She Was the Quiet One

by Michele Campbell

  She’d begged him to get help. Get therapy, a diagnosis. Medication could help. But he never would. He said he’d watched his mother be slowly sucked dry by charlatans, who’d ruined her mind and her health. Action was Heath’s cure. They found a new life at Odell. He nurtured other dreams. Now they had two children together, and he was scaling new heights. Sarah had no choice but to support him. She couldn’t ever, ever go through that horror again.

  Sarah walked over to her husband, took the glass from his hand and threw her arms around him.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” she whispered. “I’ve been exhausted. I’m not thinking straight. Heath, if you promise me it wasn’t you, I’ll believe you.”

  “I promise, it’s not me. I’m devastated that you would ever think that. But at least you told me. Now we have a chance to fight back.”

  He pushed her away, then took her phone from the table, and started typing. She heard a swoosh.

  “What did you just do?”

  “I e-mailed the photo to myself,” he said. “I know a computer forensics expert, from my work on the Disciplinary Committee. I’m going to show it to him, to see if I can figure out where it came from, and how it was faked. I need to know what I’m up against. And that way, just in case they do go public, we can be ready with a defense.”

  Heath would never give the photo to an expert unless he knew it was a fake. That gave her some confidence that he was telling the truth. But he was still fiddling with her phone. She leaned over to see what he was doing, just in time to watch the photo disappear from her screen.

  “Did you—did you just delete that?”

  “I have a copy now. There’s no need for you to worry about this, Sarah. I have everything under control.”

  From the bedroom came the sound of Scottie wailing. Her baby needed her. She’d found the strength to confront Heath, and he had given her a reasonable explanation. If she had any remaining doubts, she wouldn’t indulge them any further—not now, not without more credible evidence. Heath was right: People were out to get him, so why turn her life upside down over something that was probably a hoax to begin with? Her children were sick, and her husband was more mentally fragile than she’d realized. She had to be strong for them.

  “I should go to Scottie,” she said. She started to get up, but Heath stopped her with a touch.

  “Thank you for trusting me, sweetheart. You won’t regret it. All I ask is, if you start having doubts again, you come to me, so we can talk it out. Okay?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  Heath leaned in and kissed her lingeringly on the lips. With a relieved sigh, she kissed him back. It felt like coming home after a long and difficult journey. She went to take care of her son with a quiet heart.

  35

  From: HD1234@yahoo.com

  To: Anonymouse@yahoo.com

  January 14 at 9:15 p.m.

  All right, who the fuck is this and what do you want? Leave my wife alone. You deal with me from now on. Do you have some kind of demand?

  From: Anonymouse@yahoo.com

  To: HD1234@yahoo.com

  January 14 at 9:19 p.m.

  Hi Heath. Yeah I know it’s you even if you’re not using Odell e-mail. You think that’s gonna keep you safe, keep your name out of this? Not a chance. And yeah, that’s you in the pic, but I guess you know that already. What a bad boy you are. As for who I am, think of me as a little mouse, or a fly on the wall. I see things, I know things. And what I wonder is, why you’d risk it all over that stupid slut Bel. She’s nothing special, not even that pretty. Your poor wife—how very sad! You ask what I want. I’ll think about that. In the meantime, I love watching you sweat this. You’ll be hearing from me.

  Xox,

  Anonymouse

  36

  All through January, Bel led a double life. On the surface, she appeared to be a normal Odell student. She went to classes—including Mr. Donovan’s English class. She studied for tests, wrote essays, handed in problem sets, got tutored. She played volleyball with a knee brace on, and did physical therapy twice a week. She went to meals, and sat with the motley crew of misfits that ate in the Quiet Nook, who’d gelled into something like a clique. Her surface life was tolerable, but it wasn’t one she’d chosen for herself. Her dreams were consumed by the secret life she led with Heath.

