Professor next Door Read online

  I spent a good twenty minutes calling myself every kind of bastard, fool, and selfish prick I could think of. I’d needed to vent, to get out my anger, and like an idiot I’d run off without telling anyone where I was headed.

  With a new burst of courage, I pushed with my good leg, clawing at the ground. Sticks and rocks tore at my skin, but I ignored them. I didn’t want Tara to think for a minute that I’d abandoned her. I’d get myself out of this if it took me all night!

  I ignored the twin shafts of pain in my head and in my ankle, and continued on, my jaw clenched as I tried to push past it all. Tara needed me, Rikki needed me. It was my mantra as I came to the stream I’d crossed hours earlier. Fuck me sideways on a bucking donkey!

  I looked around, my hopes that a spot was less rocky, or more shallow quickly dashed. It wasn’t deep, only enough to cover me maybe, I’d managed to cross it by jumping over rocks earlier, but in my current condition, I was definitely going for a swim. I just hoped it didn’t make my head wound bleed again.

  With a deep breath, I pushed my torso into the water, shock making me screech. Fuck, it was cold, so cold! I couldn’t stop now, so I thrust myself in, relieved when I found I could swim across the shallow depths. I pulled myself out on the other side, shaking the water from my body as much as I could, hating the way dirt and dead leaves clung to me.

  Tara. Rikki. My mantra shortened but continued.

  With each pull of my hands, with each kick of my leg, I repeated their names, over and over. I stopped a few times, needing to rest as nausea and pain made my head spin, but I kept going, my need to be at home with them outweighing the need for rest.

  I closed my eyes, caught my breath for a few minutes, and started all over again. There wasn’t far to go, I was almost at the car. The grating scrape of asphalt in the parking lot tore at my skin as I kicked with my foot, unaware my hands left a bloody trail as I tried to pull myself forward. My right leg was good, I could drive. Drive to Tara and Rikki. Almost there, almost there.

  The world spun out of focus, and I had to stop again just as I reached the door of the car. I managed to get myself under control and not puke my guts up so I rolled over and pushed myself up far enough to pull the door open. That’s when I remembered I had to unlock it first. My hands felt wet as I dug around in my pockets but I ignored that too as my fingers found the fob. I hit the button and the door unlocked.

  For a minute I had visions of nothing happening and being locked out of my car all night. I looked up into the interior of the car and wondered how the fuck I was going to scream my way into the seat. Should I even drive? I had to, what else was I going to do? My phone was in pieces, I’d just dragged myself out of the forest, and my only option was to drive home.

  I pushed up, screaming in the darkness as my ankle ground against bone, the sensation not alleviating my need to throw up. It was sickening but it passed as I settled into the seat, the pain quieted down to a nice throbbing ‘fuck you, Galen’. I reached unsteadily for the ignition and slipped the key in after several attempts. Okay, I’d made it this far, is this the part where the car won’t start? I wondered, and closed my eyes as I turned the key.

  The car started!

  I sighed with relief and rolled the window down gratefully, letting in fresh air. This was going to be a long drive home.

  I glanced over at the clock and saw it was now past one in the morning. How the hell had that happened?

  24. Tara

  I stared out into the darkness, a glass of wine in my hand. Amanda and John talked quietly behind me. The visitor had been and gone, a tidal wave that soaked our world in tears and blew us away with a tornado of words.

  “I lied. I needed the money, so I lied. Where’s Galen? I have to speak to him, I have to take it back. I want to make it right!” She’d pushed me past the door, a tall woman in heels, without a care of who I was or why I was standing in his doorway.

  “Sarah, he’s not here. My husband is not home. What do you mean you lied?”

  She was looking around the house, her gaze passing over Rikki as if she didn’t exist, the same as it passed over me. It irked me, not that she’d looked through me but that she’d looked through Rikki.

  I took an offensive stance; my arms crossed over my chest, my left eyebrow rose in a way I hoped screamed “who the fuck are you”?

