Jenny felt another bag being placed on the desk.
Wawe, chewing on the stick of a lollipop, asked, "Can I sit here?" His eyes scanned the girl's doll-like face.
Jenny seemed calm but was, in fact, excited. "Sure," she said, smiling.
Wawe examined her face carefully and asked, "Are you okay? You look a bit down."
Jenny nodded slightly. After the teacher entered, she spent the entire class staring blankly at the board, lost in thought. Wawe's gaze drifted to her from time to time. Just as she was zoned out, the door opened in the middle of the lesson.
Tim Carold entered, exuding his usual captivating charm, and said, "Sorry," in his gentle way. "I'm late." The lecturer, peering over his glasses, motioned for him to come in.
Tim's eyes immediately found Jenny's, and his gaze turned from seething anger into a veil of courtesy as he subtly acknowledged Wawe.
Being a good person cultivated favorable impressions in society, Tim knew, and authority was only achievable by playing this role. Yet, for some people, just being "good" was never enough.
He leaned back, settled into the seat, and pondered. Marie Curlton's body lay in the storage room. The note was just as he had hoped. He pulled out his phone and read the news.
Detectives had ordered an autopsy on the body, yet Tim smiled. Everything was so obvious that he felt a certain satisfaction in it.
People who knew something well, he thought, always took pleasure in doing things openly. His gaze darted toward Wawe, slicing through him like a knife.
Then he noticed Jerry, sitting diagonally across, grinning at a girl beside him. Tim returned the smirk with a faint smile.
Taylor had suffered repeatedly from this filth's bullying. Tim had always felt there had to be a way to protect her but had never succeeded.
Then, one morning, Taylor was gone, and Tim had awakened to an empty conscience, that strange feeling of guilt his mind could barely acknowledge.
His once-helpful nature had twisted into selfish bitterness, and his smile had soured with resentment and hate. His anger had sharpened into a blade.
Tim's gaze landed on the back of Jerry's head, imagining his smug grin.
Why hadn't he punished him yet?
Was this the best punishment he could give?
And what was the best punishment, anyway? Suspicion. Living as if death could strike at any moment.
He would make Jerry live out Taylor's fate.
When he realized he had fallen silent, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Jenny's pleasant scent filled his senses. Slowly and carefully, he tilted his head to the right and reached for the hand on his shoulder. "I was thinking... I was late today. I hope I didn't worry you," he said.
Jenny's fingers tiptoed across his shoulder, making their way toward his neck. "I thought you wouldn't come," she whispered.
"You left me that night," Jenny said, alluding to the night they had spent together at the bar.
Tim paused, trying to recall how the situation had unfolded. He had awoken alone in the room, so it was Jenny who had left.
"I didn't leave you. I just chose a different room," he said. Memories of leaving the bed they'd shared flitted through his mind, clouded by the hazy blur of alcohol.
Tim had thought the opposite; he had thought Jenny left.
"You bolted up," Jenny said, resting her hip on the desk. "Then you mumbled some incomprehensible stuff," she murmured, leaning in closer, biting a fingernail. A slightly anxious expression surfaced on her face. "You kept repeating '12,' over and over."
Tim felt a shiver trickle down his spine as he pressed his lips into a smile. "12? I must have been pretty tipsy," he said. Across the row, Wawe discreetly looked over, his eyes revealing a searching expression as if trying to recall something.
Tim caught Wawe's glance from his right and realized what he was remembering. Trying to release the tension in his neck, he relaxed his fingers and smiled. A good liar must first deceive himself. "What does 12 even mean? How absurd," Jenny said, smiling, showing her white teeth.
"Totally absurd," Tim Carold replied, sensing Wawe pondering something. He could almost feel the gears turning in Wawe's mind, concocting a plan.
Suddenly, Tim called out in a masculine tone, "Jenny," his lips more noticeable. "Actually, there's something I wanted to tell you." Wawe's gaze drifted down to his notebook, pretending to focus.
It was clear he had turned around behind Jerry, whose restlessness spread throughout the lecture hall.
"What do you want to say?" Jenny raised her eyebrows, her forehead wrinkling.
"Turn around," Tim said, and Jerry, with a half-eaten chocolate in hand, nodded and swallowed his bite. "Was it special?" he asked with a sly, mischievous grin.
Taylor had been walking in one of the most secluded parts of the yard when Jerry and his cronies had popped out from a corner.
"Wow," Jerry had said, hands in his pockets. "We heard something about you!" Glancing at his friends, he smirked, tilting his head to the left.
