The Mirrors of Fate (21 page)

“
Yes sir, I agree with all that,” she said, “however, that doesn’t mean—”

“
Please, I beg you, don’t patronize me. You’re not listening to me. When I looked into the face of that boy yesterday, I didn’t see the
Alan
I saw on the first day he came. His face, especially his eyes,
looked
like my old student. And...there was one thing that struck me. No, actually two things. M-My hair stood on end, I’m telling you, my heart literally froze in my chest. He called me ‘Mr. L.’ Only my old students used that.”

“
Sir, you said that already.”

His face paled.

“
Sir, it’s perfectly logical anyone could abbreviate your name and come up with—”

“
No one would call me that
now,
Maria. Out of respect for my relationship with that dead young man, no one uses that. Not after they knew it bothered me to hear it.”

“
But how is a new student supposed to know about the past? He just called you Mr. L because it’s a reasonable pet name deriving from your own name. Don’t you see what I’m trying to say?”

His mouth opened to give another rebuttal, but slowly his face became grim when he realized he wasn’t making any logical sense. Maria stared into his face, overcome herself by the emotion overwhelming him. As much as he tried to hold back the tears, his eyelashes became soaked.

“
I know I sound like an idiot, but I need you to hear me out. I didn’t tell the police this, but when Alan called me by that name, he said something else. He told me he was sorry. He wanted me to know his apology was sincere. As if he wanted me to know
who
he was. Maria, I tried to sleep this off, believe me I tried, but I couldn’t.”

What he was implying was impossible, but there was no shaking his faith on what he had concluded. She, however, refused to acknowledge out loud what he believed. Such a thing wasn’t possible. Alan couldn’t be the same person.

“
I’m sorry,” Mr. Lohan said. He sucked in breath through his teeth. “Now you understand why I couldn’t tell the police. They’d think I was crazy to compare him to a goddamned dead boy.” He laid his head on the pillow, looked up to the ceiling and sighed. “Maybe it’s just being here that’s making me crazy.” He rubbed his eyes, smirking humorously. “This damn hospital is more like a mental asylum. I’ve never seen so much white in my life. Thank God I’m leaving here this afternoon.”

And it was time for her to leave as well. She could get nothing else from him now, and he had given her more information than she had wanted. Maria stood up.

“
Thanks for everything, Mr. Lohan. I better be going.”

“
I gave the girl the spooks and now she wants to leave me alone in this godforsaken hospital. No bastard can get sleep in here.”

She playfully put a finger to her lips. “Hmm, I quite accurately remember you saying when I came in here that you slept well through the night.”

He grinned. “It’s not very manly to complain, nor is it very manly to sit here and cry over the past.”

She looked at him benevolently. “Mr. Lohan, come on. Stop now.”

“
You know this place gives me the creeps? I don’t know how people stay in here. At night I could swear there was something watching me the whole night.”

“
It was God, sir,” she told him with a warm smile. “Anyways, my parents think I’m at home and I’m sure they’ve been calling the house every five minutes.”

“
You better head back then and answer those calls. I’ll be fine. I don’t know what kind of magical meds they have here, but compared to yesterday I’m feeling a helluva lot better. In fact, this may sound a little strange, but I’m glad he hit me the way he did. Any harder and I would’ve dealt with something ruptured. He hit me just the wrong way.”

Maria smiled again, leaned over, and gave him a parting kiss on the cheek. She gathered her sweater and went to the door.

“
Oh Maria, do you still want to discuss Bankman University this Saturday?”

“
Not this Saturday,” she said. “I just want to rest for a while. Let’s change it to next week Sat—” Oh wait, next week Saturday was the thirtieth...and her meeting with Louie Singh. “Let’s make it next week Friday, sir.”

“
All right then,” he agreed with a happy nod.

Maria opened the door but suddenly halted in her actions. “Hey sir...Can I ask you something?”

“
Of course.”

“
What’s the name of that old student of yours?”

“
Why? I thought you weren’t interested in my little sob story.”

She had no answer for him. “I just...want to know all of a sudden. Even a first name. I don’t really care.”

“
Ah. Well, his name was David.”

“
David
,” she muttered under her breath. “All right then. Goodbye Mr. Lohan.” She headed out the door.

Maria looked down the hospital corridor and saw the lobby waiting beyond. The entrance/exit door at the end called to her from far away, but the white walls on either side of her already had something else to say about her departure.

If she stared too long it would start. Just go.

But her feet did not move. Without looking directly at them, she started to sense the white walls drawing in on her, making the distance to the exit seem longer and narrower.
A wisp of wind by her ear reminded her, but she forgot by closing her eyes and setting her mind against the mental nails. They tried scraping against the flesh of her mind when the trembling started. The hallway shouldn’t have been cold. Why was her skin getting cold?

So just go for the door!

She started on a straight path for the door. Her pace quickened with every few feet. A silent battle ensued to keep her heart away from a frantic tom-tom beat. Anxiously her feet moved in mechanical fashion, taking her closer and faster to the exit. She ignored those in the lobby waiting area, not daring to look in their faces and stall her time. She was about to step out—

“
Hey, wait a minute there!”

Maria jerked to a stop and looked toward the front desk where the same elderly nurse sat who showed her to Mr. Lohan’s room.

“
You have to sign out before you leave. Hospital policy,” the nurse said.

People watched Maria’s delayed reaction of going over to her. The elderly nurse handed her a pen and strangely observed her as she quickly started writing up the departure slip.

“
I meant to ask you this when you first came in,” the nurse began, “but have you been here before?”

Maria froze. The pen stilled in her hand. “Why do you ask?”

