Fallen (17 page)

“
Me too,”
I
said, interested
.

He kept his eyes downcast, slowly, methodically eating his chips. The only sign that he was listening to me was his nod and an
uncomfortable
“Uh huh…”

“My aunt is a traveling photographer who left me here while she spends the year in
Paris
on a shoot. So
,
I’m staying with a friend of hers. What were you doing in
Las Vegas
?”

“Oh
…
research
…
,
”

“Really? O
n what?”

He drew in a breath and held it
. H
e
looked like he
didn’t
want to answer. I was about to tell him to forget it – knowing how much I didn’t like
it
when others pried
–
but
then
he spoke.

“On the person I was trying to find.”

“The one who is here?”

He nodded, still looking down
and
away.

“Huh, guess you did a good job with your research,” I commented, smiling.

He
stifled a laugh
. “It was more blind luck than anything.” Then
,
he was looking at me, suddenly having overcome his shyness. “What about you? Tell me where you’ve been.
I know you have
better stories to tell than I do.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,”
I replied
. I would have
persisted in trying to
dissuade him
,
but
I saw
his
honest curiosity.
U
ltimately
, I
conceded.

After we changed the subject
,
away from questions about him
and
I began to tell him about my past
,
Gershom
then
became noticeably more relaxed.
Eventually, we moved on to talk about school and who we’d each met so far
. Then
he filled me in on school gossip.

As it turned out,
Ashley and Bridgette were
great
gossipers
,
because they filled Gershom in on nearly everyone
at
school
during his orientation tour
which he
promptly
relayed to me. But there was only one person
who truly interested me
, Achan. Unlike the girls who now swarmed
him
and fawned over him, I wanted to do my best to avoid him. I had never truly been afraid of anyone before crossing paths with him
.
I
deciphered
that
blindly hating
him was a natural re
sponse
to the fear
that consumed me
when he was
close by
.
Gershom didn’t know much about him other than to say, “Looks like another one to avoid.”

I agreed
,
completely.

Unfortunately,
after lunch, when
I walked
into
European History
,
it became clear that avoiding him would be a problem
.

Knowing he was
in t
he room without having to look
was
easy.
The moment I walked through the door, the
electrical sensation
jolted back to life,
but only affected
the back of
my neck
.
I did look, though, unable to control myself
,
I
found him sitting
in the last row of the
class
.
Even though
his eyes weren’t the only ones
focused
on me
,
while
Mr. Morow
hastily
introduced
me, his
were the only ones narrowed with unashamed animosity.
A
quick scan told me there was only one
desk
open
,
and it happened to be two seats in front of Achan.

I sighed, thinking about how
I
would
spend the entire class
wondering if Achan
’s
glare
was focused on
the back of my head.

Mr. Morow shooed me down the aisle
before returning to the white board and launching
into
an overview
of
the
syllabus
.
B
efore I turned to take my seat,
my eyes
connected with Achan’s
. A
cting on instinct, I
narrowed my own to slits
and tried hard
to direct every bit of anger I could muster into the glare I returned.

What happened next surprised me.
It was so brief I nearly missed it
.

Achan
flinched.

His glare loosened and his eyes widened before returning to th
eir former position.
W
hen
he clenched his jaw
,
clear
ly
en
rage
d
by
my blatant
,
unspoken reprisal,
the hair on the back of my neck went wild again. My body responded with a shudder
, which I
easily
hid
by settling into my seat
.

For the next hour, I shuddered uncontrollably every few minutes
.
I
believed this was
also
every time
Achan directed his fury at me
and I
tr
ied
to ignore the
protest
being launched
on the back of my neck
. It was a real struggle. In fact, sometime
toward
the end of class, when Mr. Morow called on me to answer whether I’d covered the same points of his lecture at my previous school, I replied as earnestly as I could.

“
I’m very familiar with European history, sir.”

“Is that so? And don’t call me ‘sir’. I’m not a police officer.”

“Sorry.”

“So, Ms. Tanner
…
is that why you’re paying so little attention in my class.”

“I didn’t realize I was.”

“No, you didn’t realize much at all, did you?” Mr. Morow said
,
taking a seat at the edge of his desk
. He faced
me with a scowl. “If yo
u’re so familiar with European h
istory, Ms. Tanner, why don’t you answer this
for us
…
in 410 A.D., a Germanic tribe sacked
Rome
. It was the first time
Rome
had fallen to an enemy in 800 years. What was the name of that tribe
?”

As if on cue, e
veryone in
the
class shifted in their seats
to get
a better view of
my response
. A few
students
even shook their heads in pity
,
and I wondered if Mr. Morow’s tactic to get students to listen better had been used before.

I
realized
that
I should have simply told him I didn’t know and allowed him to ridicule me. He would have done so with pleasure
,
and the lecture would have continued peaceably
; b
ut
I’d
already
had enough of the teachers,
The Warden
, and the students
mocking
me.

“They were called the Visigoths.”

I glanced around the room
and noticed
every student was facing me, their expressions all the same –
each one in
total
shock.
Mr. Morow released a harrumph
,
and
everyone’s attention
turned
to
him
,
waiting for confirmation
about
my answer
.

He held in his anger
fairly
well. I only saw a slight quiver run up the side of one cheek before he said, “Where did you learn that?”

“I told you. I’m well versed-”

“Where
?
” he demanded
,
a little too forcefully
, which
caus
ed
other
students to turn their heads
.

“I read a lot.”

He laughed through his nose. “We’ll see about that.”