  “What do you mean he’s not here? It’s after five, he should be home by now!” She said it as if she knew his schedule well enough to know he never deviated from it.

  I glared at her as John and Amanda came to stand on each side of me.

  “That’s none of your business, and if you’re going to continue to be so rude, you can leave, please. There’s the door.” I waved at it casually, not letting my irritation come through in my voice. I said it quite pleasantly.

  “Rude? Stupid woman.” She looked around again, a sound of disapproval coming from her as she dismissed me once again. “Why isn’t he here?”

  “Sarah, that’s about all I’m going to take. Now, you can leave or I’ll call the police.” She had ruined Galen, or tried to, and now she was in our home. Calling me stupid was a mistake too. I was far from stupid. Naive maybe, but never stupid.

  “That won’t be necessary, Tara. I’ll see her out.” John took Sarah by the elbow, her obvious agitation increased, and she looked at him as if he’d appeared out of thin air.

  “Where is Galen? Is he hiding from me? Where is he? I have to fix this!”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and I’ll tell Galen when he comes home?” John offered as he went out on the front porch with the mixed up young woman.

  “I needed the money. My father cut off my credit cards when he found out I was having an affair with a professor. I had to get new books for school and pay rent. So I took the money they offered.” She sank into a chair, her head at an angle that said she was trying to be defiant but she didn’t look like she was managing it well. “Daddy was tired of my fascination with professors. He told me if I liked them so much they could pay for my education.”

  “It doesn’t sound like your father is a very reasonable man.” John was good at putting people at ease; Sarah settled right down and started to chat as if she and John had been best friends for ages.

  “No, he’s not. He kept going on about our good name and how I was going to ruin it.”

  Her perfectly smoky eyeshadow brought out the beautiful blue eyes that were now rolling so hard I thought they’d fall out of her head. Her manicured nails waved in circles, as if it was her father that had gone loopy and not her.

  “He doesn’t understand the pressures of med school, you see? How hard it is, and how, well, sometimes you have to blow off some steam don’t you? I bet you know a thing or two about that.”

  I felt Amanda bristle behind me as a manicured finger came up to stroke John’s perfectly maintained beard. He was in the chair beside her, the pair facing each other. I heard Amanda hiss from behind me and turned to her. I gave her a ‘shut the fuck up’ look and turned back to listen to them with my phone’s camera recording it all, just in case something more was said that needed recording.

  “I do, but that doesn’t explain what you mean when you say you lied, Sarah. What did you lie about?”

  “About Galen of course!” She looked at John as if she expected him to know the whole sordid mess. “Kayla’s parents needed something dirty on Galen and somehow they found me. They told me they’d pay the rest of my school fees if the information I had on him was good enough. I fought with myself about it, but as the date to register for my next classes neared, I gave in.”

  She started to sob then and I wanted to go out there and give her something to cry about! She’d lied! I knew she had! I left the camera running and waited, letting her have her moment of self-pity. She was here to ease her own conscience, not to right a wrong.

  “I wish Galen was here so I could talk to him! He deserves to know!”

  More like you want to try to curl him
around your finger, you evil cow! I thought.

  “He’s not here, Sarah. Have you thought about trying to find Galen’s lawyer?”

  You’re a good man, John, a very good man, I thought. Even if you are a hipster!

  “You know, that might be a good idea.” She tapped a nail on the arm of the chair as she thought and I wondered how painful it would be to punch her in the face. Would I break my natural nails? “Our affair ended before Galen even met Kayla. It’s the only way to make this right, you know?”

  “It is. Let me ask Tara what the lawyer’s number is we’ll call him from here shall we?” John stood, heading in my direction, but Sarah stopped him.

  “Who’s Tara?” She sounded as if she really had no idea who I was!

  “Galen’s wife, Sarah.” John spoke far more gently than I would have.

  “Oh, the mouse. Well, if she must be involved.” Her face looked as if it was melting and being eaten at the same time.

  I hated her.

