‘My mum’s like that. “An unpredictable, destructive force,” my dad says.’
‘Are you close to her?’
She laughed.
‘Did I say something funny?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did you laugh?’
‘Why did you ask?’ She ran her fingers through her hair and entwined several strands around one of them. ‘You ask a lot of questions, Ryan.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘Sorry, I mean Mr Smith.’
‘It’s my job to ask questions. To help you.’
‘I bet you don’t spend this much time with the other students asking them questions.’
‘They don’t worry me as much as you do.’
‘So you worry about me?’ She tilted her head, and the sun coming in through the window illuminated her strawberry blonde hair and her grey eyes. Suddenly, beyond all her bluster, I saw her as the child she was. My heart sank at what Laura had reduced me to doing.
‘All my students worry me,’ I replied.
‘Okay.’ She nodded, then picked up her schoolbag and made her way towards the door. But she didn’t leave without turning around to smile at me.
By the time my second meeting with her dad came around, I had Effie exactly where I wanted her. And when I heard Laura outside the office, it was all I could do to stop myself from dropping an imaginary mic and yelling ‘Boom!’
On realising who I was, Laura tried her best not to react. Her face froze, as if she’d become trapped in ice, but it was her eyes that gave her away. As adrenaline made her heart race to get oxygen to her muscles, her brain was working in overdrive. I couldn’t see any of this, but her pupils gave her away. They’d dilated to allow the maximum amount of light in at the back of her eyes to make her aware of everything that was going on around her.
It was a classic fight-or-flight reaction. Although with her husband next to her, she could do neither.
CHAPTER FIVE
LAURA
It took every ounce of my inner strength to prevent my body from reacting in any way to Ryan as he took a seat next to my husband.
I begged my face not to redden or my hands to start shaking. I didn’t want to show any signs of weakness. Inside, I couldn’t stop my pulse from breaking new speed records. I knew my eyes were open wide but I couldn’t take them off him, not even for a second.
Maybe I was wrong; maybe I was imagining this. Perhaps my brain was playing tricks on me again, like all those so-called experts told me it did. Perhaps I was only seeing and hearing what I wanted to hear. I stared at him so intently my eyes hurt.
‘How are Effie’s grades?’ Tony began. ‘Have they seen any improvement?’
‘I’m afraid there’s not been much difference on that front,’ Ryan replied. ‘She’s maintaining steady Cs in English and art, but in history, sociology and geography, her marks are quite erratic.’
Yes, it was Steven. I was one hundred per cent sure of that. Steven, Ryan, Steven . . . it didn’t matter what he called himself. It was still him.
Four months after I should have witnessed his body swinging from the rafters of his bedroom, there he was, smiling at Tony as if he didn’t have a care in the world. This was not a coincidence, I was certain of that. He’d been lying low, biding his time and waiting for the right moment. Now I understood why I’d suddenly started receiving school emails about Effie. Ryan had wanted me here and I’d handed myself to him on a plate. It was the second time I’d let down my guard and he’d taken advantage.
He’d convinced Tony he had a genuine interest in Effie’s well-being. But both he and I knew he was playing a game. What was it? And why involve my daughter?
Now I could see him in daylight and not the gloom of his bedroom, he was an unassuming, boy-next-door type. His eyes were a deep brown but the whites that surrounded them were pinkish, like he wasn’t getting enough sleep. His dark blond temples were flecked with grey and his skin was pale. It was as if he’d remained boyish well into his twenties but now circumstances had forced him into adulthood and his body was only just starting to catch up.
Half of me wanted to claw at Ryan’s face with my nails like an animal, while the other half wanted to run a mile and pretend none of this was happening. Instead, I remained glued to my chair, unable to move an inch.
‘It’s like she no longer cares how she does,’ Ryan continued. ‘How have you found her behaviour at home, Mr Morris?’ The concern in his voice sounded staged and it didn’t match his expression. It was as if he were trying his best not to laugh.
Tony used words like ‘quiet’ and ‘insular’ to describe Effie, but to my ears it was like he was talking about another girl. It wasn’t the daughter I knew, the girl I had loved as best I could. Had I allowed too much distance to come between us?
Suddenly Ryan turned to me. Chills ran through me. ‘Have you considered there might be other issues that Effie might be facing, Mrs Morris?’
I opened my mouth but little came out, so I cleared my dry throat. ‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know, I’m not a therapist, but there can be many psychological issues that influence the way a teenage girl behaves these days. She’s mentioned to me the other girls in her class have bullied her because of her weight.’
‘Her weight?’ Tony replied defensively. ‘She’s not fat!’
‘No, I’m not saying for one minute that she is. But if she thinks she might be, and if she hears it enough from other girls, then it might influence her thinking. Eating disorders and self-confidence problems are so common, and more than one in three teenage girls suffer from anxiety and mental health issues.’ I watched as Ryan’s fists clenched ever-so-slightly and he shifted his eyes towards mine. ‘There’s a reason they call depression a silent killer.’
I didn’t know what he was insinuating, but whatever it was between us, it was definitely personal.
‘My daughter isn’t an anorexic nor is she depressed,’ Tony replied.
‘Hormones and chemical changes in their brains can give them feelings of inadequacy, loss of interest in their surroundings, their work and their friends,’ Ryan continued like he was reading from a book. ‘They become trapped in cycles of self-pity. It’s my job as her teacher to make you aware of this and to be there for her in whatever capacity she wants me to be.’
‘Cycles of self-pity’? ‘Whatever capacity she wants me . . .’? He’s using my own words from our conversations against me!
‘Look, I might be wrong,’ he added. ‘All I’m saying is that when it comes to people, no matter how much you think you know them, you can never predict what goes on in their heads, even your own kids. They can be influenced to do things they shouldn’t by the unlikeliest of people. People who kids think they can trust can talk them into actions that have a catastrophic effect on their future. Do you know what I mean, Mrs Morris?’
I didn’t, but I knew he was directing his words at me. He’d said something to Effie, but what?
‘And you think that she’s susceptible to this kind of manipulation?’ Tony asked.
‘You might be surprised at what Effie is capable of.’
‘Like what?’ I asked.
Ryan was talking in riddles and waiting for me to figure out what he meant.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘All I can tell you is that when I left her at lunchtime, she wasn’t herself. She seemed quite distressed, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was about. I made her promise to talk to you, Mrs Morris, when she got home.’