The Scars She Hides

Part 5 - Unwanted Visitors

CHARLOTTE

The bike wasn't so scary. Once you got used to how loud it was at least.

Holden made it a habit of driving me back to my dorm every night that we worked together. He even brought an extra helmet for me, because quote-unquote- I was "making his helmet smell like girly shit."

I headed up the stairs to my dorm, dropping off my books before making the walk across campus to meet Holden. And to get my coffee fix, of course. Ever since Holden threw a fit about my coffee consumption, I had thought it was smarter to drink my caffeine before I met him in the afternoon. This didn't stop him from forcing those awful cliff bars on me at every occasion though. My lips curled in disgust just thinking about the dense, chalky protein bars.

I opened my bedroom door, and threw my bag on my bed. As I was turning to leave, a note on my pillow caught my eye. I slowly crossed the room, towards the folded paper. Unease curled in my stomach as I slowly opened it. Only 5 words were scrawled across the torn paper.

Did ya miss me sweetheart?

Fear, so sharp it took my breath from my lungs lanced through me. I could almost hear his voice, slurring in my ear. His hot and alcohol filled breath on my neck as he called me that horrible pet name of his. He was gone right? They said he was dead, dead and gone. He couldn't have left me this note. It was impossible.

My curtains fluttered in the breeze coming through the open window, making me jump. I rushed to the window seal, and slammed the glass shut. I fumbled with the lock, my fingers trembling horribly. Whirling around the room, eyes searching for anything, a clue as to who had been here, or if they left anything else for me to find. Nothing looked out of place. Everything was as I had left it this morning. I ceased my spinning.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, my fingers numbly dialling my grandmother's cell number. The dial tones sounded in my ears, and I counted them as I waited for her to answer the phone. Her answering machine started, meaning she was probably busy at work. The recorded voice prompted me to leave a message.

My voice got clogged in my throat. Who was going to believe me? A man who is known to be dead, has been proved to be dead, snuck into my dorm room to leave me a note? A seemingly non-threatening one at that. They would think I was crazy. Crazier I guess the right word would be.

The message machine beeped, signalling the end of my allotted time to leave a voicemail. The call dropped after that, leaving me with a blank screen. I stared at the note again, my eyes watering and blurring the words together. Taking a deep breath, I crumpled the paper in my fist. This all meant nothing, I decided. This never happened. It was some weird fluke, some prank gone wrong. High school was weird, shit like this happened all the time right? Leaving my bag on the bed, I rushed out of the room. Holden would kill me if I was late again.

—------------

Holden's paper was even more of a disaster than I originally thought. His ideas, much like his workroom, were a chaotic mess.

It had taken days to work out what his actual project was, and why he thought it was worth pursuing for his senior project. Finally, I had to just sit him down and draw up a good old fashioned web graph. I don't think that I had used one of these since I was a child. Holden was such a physical learner, I figured it would be best if he could see all his relevant ideas in one place, and then rewrite his paper.

It was easier said than done. Holden didn't like his ideas being questioned. When I went to strike out unneeded information or thoughts off the board, he would argue why they were needed. He was stubborn, and sometimes just for the sake of being stubborn, not because he actually thought he was right. Finally after hours of deliberation, we had a rough outline of what his paper should look like. And when I say rough, I mean bare bones outline.