  “Yes, she must. It’s her life too, you know. And Rikki’s, his daughter.”

  “Is that who the little girl was? I thought she might be the maid’s daughter.” Sarah gave another careless wave.

  “What maid?”

  “That blond one in there.” Her chin pointed in the direction of the house.

  “Amanda? She’s not the... sheesh!” Even John was starting to lose his patience with her.

  I had an arm across Amanda’s chest, holding her back.

  “Girl, we can get our country on later. Right now, we have to stay calm. For Galen,” I whispered to Amanda, her angry eyes drilled into mine.

  “For Galen, but it’s killing me,” Amanda all but hissed back at me.

  “Shh, stay calm.”

  I texted John the number and he went out to make the call. Five minutes later he came back into the house and closed the door.

  “I’m going to take her over to Bill’s office, he’s going to meet us there. You two stay here and wait for Galen. Do not leave, alright? I don’t need another one of you missing right now!”

  I gave him a sweet smile but Amanda shot him a rather baleful glance. I couldn’t help but laugh, my own hysteria starting to overcome my self-control. She was going to admit to the lawyer that she’d lied! This would have to be the end of it all, surely!

  John hopped in his truck, Sarah following behind him in some kind of tiny sports car. I sank against the closed door and stared at Amanda.

  “It has to be over now, right?”

  “I doubt it will be for her, but for Galen it has to be!” For the first time in my life I stood up and I danced around, hugging my best friend, cheering loudly.

  Poor little Rikki was afraid and came running to find out what was wrong with me. I scooped her up and cuddled her close, kissing her little neck with glee. She started giggling immediately and we all went into the living room to sink onto the couch.

  “I wish he’d just come home now.”

  “He’ll be back soon, I’m sure of it.” Amanda sounded far more positive than I felt.

  That had been hours ago. I watched and waited for his return. Where was he?

  25. Galen

  The car’s clock read 03:33 when I pulled into the driveway, exhausted, sick, and filthy. I’d had to stop a few times to let the bouts of dizziness pass, but I was home now. I should probably go to the hospital but there was no part of me that wanted to be there. Every part of me wanted to be with Rikki and Tara.

  The door to the house opened just as I pushed the car door closed. Tara, Amanda, and John came running out of the house to bombard me with questions. I didn’t answer, I just looked behind them to make sure my little girl wasn’t coming along behind them. I didn’t want her to see her daddy as fucked up as I surely was.

  “Look, I know everybody’s probably freaked out…”

  How could talking hurt so bad, I wondered for a moment, stumbling back against the car. “I need, I think I need to go to the hospital.”

  John caught me just as I slumped against the car, his arms strong enough to hold me up. I looked up at him, feeling as if my eyes were rolling around in my head like kicked marbles.

  “Are you drunk, Galen? What the hell is wrong with you?” He pulled me over into the light, staring down at me in horror as he saw the blood. “Call nine-one-one, Tara. Now.”

  I couldn’t see myself, I had no idea what I looked like, but it must have been bad. John looked like he was about to lose his best friend. That’s encouraging!

  “What? What’s wrong with him?” Tara had stood in the darkness, letting John care for me, but now she pushed forward, staring at me with a clinical calmness that was far more soothing that John’s burgeoning panic. “Get him inside. Amanda, make the call please.”

  I felt the earth fall out from under my feet and then I was on the couch in the living room. The world had gone black for a moment, but when I opened my eyes Tara was there with a bowl of water, a washcloth, and tender hands that started to wash away the dirt and leaves on my skin.

  “What happened to you, Galen?” she asked softly, her hand pressing a clean towel to the back of my head.

  “I fell, in the park. I...”

  The world went dark again and it didn’t come back until two people in what looked like some kind of military uniforms plunked me down on a stretcher and started to push me out of the house.

  “We’ll be there, right behind you,” Tara called out as the doors to the ambulance closed and the female paramedic came at me with an IV. The last thing I heard was the wail of the siren. I tried to tell them not to wake Rikki, but I fell into the pitch black once more.

