Chapter Seven: No Rain for Rainchecks.
Holly stood Jonathan up.
That Saturday morning at five am before the sun rose she could still not sleep, had not slept all night, and had been sitting at the edge of her bed staring at the shadowy wall nearly the entire time. A deep void in her stomach, her hands shaking something terrible and her back soaking wholly in sweat. Holly thought hopefully she'd just come down with a summer cold, ignoring the sheer fact that she did not have a fever. Her mind felt blank but frightful to even linger a moment unconscious in the darkness.
Sniffing at what little dawn light started filtering through the curtains sometime later her eyes went to the tiny pack of unopened cigarettes on her dresser. The growing ray of sunshine slowly lit up the plastic, taunting her. Every moment that had ever caused her panic and that she sought to fidget with that pack flashed before her eyes whenever she looked at it. And then others started spilling over getting mixed up in the timeline of her life. Beth's corpse in the basement. James's lewd comments while drunk. Nearly strangled by a thug three weeks ago. Stacey being shot with her blood and brains getting all over Holly's face. Followed by an alley junkie only to be saved by a know-it-all jerk. A deer's lifeless body in the forest of her youth. Her father...
The door to her room was knocked upon, "I'm decent August." Pulling herself away from the feelings plaguing her when alone, Holly rubbed her hands on the blanket and pulled her hair out of her face as the door creaked open.
The older man doubled checked Holly was telling the truth. He was bewildered how this human with disheveled hair, potentially related to raccoons with her deep dark circles, drenched in obvious sweat by just the smell of dampness alone in the room ever looked like a member of society before leaving the house. He once himself had a wife yet that was during a time and age that it was indecent to sleep even in the same bed while married unless trying to conceive children; he'd never seen his wife putting herself together in the mornings either, "Are you ill?" Thus he spoke those words with honest concern for her well-being.
"No," she flexed her arms high above her head then flopped one by her side, the other scratching her head like a monkey. It was far too early for Maroni to be causing a ruckus and if his goons were at it again, she might kill someone today. So she'd like to think, in reality, Holly knew she could never and might just burn them with a cigarette on the leg or something far less lethal than death. "What's up?"
He held up a formal letter, stamped in red wax was the Falcone family crest. The torn top told her he'd already opened it, "Vincent has passed. We're going to the estate. Get ready." Nothing was more important to Mister Haas than the death of his oldest friend. If she had been ill she'd have been dragged along regardless, and it was not like she did not wish to go. Vincent spared her life those years ago, someone else in his place may have not. Probably would not have.
She got up and gave August a light push out the door to get herself cleaned up. Readying to bury herself in the grim task to oversee the funeral of her former employer.
Unless you count Shameful Tears
Jonathan stood Holly up.
He had become the unwanting victim in the plan of a foolhardy student trying to get a good grade. No less on a paper he'd marked with a big red X then tossed into a shredder earlier that week.
She'd metaphorically cornered him in the classroom. Attempting to offer him anything and the more he said no the more those things turned into sexual favors; all in return for any grade on that paper above a B minus so she could pass. The woman refused to leave no matter his best polite attempts. He thought it likely this is how she passed all her other classes knowing his colleagues fairly well. Even with a stern voice from him she kept creeping closer as he now had literally nowhere to go with a back pressed to the chalkboard.
Crane snapped. It had been well over a decade since he had a full episode. Even so, that little voice gnawing at the deepest darkest parts of his brain telling him to do dreadful things roared loudly in his panic to get away from this woman, enough so that he'd backhand her with considerable force. His fist balled afterward by his side. He seethed not unlike a cornered animal that might also bare its fangs, lashing out, "You and I will go to administration and have you removed from this school, today," something more sinister laced his tone than just anger, "Or you can simply never show up to this class again; I do not entertain airheaded whores. Is that clear." He was not asking.
Jonathan watched as she reacted: Denial in the form of shocked silence. Anger in the way her eyes narrowed and her face turned red not just from the backhand. Bargaining was skipped over or performed in her own mind; what a shame he had many more cruel things to say just brimming to get out. Sorrow in the form of sniffling tears, she tried to wipe them away smudging her makeup. And finally... Acceptance. The young student hung her head in shame then left quickly.
Crane practiced mindfulness once the door slammed shut. Closing his eyes he sank a little against the chalkboard smearing white all over the back of his shirt. Taking his glasses in one hand he rubbed his temple with the other. Shoving that gnawing part of himself back into the abyss where it should stay quiet. He had to remember that this effort of teaching these plagiarizing, short-sighted, asinine, halfwits who thought they'd get anything above seventy percent if they were lucky in his class, was worth the funds and resources the university provided him with for his research.
Looking over at the desk piled with student papers he inwardly cringed. No more today, it was far too early for this nonsense. He went to bury himself in his own research for the rest of the day. Holly and coffee easily forgotten.
