“It looks like a parade threw up in here,” Ryan said, beaming. He hobbled over to his desk chair and fel into it, visibly spent.
We sat and talked, and then Beth, Chad and Tucker left for class. Thirty minutes later, Kim and Josh had classes of their own to go to.
“What did you do to your hand?” Ryan asked, staring at my messily bandaged palm.
“I sliced it on the air vent in my room,” I shrugged.
“Ouch. Are you al caught up on your tetanus shots?”
I nodded. “I’l come by later, okay? We have a lot of work to do.”
“You have class?” he asked, disappointed.
“I’ve had class for the last two hours, Ryan,” I grinned.
“Thanks for today. Maybe we could do this every month.”
“Okay, but I’m not volunteering to get stabbed next time. Or ever.” I hugged him and an awkward pause fol owed when I pul ed away. “You take it easy. I’l come over later and we can study.”
Ryan watched me with a soft expression as I walked to the door. “See you later, Nigh.”
I pul ed his door closed and let out a gust of air. I couldn’t be sure if it was guilt or the look in Ryan’s eyes after I’d hugged him, but everything felt different when we were alone. I forgot about angels and demons and feeling unwanted. In Ryan’s presence, life was normal.
Soon after class began, my thoughts zeroed in on Jared. I clenched my eyes shut when I thought about the night before. I had probably relieved him of any regret he might have felt after my antics. The professor’s voice blurred into the background, and I took shal ow breaths to keep the tears from forming; it was embarrassing enough that everyone peered over their shoulders at me every day as if I’d gone crazy, the last thing I needed was to break down in class.
In the solitude of my room, I let the tears flow. I was glad that Jared couldn’t hear me. I had become a blubbering, pathetic mess. My eyes drifted to the vent to see that the cover was securely fastened to the ceiling. My eyebrows pressed inward. I was too exhausted the night before to replace it.
Scrambling to the floor, I lifted my comforter to peer under the bed where I had hidden the frayed carcass of the wire. I gritted my teeth seeing that the only thing under my bed was a lone sock surrounded by a herd of dust bunnies.
Jared or Claire had come into my room while I was gone and replaced the mic. I looked to the ceiling, bal ing my hands into fists at my sides. “Stay out of my room!”
The screwdriver was missing from the top drawer of my dresser as wel . I had left it there for safe keeping until I could replace the vent cover. I burst into the hal way, letting the door crack against the wal . Anger fueled my march to the RA’s room and I pounded on her door.
She opened it with the same impassive look on her face as before. “Yeah?”
I sighed. “Dara! Oh good, you’re here. Um, I seemed to have lost your screwdriver. Do you think I could borrow another one? And, I need a bigger one this time.”
“You lost one of my screwdrivers and you want to borrow another one?”
“Yes,” I said, more of a question than an answer.
“Hold on,” she sighed, leaving for a moment. She returned with a larger screwdriver in hand.
Running back to my room, I pushed Beth’s chair under the vent. The new screwdriver was a better fit, and I had the screws out in record time. I reached up again and stood on my tip toes, finding the familiar smal plastic object without effort. An exact replica of the first mic came down in the first tug.
I climbed down and pul ed on the wire until it quivered with tension. With one swift yank, the wire dislodged from the vent and dropped to the floor. A strange sense of accomplishment came over me; I had perfected the art of ripping out surveil ance wires.
With a smug smile, I looped the thin, mangled wire into a tight circle. “I’m not a zoo animal,” I whispered.
The door pulsed as someone banged on it from the other side. I twisted the knob, hoping for a scolding from Jared, but instead I found Claire standing in front of me with a murderous expression.
A lump lodged in my throat as she shouldered past me. In one lithe movement, she climbed onto Beth’s chair and reached up into the duct. It took her longer to get the new wire instal ed than it had taken me to rip the old one out, but she replaced the vent quicker than I had removed it.
She walked to the door and stopped to look at the wire in my hands. Her hand blurred as she snatched it from me.
“If you do it again,” she eyed the vent and then whispered in my ear, “I’l rip out your tongue.”
My tongue curled up inside my mouth as I tried to swal ow. Claire leaned back to offer a disturbing sweet smile, and then left. I shut my door behind her and locked it, wrapping my arms around my middle. She terrified me.
The thought of Jared hearing my every movement made tears trickle from my eyes and down my cheeks. “I can’t do this,” I whispered. The sudden need to distance myself from that microphone became urgent, and I grabbed my coat and keys. If I was going to have any type of normalcy again, I would have to convince Cynthia.
“Mom?” I cal ed, walking into the dining room.
“In the kitchen, Dear,” Cynthia cal ed.
I watched her expression change to concern when she saw my puffy, wet eyes.
“What happened to your hand, Nina?” she said, noticing the make-shift wrap around my palm.
“I want you to talk to Jared, Mother.”
Her concern vanished and she returned to preparing her lunch. “I’m sorry, Nina. I can’t do that.”
“Then let me have my privacy.”
Cynthia seemed a bit uncomfortable with the topic, but she was never one to be intimidated. “That is between Jared and your father.”
“Daddy’s not here.”
She ignored me. “Jared and I talked for a very long time. If it helps, he argued with me at first. He was quite determined. But when I reminded him how hard it is for his mother, and how hard it wil be for you, he couldn’t deny doing what is best for you. This is the easy part. You can’t begin to imagine how hard your life wil be if you continue this ridiculous—”
“You have to try. You owe it to me to try,” I begged.
She clicked her tongue. “He won’t listen to me now, Nina. There are some things that you just can’t take back. Once you’ve made your case, you can’t argue the other side.”
“Mother….” I pursed my lips, but it was no use. The tears fel from my eyes.
“I warned him that if he continued a relationship with you, I would be forced to fire him.”
“You what?”
“Carrying on a relationship with him could get in the way of—”
“You know he’s the only one that can keep me safe! You’re wil ing to risk my life to prove a point?”
“Of course not! Your father insisted that Jared stay away from you, Nina. You’re just going to have to forget him!”
“Mother, I love him!”
Cynthia’s eyes widened at my words. After a short pause, she shook her head dismissively. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
I could barely form a whisper. “Look at me.” I let my shoulders hang in defeat. “Does this look like just a crush to you? I’m in love with him.”
“Then stop. This is not what your father wanted for you. Did Jared tel you that? That he was forbidden to get involved with you? I won’t help you go against your father’s wishes.”