Page 25 of Wicked Little Secret
A real handful.
He doesn’t do it, possibly because he knows she’d slap his hand away. But his temptation is palpable enough that I deem it provocation.
His desire to is problematic enough.
Mr. Doucheface has college date rape written all over him. The fact that rumors have swirled around him and his jock friends for a while now only strengthens my suspicions. Does Nyssa know what she’s doing being involved with him?
He opens the passenger’s side door for her to climb in. Once she’s crawled inside, he slams it shut and trots back toward the driver’s side. His obscenely large pickup lurches forward with rubber squealing against the slippery asphalt.
I stay put, still half a block down, stopped in the middle of the street like an imbecile. I’m not sure why other than it’s my brain’s way of processing what I’ve just witnessed.
A bright, promising student and gifted artist like Nyssa Oliver shouldn’t be anywhere near the meathead oaf she’s attached herself to. If they’re truly together, why would he let her walk halfway home in the rain? Shouldn’t he have picked her up from the get-go, once the festival was over?
I’m no award-winning-quality boyfriend by any stretch of the imagination—and I’m sure Veronica has a long list of complaints—but I’d never let my girlfriend walk home alone so late in the evening.
Much less in the rain.
My fingers drum against the steering wheel, on the cusp of another turning point. Another pivotal fork in the metaphorical road. Theliteralroad ahead of me.
Both options come into focus amid the blurry,raindrop-speckled car windows. The taillights of Wicker’s pickup truck shrink farther down the road. Behind me is the path home.
Atticus is probably waiting by the door with his favorite tennis ball, tail wagging nonstop.
The book I started is still sitting on the seat of my armchair by the window where I left it. Theo had called me complaining about leaving her. I had leaped up to grab the keys.
It’s dark out and the rain won’t be stopping anytime soon. Any other Sunday evening I’d be content at home with my books, my dog, my solitude. I detested the times Veronica would try to drag me out to some concert or social event. She complained I was about as interesting as a senior citizen in a retirement home.
But as Wicker’s truck slips out of view, I decide for the second time tonight to go against my usual routine.
My foot presses down on the gas. My BMW jolts forward in Nyssa and the meathead’s wake.
The moment warps like it had earlier, where I’d made a snap decision to swing out of my driveway and seek Nyssa out on the rain-soaked streets. Pulse beating in my ears, I’d searched the streets with eagle eyes.
Now, I’m speeding like a madman. I’m gripping the wheel and rushing through a light that blinks from yellow to red. I’m at one end of the next block while Wicker is at the other. So long as I keep him within my sight, it’s good.
I’ll know where he’s headed.
Where is he taking you, Miss Oliver? Is he driving you home? Or… somewhere else?
A wise philosopher once said curiosity is the lust of the mind. There is no harm so long as its pursuit servessome benefit.
I rationalize that there is.
Sure, there’s a chance following your student and her boyfriend late on a rainy evening wasn’t what Thomas Hobbes had in mind, but I prefer to think liberties are allowed.
All I need to do is make sure he drops her off at home, safe and sound. No frat boy antics. No douchebag tricks. Nothing harmful or dangerous in any way.
ThenI’ll head home.
Since when do you care about what your students do in their off time?
My inner critic hisses at me like I’m a petulant child. Rightfully so, all things considered.
“Since I heard him laughing about bedding her. Since I witnessed what that meathead is like and how he treats her,” I answer myself aloud. “I might be hands off with my students, but I’m still a professor. I have a code of ethics to abide by. A moral obligation if I believe something’s amiss. Something nefarious might happen. And I do—he has permanent doucheface!”
I end my tangent with a triumphant nod of my head, as though I’ve perfectly illustrated my point.
My secret pursuit carries on for another handful of miles. As a row of apartment buildings emerge, the pickup truck slows down and pulls over. Both Nyssa and the jock step out, with him glancing at the street.