granted. Leaving people like me and Riel constantly proving ourselves. It’s not fair. None of it is.
“Miss Burnett?”
“Dr. Williams, I will be the first person in my family to graduate high school, and I’m darn well going to be the first to graduate college. Whether that be from MIT or another one, I’ll do it. Since I was twelve, I’ve wanted to go here and I’ve wanted to go to MIT. My momma used to save her tips, and for my birthday or Christmas she’d buy me stuff from your student center. A T-shirt.
A pendant. Even one of those water tumblers.
“Everything I’ve academically done was with the single goal to get into this place, and then of course to move on to MIT. It was only this year your board added the citizenship and family value component to the scholarship. But it’s not until right now, sitting here, talking to you, that I realize my family does have those qualities. Though I didn’t think they did. My momma taught me to be hard-working, honest, and kind. No matter how hard things got, she always had food in the house. She always baked cookies over the holidays and walked around the projects and handed them out. Did she have us in church every Sunday? No, I’ve never been to church in my life.
“But I’m proud to say she’s my mother. I’m proud that I worked hard, and I was also top in my class. I’m proud I maintained a full-time job through high school. I’m not proud about my sister and my father. I’m not proud I was with my ex-boyfriend when he stole a car. And I’m not going to go through all the gossip you’ve heard. Just know there is a truth in all of it. I did lie and I’m ashamed of that. This has been my dream, and I was willing to do anything to make it happen. Have I made bad choices along the way? Yes.”
I stop talking and look across the desk at him. “I was going to say this tomorrow, but here I am, and in light of all of this, I would like to request that you give Riel my scholarship.”
Director Williams doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then he sighs as he reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose. “This will need to go in front of Mr. Farmer as your financial backer and also the board.”
Mr. Farmer. Abbie and Peter’s father.
The director links his fingers and gives me a long study. “For now go to class, study, go to sleep, and get up and do it again. As soon as I talk to Mr. Farmer and the board, I’ll let you know what decisions have been made.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, switching topics. The cops were here earlier. I understand this ex-boyfriend of yours is the prime suspect in your attack?”
I nod. “Yes, sir.”
“Then you need to stay on campus at all times. Do not go anywhere alone. Do you understand me?”
“I do.”
Watching You Page 15