The woman smiled politely. “You were either a patient here or a visitor. Which one was it? I remember your face. I definitely remember your face.”

“
A...visitor,” she mumbled then pursed her lips together. She quickly finished writing up the paper and headed out. The woman called to her, but Maria kept on going, out through the big doors, then out into the parking lot and to her white SUV.

She shut the door. Her heavy panicked gasping for air replaced the silence in the vehicle.
You’re safe now
, she assured herself.
You’re safe now
. She didn’t have an explanation. She didn’t know why her heart raced, why her pulse quickened, or why her nerves went haywire whenever she set foot inside there.

Something about White Crest City Hospital made her more than uncomfortable. Something scared her. Even yesterday when Maria had been sent there, a panic attack of itching and anxiety-ridden roaming eyes were further proof. The nurses believed her panic to be a result of the trauma, but she knew it had nothing to do with Alan trying to kill her. The anxiety had to do with her past, a weak link in the chain of memories which manifested directly after an accident she had been through years ago. A past her mind blocked out.

Maria held herself for a long moment, fighting the urge to cry. When her heart finally calmed, she stuck the key in the ignition and drove away.

•

Sleeping. Worrying. Sleeping. Worrying. Time flew by fast when her agenda encompassed only that. Living in such a manner, and incapacitated in her house in a stage of depression, allowed for the next week to roll around quickly for Maria. Every thought revolved around what had happened. Every thorough look through her bathroom window when she went to bathe was meant to check that she was alone.

Maybe this was what he wanted to do. He wanted to scare her witless and make her paranoid. For every minute that followed, he got that wish. But by the time Friday came for her and Mr. Lohan’s meeting, the routine had become so tedious the layers of paranoia had stripped away enough for her to feel comfortable about going out to see him about Bankman.

Frantic, Maria moved about quickly in her bedroom.

“
Where the hell is that stupid sho—” Maria nearly fell on her face when she tripped over one of her shoes lying on her bedroom floor. “Stupid thing!” she cried out.

She snatched the offending shoe and quickly slipped it on her naked foot. She looked over herself in the mirror and was satisfied, but damn it, she was already twenty minutes late. Mr. Lohan had probably left the diner by now, the late afternoon already rolling into evening. The stupid alarm clock which had refused to properly wake her up from a nap now lay prostrate on the floor from her vengeance.

Dressed in a tight pair of white jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt and a close-fitting cashmere sweater, she hurried down the staircase and to the door. Her parents would be home any minute, so she had to slip out quickly.

Since the investigation began of the “White Crest Con-Artist,” as the news called him, they had demanded she not step foot outside the confines of their property until they deemed it appropriate to do so. But she wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity for anyone, and bringing Mr. Lohan to her own home was out of the question. He was too much of a flirt for that, and any talks of university under her father’s roof would infuriate him once he got home to discover it. At the very least, she left a note on the refrigerator for them: “Don’t get mad. Had to go to public library to talk about senior project with my teacher. Soon be back. Will be fine.”

Maria took her SUV keys from the vase they hid it in—where they hid everything in—and she hopped into her vehicle. Before driving off, her eyes cautiously surveyed her surroundings. Satisfied with what she saw,
nothing
, and satisfied with whom she saw,
no one
, she drove off in the direction of the diner.

For today at least Maria
,
let’s focus on something more important. Bankman.
She had no more time to be sidetracked by what was going on. The search for Alan was going nowhere. Her parents were treating her even more like a prisoner because she wouldn’t speak to them about the incident. She had no desire to explain in depth what he did to her and if he took her virginity or not.

So let today be the day to focus on what a wonderful opportunity she might be given. Bankman was a good enough school. The thought of what Mr. Lohan could help her with made her press the gas pedal even more. So, yes, maybe she was deviating from her better judgment by going to see him in such a relaxed atmosphere as a diner, but once it came down to opening those brochures and creating appropriate strategies for her admission into Bankman, Maria knew his instincts as a man would take a backseat to his instincts as a teacher.

Though he deserved scrutiny, though he deserved many things, the fact remained that Mr. Lohan was the only one who had been working with her to help her form the kind of future she wanted. He had been the only teacher unaffected by the looming shadow of her father’s clout to form a relationship with her that went beyond a mere “good morning” and the occasional lectures. Even if his goodwill seemed murkily shadowed, how could she turn away the only person willing to help her gain what she needed? His own independent, non-conformist spirit had been the very thing to inspire her in the past to keep believing that outside of her father’s grip and the mundane hold of White Crest City, something better was out there.

Whatever that “something” was, she needed to find it.

•

“
You leavin’ awlready?” the waitress asked.

“
Yeah.” Mr. Lohan stared at the two empty glasses of cherry smoothies before him, disappointed. “I guess my company won’t make it today.”

The waitress stared at him for a long prying moment, the kind of stare that made a person uncomfortable, the kind that grew sickening fast. But eventually she spoke, after her unprofessional delay. “So, you wanna pay the bill now?”

He let out an aggravated breath and began the explanation. “Honey, yes, I am the teacher in the news that was assaulted. I am him, the exact same. So, let me ask you something. Do you always stare rudely at your customers?”

The woman’s face went red. She wasn’t the only person who had scrutinized him ever since the incident hit the news. He would have felt sympathetic if he weren’t so annoyed. Everyone had heard the news reports and read the exaggerated articles: “Female student and teacher at White Crest High School fall victim to strange sex predator and possible homicidal maniac.” Frankly, the hype sickened him now. He couldn’t believe he had at first remotely liked the attention. The next person who stared at him would be seeing the bottom of his shoe coming toward their face.