Tim Carold, on the opposite side, had been hiding between two walls, seething in cowardice. Clenching his fists, he'd wanted to punish Jerry but couldn't find a way. Jerry had leaned toward Taylor, his hand on his pants' zipper, asking, "Was it special?"
Grinning with his vile smile, his teeth fully visible, Jerry looked back at Tim. "Was it special?" Tim repeated the question, pressing his lips as though bearing the weight of the words.
Jenny, unable to understand the tension between them, watched the two. Rising from her seat, she adjusted her skirt.
"Let's go," she whispered quietly, but Tim didn't budge. He kept watching Jerry intently. Jenny, growing increasingly anxious, repeated, "Shall we go?"
12 was Taylor's favorite football player's number, the one she wore the day she was bullied. The day Tim Carold had failed to do anything to protect her. It had been a horrible day.
Tim let the memories play out in his mind and rose to his feet. Leaving the classroom, he and Jenny walked through the long corridor in silence.
"Forget about Jerry," Jenny said, instinctively tucking her hands into her sweater, giving a deliberate shiver as if she felt cold. "He's always so obnoxious."
Tim heard her but hesitated to reply. "I just remembered what I wanted to tell you."
Jenny stopped as though waiting for this moment. "Yes." Curiosity blossomed in her eyes. Tim always saw hope in Jenny's eyes, hope that simultaneously brought an overwhelming sense of guilt. "Does a person always support someone they love, no matter what?" Jenny thought so innocently. "They say you always forgive the one you love…" she whispered.
Tim latched onto that word. Forgive. Had Jenny come to doubt him?
"Would you support a family member? No matter what?"
Jenny's face froze as she shook her head slightly. "Support is different. But they're always forgiven." Jenny assumed Tim was asking because of his strained relationship with his parents.
Bruce Carold had cheated on his wife three times and had been violent on more than one occasion. Tim had shared these memories with Jenny back when he was happy, before Taylor's death.
Bruce Carold was selfish and charismatic. His punishments were dealt with patient, methodical precision. Each stage was executed with a cold, calculated enjoyment.
Long before receiving any punishment, Tim would still feel as if he was under it. The measured cruelty of his father's punishment instilled fear in him, yet he somehow believed it prevented his father from becoming a killer.
When angered, Bruce's blue eyes flashed with fire, his voice booming like an army's roar. He would wreak havoc until he devised a fitting punishment.
"Thanks," Tim said, turning his back and walking away. Jenny closed her open mouth. She felt guilty, thinking she had brought up his family traumas. Tim slipped past security into the cool air outside, where he encountered Wawe on the steps. They locked eyes.
"Hey," Wawe said. Tim knew he harbored feelings for Jenny, especially with Jenny's favorite chocolate in his left hand.
Wawe despised that chocolate. Tim walked up to him, his hands in his pockets, hair waving over his forehead. "Fine." His voice was cold. "Listening to the wind, for the love of a storm."
Wawe nodded slightly, licking his lips. "All right," he said, his tone moderate. "If you're waiting for a storm, keep me updated on the weather."
He turned away but felt Tim's grip tighten around his arm. "Wait," Tim said, holding him firmly despite his calm voice.
Wawe stopped, turning his head over his shoulder. "Yes." Then, glancing at the hand on his arm, he expressed his discomfort.
"You like Jenny, don't you?" Wawe chuckled.
"That was sudden."
"I know," Tim replied, nodding. "Now answer."
"Sooner or later."
Tim felt his anger rising uncontrollably, without fully considering the response. "What does that mean?" he said, mockingly.
Wawe, as if waiting for the right moment, took a deep breath and spoke. "It means that, in a place where you are, love always falls to me."
Tim listened, his face twisting into a mask of hatred and resentment, a furious storm of emotions.
***
The old man walking home from the metro station eyed the young man passing in front of him. The young man was walking slowly, carefully surveying his surroundings with a casual demeanor.
When he turned into an alley, the old man followed. He held a photo in his right hand, trembling slightly.
In the midday light filtering onto the street, the old man walked at a measured pace through the sparse crowd. When the young man stopped, he stopped too. "Son."
Despite the tremor in his voice, the silhouette turned around. The emotions rippling in those blue eyes were unmistakably familiar.
"You," said Tim, thinking. He swallowed to rid himself of the lump in his throat. He knew this was Taylor's stepfather.
He clenched his jaw in anger, and his nostrils flared as he asked with bitterness, "What do you want?" Taylor had died because of this man.
He had thrown Taylor out of the house, putting too much pressure on him with his wife.
Taylor had come to feel like a worthless object, eventually seeking refuge in Tim's home. No doubt, this suffocating loneliness had played a terrible role in his suicide.
