School Ties (28 page)

I start making my way toward Sullivan to check on her. It takes me a while to get through what remains of the crowd but by the time I reach the dorm, it's silent. All the boys have packed up and their things have been moved out. It's weird to have the halls so still and I'm kind of looking forward to the athletic camps starting because the quiet unnerves me, my footfalls too loud on the stairs.

Just in case she's so wrecked she's fallen asleep, I knock quietly on Erin's door before I let myself in. There's no answer and the corner of my mouth lifts. Poor little thing's probably out cold on the couch, huddled under her blanket. But when I open the door, I'm not met by Erin's soft, even breaths, the shape of her body curled up and dreaming. No. Instead I almost walk into a stack of cardboard boxes piled haphazardly by the door.

Chapter Twenty-four

Erin

“I'm sorry. I won't accept this.”

Rage and frustration bubble out of my ears. They've been building all morning as I packed while everyone else was celebrating outside. I've been sitting in this living room for an hour, waiting for him so I could do this and now all of it spills out. “You don't get to decide about this. I'm handing in my resignation and there's nothing you can do about it.”

Uncle Rett looks down at the typed letter in his hands, his bushy eyebrows creasing and his forehead wrinkling before he turns to Aunt Tilly and spreads his hands helplessly.

“Erin,” she says, taking my arm and steering me toward a settee I've always loved. “What's going on? Why are you doing this? Is this about the Chair? Do you not want it after all? Too much responsibility? I have complete faith in you. Everyone on the committee agreed you'd be wonderful. And if you really don't want it, there's no need to leave. I'm sure we could—”

“It's not about the Chair.” The letter's sitting on my kitchen table where I'd cried over it for hours last night. I'd turned it over and over in my head, trying to figure out what I was going to do. I've always wanted to come back to the Hill—more than anything—but after everything that's happened here, I can't help but wonder why. Maybe my father was right to leave. Maybe there's nothing but heartbreak for me here. Will, my miscarriage and now Shep. “I just can't stay here anymore.”

“Can we talk about this more? I don't—”

“No. I've already packed. I'm leaving and there's nothing you can say to talk me out of it.”

I'd stayed up all night, folding up clothes and putting them into suitcases, wrapping my dishes in newspaper and torn-apart magazines. After the worst of the crying was over, I'd scrubbed the tears from my eyes and tried to think logically. When Will and I had gotten a divorce, I'd told him he could stay and I meant it. It wouldn't have been fun and I was glad he chose to leave in the end, but I could've managed seeing him wander the campus day in and day out. It would've stung but I could've done it. Shep, though . . . there's no way I'd be able to stomach seeing him every day. Especially if, now that their secret was out, he started bringing Lana around campus. The very thought had made my stomach threaten to empty all over my kitchen table.

I'd thought about telling him to go. Up until now, he's been a decent enough guy and I bet I could guilt him into doing it if a simple request didn't work. But then I'd thought of Caleb. What would happen to him if Shep had to leave Hawthorn? It's possible Shep would get another teaching job at some other school for the fall. But it's also possible he might not. Or if he did, maybe they wouldn't take Caleb. I may want to gouge Shep's eyes out with my non-existent fingernails but Caleb shouldn't have to pay for his brother's transgressions. He needs to get out of that house, away from his dad. So I'll leave and hope to find someplace I haven't already drained all the good memories from.

A weight sinks the other side of the settee and a big hand comes to rest on my shoulder. “I'm not sure what's going on and I don't know if there's anything we can do but I wish you'd talk to us, Erin. I know you've had a hard time of it since your grandfather died and you've had more than your fair share of bumps in the road since you got here, but I think it's rash of you to leave. Kent would be so proud of you and everything you've accomplished here. I really wish he would've lived long enough to see you back on the Hill.”

I thought I'd cried all the tears I had to cry, but I was wrong. When Uncle Rett started talking about my grandfather, my eyes welled and now the tears are about to spill over. I don't want to disappoint my grandfather but I can't imagine he'd want me to live with the humiliation of having to see Shep around campus every day. He only ever wanted me to be happy, no matter what or where that meant.

“I can't stay. I'm sorry.”

