“Okay, time out,” Alaric Saltzman said. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to distress you so much. But I think you need to work through these feelings sometime in the future. It’s clear that this has been a pretty devastating experience.”
He stood up and paced around the center of the circle, his hands opening and shutting nervously. Bonnie was still sniffling softly.
“I know,” he said, the boyish smile coming back full force. “I’d like to get our student-teacher relationship off to a good start, away from this whole atmosphere. How about if you all come around to my place this evening, and we can all talk informally? Maybe just get to know each other, maybe talk about what happened. You can even bring a friend if you want. How about it?”
There was another thirty seconds or so of staring. Then someone said, “Your place?”
“Yes… oh, I’m forgetting. Stupid of me. I’m staying at the Ramsey house, on Magnolia Avenue.” He wrote the address on the board. “The Ramseys are friends of mine, and they loaned me the house while they’re on vacation. I come from Charlottesville, and your principal called me Friday to ask me if I could take over here. I jumped at the chance. This is my first real teaching job.”
“Oh, that explains it,” said Elena under her breath.
“Does it?” said Stefan.
“Anyway, what do you think? Is it a plan?” Alaric Saltzman looked around at them.
No one had the heart to refuse. There were scattered “yeses” and “sures.”
“Great, then it’s settled. I’ll provide the refreshments, and we’ll all get to know each other. Oh, by the way…” He opened a grade book and scanned it. “In this class, participation makes up half your final grade.” He glanced up and smiled. “You can go now.”
“The nerve of him,” somebody muttered as Elena went out the door. Bonnie was behind her, but Alaric Saltzman’s voice called her back.
“Would the students who shared with us please stay behind for a minute?”
Stefan had to leave, too. “I’d better go check about football practice,” he said. “It’s probably canceled, but I’d better make sure.”
Elena was concerned. “If it’s not canceled, do you think you’re feeling up to it?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said evasively. But she noticed that his face still looked drawn, and he moved as if he were in pain. “Meet you at your locker,” he said.
She nodded. When she got to her locker, she saw Caroline nearby talking to two other girls. Three pairs of eyes followed Elena’s every move as she put away her books, but when Elena glanced up, two of them suddenly looked away. Only Caroline remained staring at her, head slightly cocked as she whispered something to the other girls.
Elena had had enough. Slamming her locker, she walked straight toward the group. “Hello, Becky; hello, Sheila,” she said. Then, with heavy emphasis: “Hello, Caroline.”
Becky and Sheila mumbled “hello” and added something about having to leave. Elena didn’t even turn to watch them slink away. She kept her eyes on Caroline’s.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Going on?” Caroline was obviously enjoying this, trying to draw it out as long as possible. “Going on with who?”
“With you, Caroline. With everybody. Don’t pretend you’re not up to something, because I know you are. People have been avoiding me all day as if I had the plague, and you look like you just won the lottery. What have you done?”
Caroline’s expression of innocent inquiry slipped, and she smiled a feline smile. “I told you when school started that things were going to be different this year, Elena,” she said. “I warned you your time on the throne might be running out. But it isn’t my doing. What’s happening is simply natural selection. The law of the jungle.”
“And just what is happening?”
“Well, let’s just say that going out with a murderer can put a cramp in your social life.”
Elena’s chest tightened as if Caroline had hit her. For a moment, the desire to hit Caroline back was almost irresistible. Then, with the blood pounding in her ears, she said through clenched teeth, “That isn’t true. Stefan hasn’t done anything. The police questioned him, and he was cleared.”
Caroline shrugged. Her smile now was patronizing. “Elena, I’ve known you since kindergarten,” she said, “so I’ll give you some advice for old times’ sake: drop Stefan. If you do it right now you might just avoid being a complete social leper. Otherwise you might as well buy yourself a little bell to ring in the street.”
Rage held Elena hostage as Caroline turned and walked away, her auburn hair moving like liquid under the lights. Then Elena found her tongue.
“Caroline.” The other girl turned back. “Are you going to go to that party at the Ramsey house tonight?”
“I suppose so. Why?”
“Because I’ll be there. With Stefan. See you in the jungle.” This time Elena was the one to turn away.
The dignity of her exit was slightly marred when she saw a slim, shadowed figure at the far end of the hallway. Her step faltered for an instant, but as she drew closer she recognized Stefan.
She knew the smile she gave him looked forced, and he glanced back toward the lockers as they walked side by side out of the school.
“So football practice was canceled?” she said.
He nodded. “What was that all about?” he said quietly.
“Nothing. I asked Caroline if she was going to the party tonight.” Elena tilted back her head to look at the gray and dismal sky.
“And that’s what you were talking about?”
She remembered what he had told her in his room. He could see better than a human, and hear better, too. Well enough to catch words spoken down forty feet of corridor?
“Yes,” she said defiantly, still inspecting the clouds.
“And that’s what made you so angry?”
“Yes,” she said again, in the same tone.
She could feel his eyes on her. “Elena, that’s not true.”
“Well, if you can read my mind, you don’t need to ask me questions, do you?”
They were facing each other now. Stefan was tense, his mouth set in a grim line. “You know I wouldn’t do that. But I thought you were the one who was so big on honesty in relationships.”
“All right. Caroline was being her usual bitchy self and shooting her mouth off about the murder. So what? Why do you care?”
“Because,” said Stefan simply, brutally, “she might be right. Not about the murder but about you. About you and me. I should have realized this would happen. It’s not just her, is it? I’ve been sensing hostility and fear all day, but I was too tired to try and analyze it. They think I’m the killer and they’re taking it out on you.”
“What they think doesn’t matter! They’re wrong, and they’ll realize that eventually. Then everything will be the way it was again.”
A wistful smile tugged at the corner of Stefan’s mouth. “You really believe that, don’t you?” He looked away, and his face hardened. “And what if they don’t? What if it only gets worse?”
“What are you saying?”
“It might be better…” Stefan took a deep breath and continued, carefully. “It might be better if we didn’t see each other for a while. If they think we’re not together, they’ll leave you alone.”
She stared at him. “And you think you could do that? Not see me or talk to me for however long?”
“If it’s necessary—yes. We could pretend we’ve broken up.” His jaw was set.
Elena stared another moment. Then she circled him and moved in closer, so close that they were almost touching. He had to look down at her, his eyes only a few inches from her own.
“There is,” she said, “only one way I’m going to announce to the rest of the school that we’ve broken up. And that’s if you tell me that you don’t love me and you don’t want to see me. Tell me that, Stefan, right now. Tell me that you don’t want to be with me any more.”