Tim's gaze fell to the photo the man was holding.
It was a painfully hollow attempt at emotion. Leaning against the wall, Tim looked at the man's lined eyes and said, "Really? Now you're playing regret?"
"Listen to me," said the old man, "I threw him out because..."
"I don't want your explanation," Tim interrupted, his voice laced with enduring rage. Holding his hand to his brow, he continued, "You threw him out because you thought he was shaming the family."
"That's not true," the old man objected, a strange mix of regret and determination in his voice. "I thought it would straighten him out." Tim, struggling to suppress his emotions, remembered Taylor's face. "And now he's dead," he said, eyes cold. "Don't come to me again."
He had thought that saying it aloud would somehow release his feelings, but it didn't.
The old man, with a spiteful expression as if pursuing an unfinished case amidst all this pain, sneered. "Are you any better? If you wanted, you could have protected him. You could have listened to him." Tim clenched his fists, his palms white with pressure.
"If you wanted, you could have protected him," echoed in his mind.
He knew he shouldn't let it get to him, but his feelings were dangerously close to breaking free.
In the end, everyone makes mistakes driven by their emotions—especially regret. And such mistakes often bring some twisted satisfaction to others.
"What do you want?" he asked, his voice calm.
The fire of selfish anger blazed in his eyes, the veins on his neck tense, and flames sparking in his blue irises. "Will you give me Tim's notebook? His mother wants it."
The man spoke with a monotonous tone, and Tim realized there was not a shred of real regret in him.
That notebook had been entrusted to him, and he wouldn't hand it over to the parents who had led to Taylor's death.
"No," he said and left without looking back. His mind was overflowing. Entering the apartment with an urge to kick every trash can he passed, he hurried up the stairs, where he found Jenny waiting at his door.
She paused, seeing him as she paced in her sneakers. "Tim, you weren't home," she said matter-of-factly. Tim, trying to remain calm, made it seem natural.
"You're still distant," Jenny observed with concern. As he inserted the key into the lock, Tim prepared to be direct. "I ran into Taylor's father."
Jenny followed him inside. She had never been here before. In the narrow hallway, there was a metal-legged table and a white door to the left. The walls were painted dark gray, and the place was icy. Jenny shivered.
"Aren't you cold here?" she asked, prompting Tim to turn on the heat. "You're the one who's cold," he replied.
Following her into the living room, she noticed only a white two-seater couch and a large desk.
Jenny was surprised at how devoid of unnecessary items the place was. "Tim," she called. He was already sitting on the couch.
"Yes." He smiled.
"Have you never felt the urge to buy something you saw outside and bring it home?" she asked, still scanning the empty room. Tim raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Anything," Jenny clarified, settling on the other end of the couch.
"No." His answer was cold, his eyes on his feet.
Standing up, he went to the kitchen and returned with two beers. Jenny wanted to say "No," but she found herself accepting the bottle he offered as if it were an act of kindness.
Jenny had a reason for coming here: to see what Tim was like at home. She liked him, and naturally, she wanted to get to know him better.
But she was beginning to realize that the closer she got, the less she knew.
Tim sat at the desk, opened his laptop, and began working on Taylor's project. Jenny watched him settle into work without paying her any attention. "
Aren't you going to care about me?" she asked, with a hint of flirtation.
Tim's fingers slowed on the keyboard. "If you prefer, that's fine."
Jenny allowed herself a small smile, her upper lip quivering. "I prefer it."
Tim left the desk and walked over to the couch. "Don't you see your family?" Jenny asked, feeling compelled to add, "I mean, are things still strained between you?"
Jenny's eyes were on Tim's lips as he came closer, his scent enveloping her. "Some problems don't resolve," he murmured, his voice deep and rough.
A faint scar traced his stubbled jawline. Their lips drew together, the attraction overwhelming them as they quietly remained close.
When Jenny pulled away, she asked, "But don't you miss them?" A strange, distant look passed over Tim's face. "I don't know them well enough to miss them. But you, even though I barely know you..."
He hesitated. Realizing he was about to say something significant sent a shiver through his entire body. "I miss you."
Jenny curled up on the couch, lying on her right side, knees drawn to her chest. "Being with you is irresistible," she said, closing her eyes and gazing at the desk.
Tim wondered what she expected from him.
He didn't want to rush things. He was sure of one thing Jenny found in him: mystery.
That was all, and Tim was certain this alone would eventually disappoint her.
When Jenny's eyes closed, he thought, "Maybe she was just tired."
Her hand brushed against the beer bottle, and the sound startled her eyes open. She seemed like she wanted to say something but then fell silent.
End of Chapter