  That life required subterfuge. Nobody could ever know about them, he told her, and he seemed extra wired about that lately—maybe because he was in the running to become headmaster. Even the slightest whiff of scandal would torpedo his chances. He’d devised a private signal to set up their meetings. That way they didn’t have to text or try to steal a moment to speak privately. A conversation could be overheard. A text left a record; he’d learned about that from the Skyler Stone lawsuit, when he consulted with a computer forensics expert. Records could be destroyed if you knew what you were doing, and Heath now knew what he was doing. He made her give him her phone, and he wiped it of any trace of him going back to when they first started communicating privately, around Thanksgiving.

  Twice a week, on the days she did physical therapy, Bel was finished early, and could sneak away. If Heath could get free to see her on those days, he’d wear a red tie to class. Red—the color of roses, of hearts, of love. That was her signal to pay attention and wait for a coded message. He would make a list on the whiteboard of literary devices, or future assignments, or things that kids said in class—anything, really—and label the items on the list 1, 2, 3, 4 and A, B, C, D. Then he’d underline a letter and a number—as if just to emphasize a point as he spoke—to tell her when and where to meet him. The number he underlined told her what time he could meet her, and the letter told her where. “A” meant the parking lot behind the Alumni Gym—easy to get to, but exposed, and therefore risky. “D” meant the parking lot on Danbury Road. Heath liked that one better because there was little chance of being observed. But getting to it required Bel to walk out the back door of Founders’ Hall, slip into the woods, and hike to the Danbury trailhead on the other side of the nature preserve. It could be difficult in the snow, especially with her knee. But she’d do it anyway, and she’d wait in the cold until he showed, as long as it took—a half hour, even an hour once. She didn’t mind.

  It was nearly February, which would normally be dead winter, but there had been an unseasonable thaw. The paths were slick and wet. The snow had melted all over campus, exposing bare brown lawns in need of tending. Heath signaled Bel to meet him at four o’clock at the Danbury Road lot. A chill rain fell as she left Founders’ Hall through the seldom-used back exit, and hurried the fifty feet to the woods. As she slipped between the trees, darkness swallowed her. The afternoon was gray and blustery. Fortunately, the snow that had covered the ground since December was gone, except for patches here and there under the trees that never saw the sun. Icy trickles of rain dripped from the trees onto her hair, and she pulled the hood of her puffer jacket up. She’d gotten used to the woods when she ran cross-country, but then the other girls had always been within earshot, so she’d never felt alone. Now, hearing the drip of rain and the moan of the wind in the trees, Bel’s heart raced, and she quickened her pace. She got to the crossroads, where the trail split, and paused to look at the wooden sign. The path to the left continued through the woods to the meadows and Lost Lake. That was one-third of a mile. The one to the right was a quarter mile, and went out to the trailhead on Danbury Road, which had a little parking lot. Heath would be waiting for her there.

  As Bel read the sign, she heard a rustle behind her, and a strange prickle ran down the back of her neck. But when she looked over her shoulder, nobody was there. She was being paranoid.

  Bel set off toward the trailhead. A hundred feet down the path, she heard the rustle again. This time she was certain. She stopped abruptly, turning around slowly, a full 360 degrees, and scanning the woods. There was nothing. Nobody. But then the sound came again, from off to the side, and her eyes flew to it. She could’ve sworn she saw … so
mething. What? A shape, a shadow. It was probably an animal, but it was enough to spook her. Feeling foolish, Bel turned toward the trailhead and took off at a slow jog, cursing herself for not wearing her knee brace. Without it, she didn’t dare break into a sprint. The path was flat and clear, and she made it to the trailhead in a matter of minutes. She was pretty sure she’d left whatever-that-was behind, and breathed a sigh of relief. She should try to feel happy. The silver glint of Heath’s Subaru was visible through the trees. He was there, waiting, and they would go to the motel. It would happen again. She slowed to a walk, catching her breath, wanting to remember this moment, right before they’d be together.