A frown draws down the corners of his mouth but then there's a stubborn set to his jaw. “I'll make you a deal. I'll hold on to this letter and if at the end of two weeks you still want to leave, I won't stop you. But please, take some time.”

Aunt Tilly is still holding my hand on the other side and she squeezes it. “Will you do that, Erin? Please?”

“It won't change anything. He—”

Her dark eyes widen and then narrow until she looks so fierce I think she might snarl. “Is this about Zach Shepherd? What did he do?”

I shake my head. I hadn't meant to say anything. When Will had turned out to be a terrible choice, I'd kept mum on exactly why and I'll do the same for Shep. I appreciate my aunt's loyalty, though. She's usually a gentle soul but I've seen what happens when people have made the mistake of crossing her loved ones, which includes every boy who's ever passed through this campus. It's not pretty.

I'm having wishful daydreams about the hellfire Aunt Tilly would rain down on Shep if she knew what he's done when there's a pounding at their front door.

Shep

I've searched Erin's whole apartment. She's not here. It's just boxes upon boxes and overflowing trash cans. I've started pacing the hallway, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on when I see a glint out of the corner of my eye. There's something on the kitchen table, where we've eaten so many bowls of oatmeal or macaroni and cheese. When I get closer, I can tell it's Erin's necklace, the one I gave her. The one she never takes off. And underneath it is a piece of paper. The red and blue crest gracing the corner says it's a letter from the school. I pick it up and scan it:

Dear Ms. Brewster,

We'd like to offer our most heartfelt congratulations on your selection as the Chair of the mathematics department at Hawthorn Hill, effective June 1st.

It goes on to praise everything she's accomplished here, everything she's done for the department and the school, and it's signed by the entire selection committee, with little personal notes of congratulations, too. Erin must've been thrilled, and pride courses through me. I knew she could do it, and she's going to be awesome. I can't wait to celebrate with her because this is going to be the best day ever. But that doesn't explain her behavior today at all.

If she got the Chair, what the hell was she so upset about? Why won't she take my calls? When did she get this letter? That's when it occurs to me because I'm a fucking moron. She told me she was going to check her mailbox after the concert last night, asked me if she should check mine, too. If she got it last night and wanted to tell me in person . . .

Shit.

I try calling her, texting her, sending her an email even though there's no way she'll look at my messages. Not if she thinks . . . My heart drops into the bile surging in my stomach. She thinks I slept with Lana Davis. She must've come by last night and seen her. I have to explain. I have to find her.

I push the door to the hallway so hard it bangs into the wall but I don't stop. No. I vault down the stairs but when I get outside, I realize I have no idea where she is. At a sprint, I head to the back of the building and breathe a sigh of relief that her car is still here. She's on campus. Somewhere. Now I just have to figure out where that is.

I crisscross the campus, checking all her favorite places: the playing fields, her classroom, down to the art building. Even the dining hall because one night when we were starving and neither of us had any food in our apartments, she'd showed me that if you jiggle the handle just right, you can open the door even when it's locked. We'd feasted on cereal and fruit and then I'd taken her across one of the metal prep tables, just like I'd fantasized about. This isn't a fantasy, though; it's a nightmare.

Out of breath and sweating, I bang on the Fishburnes' door because Erin and Ellie have become closer over the spring, but a befuddled and very pregnant Ellie answers the door and tells me she's not there. I even go to my apartment in hopes that she's left a note, anything, that might tell me where she's gone. It's only then that I think to go to the Headmaster's house. Because of course. Erin's usually very private about her feelings but if she just couldn't bear to face them alone, that's where she'd go. To be with the only people who have been her family.

My fist meets the hard wood of the solid door, barely making an impact, but I hope the muted thud carries. I want to yell her name but I should exhibit the bare minimum of decorum so I don't appear to have completely and utterly lost it. Which I totally have but the Wilsons won't help me if I look like a crazed lunatic.

When the door swings open, I'm expecting to be met with the imposing figure of Headmaster Wilson but instead it's all five-foot-nothing of Mrs. Wilson, hands on her hips, looking like she's spoiling for a fight. Her brown eyes, which have always regarded me warmly, are flinty and hard.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Shepherd?”

