Chapter 3

They did not “talk about it” initially. The situation was too bizarre for them to approach it openly, not at first. Mindy did better than Bobby did. She had almost been raped. Bobby on the other hand, had actually killed another human being.

His parents thought his mood change was just the side effect of being in a place where a monster was unmasked. He was quieter than usual. He was nicer to his sister than usual, too. It was pure coincidence that Gerald Hill happened to say to a couple of his friends that he’d like to “fuck the shit out of Melissa Pendleton” with Bobby’s standing at his locker only three feet away. Gerald hadn’t intended for Bobby to hear that. Melissa was Bobby’s sister.

Bobby wasn’t known as a violent person. He wrestled, but didn’t get in fights. After they pulled him off of Gerald, who had a split lip, both ended up in the vice principal’s office. Gerald confessed that he’d “said something out of line” about Bobby’s sister, but that didn’t cut any mustard with the school disciplinarian. Bobby was given a choice between a month of detention, or a week’s suspension. He chose detention so he wouldn’t have to miss classes. Graduation was as little more than three months away. He couldn’t afford to get behind, now.

It was his second week of detention when he walked in to find Miss Middlesex sitting at the detention proctor’s desk.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t seen each other since ‘the incident’. He was in choir, after all. But they hadn’t talked about ‘the incident’ either. Neither felt completely at ease in the presence of the other.

Mindy felt bad about that, because she really did view Bobby as her knight in shining armor. But he was also her student. And she had kept a very deep, dark secret from law enforcement. Two of them, in fact.

“What are you doing here?” asked Bobby, stopping just inside the door.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, arching one eyebrow. “Do you talk to all your teachers in that tone of voice?”

“No,” he said. She could see him blushing.

She picked up the folder on the desk and opened it.

“I didn’t look to see who was going to be here,” she said. “I’m on the schedule to monitor detention this week.”

“You have to do that?”

“All teachers have to do it,” she said, dryly. “I usually grade papers, or work on choosing new music for the choir to learn.”

“Oh,” said Bobby. “I’ve never been in detention before.” He blinked. “Well, I was in detention last week, but that was the first time.”

Now it was Mindy who blinked.

“You got two weeks of detention?”

“Actually, I got four weeks of detention,” he said. He went to a desk and sat down.

“What on Earth did you do to get a whole month of detention?” she asked.

“A guy said he wanted to have sex with my sister and I sort of beat him up.”

Normally, Mindy would have said something like, “Fighting in school? Not smart at all, Mr. Pendleton.” She also would have had no sympathy for him. But this was Bobby. And she understood his reaction ... or thought she did. It was in his psyche to defend a woman.

“Oh,” she said. She looked down at the folder. There was only one name on the page. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“Is that okay?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“I understand if you don’t feel safe around me,” he said.

She stared at him.

“Feel safe around you? Of course I feel safe around you. I probably feel safer around you than any other person in the whole world!”

“Really?” She couldn’t miss the relief in his voice.

“You defended me, Bobby. You kept him from doing something horrible to me.”

“Yes, but I also...” He didn’t finish.

“You didn’t mean to,” said Mindy. “I heard you say you didn’t mean to do that.”

“I didn’t!” he groaned.

“It was the heat of the moment,” said Mindy. “Things happen in the heat of the moment.”

“I wish I could believe that,” sighed Bobby.

They sat there, both thinking back to that night. Something wiggled around in Mindy’s brain, niggling at her. Finally, it gelled.

“Bobby?”

He looked up.

“That night ... you said you were following me.”

He looked down.

“Yeah.”

“Why were you following me?”

He looked up. There was anguish on his face.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said, softly.

“How did you know something was wrong?” she asked.

He looked down again.

“I just did.”

She went to sit at the desk next to his.

“Listen,” she said. “I can tell you don’t want to tell me something. But we already share some secrets that are big ... huge. We can’t afford to keep secrets from each other, Bobby.”

“You’ll laugh at me,” he groaned.

“I can’t think of anything you could possibly say that would make me laugh. You’re a very special person in my life, Bobby.”

“That doesn’t help at all,” he muttered.

“Just tell me,” she said. She reached to put her hand on top of his.

He lifted his head and stared at her hand. Slowly he turned his head and looked at her.

“I kind of had a crush on you,” he said, softly.

“A crush?” She blinked. She lifted her hand from his.

“I wasn’t stalking you! Honest. I just liked ... looking at you. That’s all I was doing, just following you and ... watching. I saw you go in that room, and a little while later Abbey came out, and she was acting completely normal, like it was no big deal to have been in there with you. And then the door opened and you came out. So I ducked back, around a corner. And then that guy came out and he was waving his baton like he was leading music. He said something to you I couldn’t hear, but you just walked off, with him following you. It looked so weird. I mean you weren’t talking to him. You were walking in front of him, like you were leading him somewhere.”

He stopped.

“Go on,” she said.

“It just looked wrong. So I followed you. Another thing that looked wrong was that, when you went out into the freezing cold, he had a coat on, but you didn’t. The two of you went to that motel, down the street, and the whole time you walked in front of him and never said a word. So ... when you went in the room he opened ... I sort of peeked.”

“Peeked.”

“Yeah. The drapes weren’t completely closed. I could see through a crack.”