  Then, behind her, she heard a ruckus in the woods, and stopped dead. That was no squirrel. Her skin crawled, and she took off in a burst of speed that sent pain shooting through her knee and down her leg. Right before she left the woods, she looked back over her shoulder and saw a figure slipping between the trees. She was certain now. It was a person, a human. Not an animal. Somebody had followed her. She emerged from the trees into the trailhead parking lot, and made a beeline for Heath’s car, jumping in and slamming the door hard.

  “What happened? You look like you saw a ghost,” he said.

  It wouldn’t do to tell him she might’ve been followed. He wouldn’t like that.

  “I heard a noise,” she said. “An animal.”

  He laughed, then stopped abruptly, glancing in the rearview mirror. “A car’s coming. Get down.”

  She ducked into the passenger-side footwell, and rode down there the whole way to the motel.

  Afterward, at the motel, Bel had a moment of melancholy, wondering why she was doing this. The sex was always rougher than she expected, and less fun. Yet she went through with it every time. There had been three times since that first time in the laundry room. When they did it, she would feel far away, like she didn’t know him, didn’t know herself. But afterward they would lie in bed and talk, and that was the good part, the part she waited for. The thing she lived for, really. Heath Donovan, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, the teacher that every girl in school was mad for, would stroke her hair, kiss her eyelids, tell her things he told nobody else. She would listen to that voice, gaze into those eyes, and feel seen and listened to by him. That part was worth any sacrifice.

  Heath was explaining to her something about the board of trustees. He was plotting to become the next headmaster.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “If you become headmaster, what happens to Dr. Barlow?”

  “He gets put out to pasture.”

  “But he’s been here, like, forever.”

  “That’s just the point. Don’t you see, Odell can’t recover from the slipper mess with Barlow at the helm. He’s tainted goods. The bad stuff all happened on his watch.”

  “That’s true. You’d be way better. Everybody’s in love with you. Dr. Barlow’s old and kind of ugly,” she said.

  He smiled and kissed her ear. “My little love. You would think that, but the trustees have other considerations in mind when they make their selection. One of them is that the candidate have a sterling reputation. In other words, there can’t be the faintest whiff of scandal about me. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, you’ve told me that a million times, nobody can know about us. It’s why you never text me anymore. It’s why I never text you, either, or come up to you in the dining hall, like I did that time. I hate it, but I understand.”

  His face darkened, and he looked away. “About that night, there’s something I have to ask you. Something serious.”

  Bel held her breath. Whenever he talked like this, she became terrified that he would end their affair, and she couldn’t bear the thought of life here without him.

  “Ask me anything,” she said.

  “The first night that you and I were together, down in the laundry room, was anybody else there?”

  “Anybody else in the laundry room? That’s ridiculous,” Bel said, and laughed harshly.

  He turned and looked at her sharply. Had the laugh been too much? Did she oversell it? Bel gazed back at him innocently, her mind replaying that moment when she saw a movement from the corner of her eye. And the time Rose taunted her that she had proof of her illicit relationship with Heath.

  “You’re sure?” he said, searching her face.

  “I would have noticed. But why are you asking?”

  “No reason.”

  He twined his fingers in her hair, leaned in close and started kissing her neck. Under the blanket, his hands traveled over her body. She went warm and liquid at his touch.

  “You’re a delight, an obsession, an addiction. But one that has to stay secret. If you ever have any reason to think somebody knows about us, you must tell me right away. You understand?”

  He grabbed her hips under the covers and pulled her tight against him, his fingers digging into her flesh.

  “Heath, you’re hurting me,” she said. But she wanted him, she did.

  “Say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve got half an hour before we need to go back,” he said, his breath warm against her ear. “Let’s not waste it. I’ll go slow this time, I promise.”

  * * *

  Late that night, Bel sat at her desk, finishing a problem set that was due in a matter of hours. Emma had gone to sleep long ago, and the room was dark, except for the glow from Bel’s laptop. A soft tone sounded, and a message box popped up on the screen, informing her that she had an e-mail. From someone called Anonymouse.

