Chapter 4
Christie read the message that Erik had sent her.
Christie,
It's fine that you forgot our lesson. I'm sure changing to a night shift isn't easy on you. Would you like to schedule the lessons at an earlier time? Maybe around 3 or 4pm? I look forward to hearing back from you.
E. B.
Erik Bellom… her mysterious French teacher… and the tech guy were all the same person? Why didn't he say anything when I saw him? She thought. "Poor guy, he must be so embarrassed… I have to talk to him tomorrow!" she said aloud. They had been talking twice a week for months, and while the lessons had been entirely professional, she had gotten comfortable with him, enough that she would consider him more of a friend than a teacher.
She could barely sleep that night with all of the mixed emotions running around her head. She dreamt of fire and dark eyes that night. When she woke, she rushed to get ready and got to work a half hour early. When she got there, she went straight to the basement. She opened the door at the end of the long hall and suddenly the darkened room seemed all too familiar to her, although she had only seen a few seconds of it, many months ago, Erik never had gotten his web cam fixed, now she knew why. She closed the door softly and walked over to Erik's desk. When it came into view, he wasn't there. She walked to the desk and looked at the screens. One of them was divided up and showed camera footage, obviously from the security cameras around the building. The other screens just showed the desktop.
She looked around the desk, but it wasn't very illuminating, just a full water bottle, some computer parts, and a few other office supplies. Christie sat down in the chair and turned toward the screen with the live cam footage. She didn't have to wait long.
"What are you doing down here?" she heard a voice say from behind her. She whirled around and stood up.
"Sorry, I was just looking for you." He was wearing the hat and glasses again, but he seemed to be studying her.
"Need another headset?" He asked suddenly smirking at her.
Christie felt her face turn red. "No, I wanted to talk to you actually." She said, looking at the floor, unsure of how to bring up the fact that she knew who he was, or the sensitive subject of the fire and his burns. She took a nervous step closer to him.
"What is it then? Are you having trouble with your computer? I prefer to be contacted through email about that sort of thing. Or you could have your manager message me next time, I don't enjoy being caught off-guard." He said, obviously trying to convey that she wasn't allowed here. She mentally kicked herself for not being able to recognize his distinctive voice when he had spoken to her yesterday. "Well, what do you want?" he asked again, in that clear way of speaking that he had.
"Umm… well, I …you see, I… umm, I just wanted to say…uhh…" her mind was going a million miles a minute but she couldn't bring herself to say what she wanted to.
Erik took a step towards her. "you… You know about me…don't you?" he asked, he sounded almost worried. Christie glanced up at his face and saw her reflection in his dark glasses. She looked back at the floor and nodded slowly. He sighed heavily, sounding a bit frustrated he asked how she had found out.
"It was because this guy, Joe, was telling us about the …fire, at lunch and then when I looked it up online, I recognized your name in an article. Why didn't you just tell me? All this time we've been talking and you never once said that you worked here or even said hello to me in passing." she said it all quickly and had to stop for breath. "You could have told me." She said quietly.
He hadn't said anything and when she looked up at his face, she couldn't tell what he was thinking. She took a step closer and was only about a foot away from him. She slowly raised both hands towards his face. He flinched and his hands rose up to cover hers. His grip was firm. "Don't." he said with a catch in his voice.
"It's ok." She said, reassuringly. His grip loosened slowly and his hands moved with hers up to his glasses. She slid them down off his face. The first thing she noticed were his eyes. They were the most wonderful shade of dark blue. They looked almost luminescent in the glow from the screens behind her. She forced herself to hold his gaze. He looked right back at her, fear and almost hope in his eyes.
But she couldn't help but notice the horrible burns covering the upper part of his face. She could see that the scars went up under where his hat covered, and for a split second she looked away from his eyes and looked at the burn marks. She felt a wave of compassion and sorrow and when she looked back into his eyes, his face flashed with anger. His hands tightened around her wrists, enough to hurt. She cried out softly and tried to pull away.
"This is why I didn't tell you!" he said furiously at her. "I didn't want to see the pity in your eyes!" he spat the word pity at her like a dart.
"Erik, I'm so sorry." she said, and pulled against his hands again. He let go at the sound of his name and froze. Regret was all over his ruined face, but she never saw it. She took off running and didn't stop until she got to the elevator, she didn't wait for it, but took the stairs instead. She ran all the way home.
She emailed Ms. Gary and told her that she wasn't feeling well. She couldn't bring herself to go back the next day either. Finally, on Friday, she decided to force herself to go back. She hadn't touched her computer since she got home. She didn't know what she expected to see on it, or not see. She was so confused, and hurt, and ashamed, and a few other things that she couldn't have named, even if she wanted to. But she wasn't going to let this stop her. The day had been chilly, so she put on a warm sweater that used to belong to her dad. She felt braver with it on and headed into work.