Page 124 of Wicked Little Secret
She rolled her eyes and then started gathering her books. “I don’t have time for this. I’ve told you it’s my choice. I’ll see you later. If you’ll stop ruining our time together.”
I watched on as Josalyn slung her bookbag over her shoulder and strode off until she disappeared among the thick pine trees…
The same pine trees whose branches sway in the afternoon’s wind. I watch from my office window, a mug of Earl Grey in my hand.
Students still wander off into the forest, often late at night for bonfires and hookups, but I’ll always remember the forest for other reasons.
Knuckles tap against my half ajar door. I look over my shoulder, expecting one of the students who received a failing grade on their papers, or the department head, Pamela, seeking me out with a tasking.
In a surprise twist of events, it’s neither of these. Theo enters with her usual caffeinated offering.
Strange, but not entirely unheard of. She’s an apartment manager over one of the town buildings that often houses students from campus. A few times a year, she’s at the university housing office for meetings and other events.
“I didn’t know you were going to be on campus today.”
“I didn’t either until a few hours ago. You available?”
“You wouldn’t be asking unless you hoped I was. Sit.”
We approach my desk from opposite ends. I take my seat behind the desk while Theo claims the visitor chair on the other side. She sets down the white paper bag of baked goods and slides my peppermint mocha from the student union toward me.
“We need to talk, Theron.”
My head cants to the side at her severe expression and tone. I choose biting humor to counterbalance her. “Don’t we do that about every day, sister? It was just yesterday you were calling me about how you got drunk at the Midnight Ale and went home with… what was her name? Emma? Or was it Chloe this time?”
“Shut up, assface. This is about you, not me.” She grabs her coffee cup—presumably her favorite, a cinnamon dolce latte—and takes a sip. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”
I sigh. “If this is about what happened with Dad on my birthday, I’m aware he’s still pissed?—”
“It’s about what you’re doing.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Though she’s hated it her entire life, Theo has always resembled our mother—large, open, amber eyes and bushy hair that pairs with an oval face and slim nose. Right now as I give an answer she doesn’t want to hear, her features sharpen. Her face morphs into our mother’s.
No amount of fringy haircuts and nose rings can change the phenotypic similarities.
“If you’re not going to come clean, then we’ll do it the hard way. What’s this?”
She smacks her palm onto the smooth wooden surface of my desk. I’m half a breath away from making another wisecrack when my gaze drops to a set of polaroids that are trapped under her hand. She slides them across the desk toward me.
I take the top one between my fingers for a closer look.
It’s a candid photograph of Nyssa and myself, seated in the front row of my BMW. The photo was snapped duringconversation as we sit parked against the curb of her apartment building.
I recognize the night immediately—the very first time I’d given her a ride.
Nyssa had been stranded outside Samson’s place and I’dhappenedby.
My right brow arches. I pin Theo with an unimpressed stare. “This is nothing more than me giving a stranded student a ride home. Is there a problem with that? Was I supposed to let her walk home late at night?”
Theo yanks the photo out of my grasp, then replaces it with another. “And this? What thefuckis this?”
The second photograph, unsurprisingly, features me in a baseball cap and shades… as I head into Nyssa’s apartment building.
The same building Theo manages.
A cold sweat breaks out onto my skin. I stare at the photo, trying to maintain my poker face while simultaneously thinking up an excuse.