  Stupid name.

  Bel assumed it was a prank from one of the geeks in the Quiet Nook. They were the types to think goofy stuff like that was funny. She was on their group chats now, and got looped in when they sent around group texts or e-mails. It was usually Harry Potter–themed, or Game of Thrones. She’d thought about asking to be left off because, really, they were such geeks. But they were the only friends she had left at this stupid school.

  She ignored the e-mail, since she ought to get this problem set finished and grab a few hours’ sleep. But then it occurred to her: What if it wasn’t the Quiet Nook geeks? Anonymouse. The name, silly as it was, gave her a queasy feeling. She remembered Heath’s nervousness this afternoon about the possibility of a third person in the laundry room. What had him so worried all of a sudden? He never explained. The connection, vague as it was, bothered her enough to distract her from the problem set.

  She clicked on the e-mail.

  “Lookee, somebody followed you, LOL,” the subject line read, and she got a chill.

  The noise in the woods had been real. She’d tried to put it out of her mind. But she’d been right to be afraid. She’d been followed. There was an attachment in the e-mail. Terrified, she held her breath, and opened it.

  It was a photo, of Bel getting into Heath’s car. The shot was wide-angle and well-framed. You could see Bel’s face clearly. She looked frightened, upset even. She remembered vividly how she’d felt in that moment—how she’d gotten spooked and ran, how her knee hurt and her breath came in gasps as she barreled toward Heath’s car. Someone had been behind her in the woods. It wasn’t her imagination, and it wasn’t a coincidence. Somebody followed her, stalked her and photographed her.

  But Bel wasn’t the only subject of the picture. The license plate on Heath’s car was plainly visible. You could see the back of his dark head in the driver’s seat. You could just make out the blurry writing on the sign for the Danbury trailhead. You could see the muddy gravel of the parking lot, and the trees. A young female student, getting into a teacher’s car in a deserted, off-campus parking lot. It was irrefutable evidence that they were meeting, in secret, in a way they shouldn’t.

  Rose. It had to be Rose who followed her. Over Christmas break, Rose had made that threat. She was going to expose them; she had proof. She never came out and said that her proof was a picture of them together, but wasn’t it obvious? She’d photographed them once before, and now she wa
s doing it again. Bel had been foolish not to take Rose seriously as a threat. Rose was a twisted person who’d always been bitterly jealous of Bel—of her closeness to their mother, her looks, her clothes, the fact that Grandma liked Bel better. You name it. It was crazy when you thought about it. What was there to be jealous of, after all? Bel wasn’t happy (except maybe in those stolen moments with Heath, but not even then). Yet it seemed to be true. Rose was out to ruin everything that Bel cared about. Rose wanted her kicked out of Odell; that’s why she’d snitched about the slipper thing. Instead of facing facts, Bel was weak enough to miss her sister, and think about making up with her. She’d been naïve, and let the situation fester. Now Rose had more evidence. She had to do something about it before Rose actually followed through and went public.

  That would destroy Heath’s career. And if that happened, she’d kill her.

  37

  With Skyler gone, Rose had a room to herself, but living alone was bleak and depressing. Rose couldn’t get comfortable at school after all that had happened. Granted, the large-scale bullying had ended. Nobody threw toy rats into her room anymore, or made squeaking sounds when she walked by, or sent messages that snitches got stitches. But since the night that Brandon Flynn and Tessa Romano snuck up on her on a deserted path, she didn’t sleep well, and constantly looked over her shoulder. She buried her unease by keeping busy. She studied hard, did lots of extracurriculars, got excellent grades and socialized frenetically at meals in the New, as if to convince herself that she had real friends.

  That night, she’d been up late, studying for a French test. When the clock hit one, following a rule she’d made for herself to always get six hours’ sleep before a test, she turned out the lights and got in bed. But she took her laptop with her, and reviewed flash cards online until her eyelids got heavy, and closed.