  26. Tara

  “What’s happened to him? Did you see his head?” I looked over at John and saw how worried he was. It didn’t make me feel any calmer.

  “He said he fell in the park, it’s hard to tell which one. Judging from the way he looked, it was a pretty good tumble.” John’s knuckles showed white on the steering wheel and his voice was strained but he drove calmly, carefully looking around for obstacles and other vehicles.

  I decided it was best to stay quiet, let him keep his calm even if I was screaming inside. I’d seen the laceration in his head. A paper cut is a laceration, a knife wound is a laceration. Galen’s skull showing through his scalp was a laceration. How had he driven home like that?

  I had my own panic clamped down somewhere inside, and it helped me stay calm. But inside my head I was in tears, worry for Galen washing over me in sickening waves. What if something had happened to him? Before I could even tell him I loved him? I’d tell him once I saw him, I promised myself.

  John got us to the hospital and before I knew it, we were settled in a waiting room with squeaky clean floors and a lady dressed in white wiping down seats with sanitizing cloths. I sank into one and began the waiting room game of staring up at a television game show I cared nothing about.

  We’d stared like zombies through the show, and then two more before I realized we were watching some game show channel. I suppose it keeps people quiet and calm. I couldn’t help the way my foot tapped, betraying my anxiety, or stop the way I chewed at the knuckle of my thumb. There’d been no word and it had been almost two hours!

  Finally, just as the sun was starting to tinge the sky a lighter shade of black through the double doors of the emergency entrance, a doctor called my name.

  John and I both stood, but he let me speak first.

  “Yes, I’m Tara Elliot. How is he?” My voice betrayed my worry, and the glimmer of hope the sight of the doctor brought me.

  “He’s lost some blood, his ankle is going to need surgery at some point but can wait, and that head wound.” The doctor stopped speaking and gathered his thoughts before he spoke again. “Galen has a very shallow linear skull fracture and will be in the hospital for quite a few days. We need to find out if he’s leaking spinal fluid and watch him for swelling. We have a surgeon down now, taking a look at the MRI and his x-rays, trying to decide if surger
y is necessary. I don’t think so but his opinion is the one that counts.”

  “Can we see him?” John asked, his voice calm and collected. He took my hand, almost absently, and I think in that moment he did it because he needed the comfort, not me.

  He really did love Galen!

  “You may for a few minutes but we’ve put him in the ICU, so not for long. Mrs. Elliot, talk to him. He’s unconscious at the moment, but talk to him. We’ve found that helps patients quite a lot. Do you have any other questions?”

  “Is he going to be alright?” It was the only question I wanted answered.

  For a moment the doctor looked uncertain, but I think he was just trying to decide how to word his response. He was a cautious man, I could see that. Probably had to be.

  “Galen has been through a lot. He has lacerations to his face, his neck, his stomach, legs, and hands. I’m worried about his head wound the most, but I’m optimistic. It’s just going to take some time and we’d like to keep him here to keep an eye on him.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, he’s not leaving this place until you say he’s a hundred percent!” That came from John and I nodded in agreement.

  “Good. Follow me, please and I’ll take you to him.” The man beckoned us as he turned away.

  We walked through several halls until we came to Galen’s room in a very quiet ward full of beeping and other whirring noises. The people around a desk all spoke quietly together, all obviously talking about patient care. I watched them as we walked by, confident that they would take good care of Galen.

  I knew I was simply trying to distract myself from fear. The fear of what Galen was going to look like, trying to take it all in. Fractures, lacerations, something with his ankle that the doctor hadn’t even gone into detail about. Was Galen going to look like a little boy in a huge bed? How much would my heart break?

  We followed the doctor in, my hand still clasped in John’s.

  Galen’s head was covered in bandages, both of his eyes were back and swollen, his face was covered in scratches, and his arms were covered in gauze bandages. The only tubing I could see was an IV in his left arm, the rest of his body was covered in a blanket.