Mr. Shepherd. And if I'd done what she thinks I've done, I'd have earned that. I haven't, but because I apparently have some kind of guilt complex, it still makes me queasy. “I'm looking for Erin. I know she's here. Please.”

“What makes you think she wants to see you? You must've messed up in a very serious way because she's been crying in my living room for the better part of an hour and trying to hand in her resignation. The only other time I've seen her so upset was when her grandfather died. What did you do to her?”

My insides feel like they're liquefying. Erin can't leave the Hill. She just can't. Especially not over something that never happened. “I didn't do anything. I swear to you. It's all a misunderstanding. Lana and I, we didn't—”

“Lana Davis?” I've never heard Mrs. Wilson raise her voice and I never want to hear it again. It feels like fingernails on the chalkboard of my bones. “Are you having an affair with Lana Davis?”

“No! That's what I'm trying to tell you. I've never touched her. She's made . . . advances.” The old-fashioned word sounds weird coming out of my mouth but I don't want to say it any other way. She hit on me? Tried to get in my pants? Wanted me to tap that? I can't say those things to Mrs. Wilson. I take a hard swallow followed by a big breath and look her straight in the eye. “I swear to you, nothing happened between me and Miss Davis.”

“Swear on what?”

I rack my brain for the most serious pledge I can make, because I'd give anything, everything, to get Erin back. “I swear to you on my place here— No, on
Caleb's
place here that I've had nothing to do with Lana Davis. She came to my apartment last night and tried to . . .” A strangled noise comes out of my throat in place of the words and I think I see a crack in Mrs. Wilson's armor. She believes me. Or wants to, anyway. “I told her no. I told her to leave us alone. That I was in love with Erin and that I'd never hurt her. You have to believe me. Please.”

I fumble in my pocket and pull out the box, cracking it open to show her the ring I bought. It's not much but it's what I could afford and I hope Erin will like it. I think she will. Simple and not too big, it'll be perfect on her hand and it'll tell everyone that she's mine.

“I was going to ask her tonight. I had it all planned out. I don't know if she'll say yes anymore but I at least have something to show her. Please, Mrs. Wilson. You know how I feel about her. How I've always felt about her.”

The confession makes me flush. That might not have been the wisest thing to say, admitting that I've been lusting after Erin since the first day I saw her, but Mrs. Wilson doesn't seem scandalized or surprised. Headmaster Wilson may be the name on the letterhead but Tilly's the one who knows what's what.

Mrs. Wilson narrows her eyes at me. I can't imagine standing in front of her and telling a lie. I'd shrivel up into nothingness. As it is, I get that same kick of adolescent nervousness.

“What did I tell you about making Erin happy?”

“That if I didn't, I'd have to answer to you. And I will if she doesn't believe me. But at least give me the chance to explain. Please.”

“I've learned a few things about boys and men in the past forty years. You'll be a very sorry one if I find out you've been sneaking around. And mark my words, I will find out.”

“Yes, ma'am. Understood.”

She gives me one last death glare but then pulls the door open wider and ushers me into the living room, where Erin looks so small tucked under Headmaster Wilson's arm.

“Erin . . .”

She looks up at the sound of my voice and the expression on her face slays me. Hurt, betrayal and anguish. I've never seen her so upset. “I don't want so see you. Get out of here.”

“Erin, please. I know what you think happened. But it didn't. I've had nothing to do with Lana and I don't want to. I swear.”

The Headmaster's jaw has dropped open but before he has a chance to yell at me, his wife is grabbing his arm and tugging him off the old-fashioned couch and toward the door. “Give them a minute, Rett.”

When the Wilsons have left, I sit next to Erin, not touching her though I ache to. I want to hold her so badly I can taste it, bury my face in her sweet-smelling hair and soothe her. Though I'm desperate for her warm little body against mine, I won't touch her. Not until she says it's okay.

“So Lana didn't come to your apartment last night? That was all a figment of my imagination?” I hate the hardness in her voice and have to beat back my own defensiveness. Getting angry at her for doubting me isn't going to help matters any.

“No, she was there. But not because I invited her and not because I wanted her. If I were having an affair with her, why would I be doing it out in the hallway where any of the guys could see? You know if they thought I was cheating on you they'd kill me themselves.”