Page 64 of Switch
“Hey.”I reach across to place my hand on his jumpy knee.“It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you figure,” he snaps.“I have a drawer full of creepy messages from an unknown person, someone installed cameras in my house and has been watching me do God knows what for God knows how long, and I’m sleeping with my student, which is going to get me fucking fired.”
Jesus.Okay.He’s not wrong, but… “We didn’t know about the last thing until I walked into class this morning.”
“But now we do know, and after finding that out, I invited you over to my house, where you fucked me in broad daylight on the beach.”
“To be fair, it was nearly dinnertime?—”
“PJ.”He blows out a heavy breath.
“Okay.Just trying to lighten the mood.I’ll stop.But really, don’t you think we can just keep it on the DL for a few months?The semester will be over before we know it.”
After class today, I went to see about getting my schedule changed, but all the other sections of the class are full.I was told I was welcome to check back to see if that changed, but I was also told not to hold my breath.People don’t tend to drop a class that’s required for graduation.
The lady suggested I could push off the class until next semester, but the thing is, I can’t.My next semester is packed with the final business courses I need, and my custodial job only grants me a limited number of credit hours per semester.I don’t know how I’d pay for the extra class.
“And what happens when you need me to fix a grade, or you miss class and want to know which test questions came from the lecture, or…I don’t know, you need to reschedule a test?”
Dammit, Fallon’s shaking, and I’ve got my AC on the lowest setting.
“I promise that won’t happen.Even if I asked, there’s no way you’d give me special treatment.I know you wouldn’t.”
“I’d want to, though.”
“I’d never ask.”
We get stopped at a red light, and I glance his way to try and gauge his reaction, but all I get is a tight clench of his jaw.This is not a situation I ever expected to find myself in, and I don’t exactly know the protocol.
Since we’ve got bigger things to worry about, and since I don’t want this to escalate into a fight, I change the subject.
“We need to talk about what happened at your house today.Did Everett have any way to find out where the cameras came from?”
“He said he’d try.He didn’t sound optimistic, though.”
“My money’s on whoever sent the creepy greeting cards, personally.Wait.Your books.”
His bouncing leg freezes beneath my hand.
“What about them?”
“You write mysteries.Some bored housewife goes around solving murders in between PTA meetings and baking casseroles.So if we pretended this was a book you’re writing, who would you peg as the big bad here?”
He’s silent for way too long.
“Fallon?”
“It’s just fiction, PJ.I don’t solve actual crimes.”
“Yeah, but I looked at that shelf of books at your house.You’ve written, like, ten of those things.I’ve read enough of the first one to know that there’s murder, attempted murder, theft, and money laundering.
“You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about crimes, Fallon.Youhaveto have been thinking about this shit, right?What’s your gut telling you?If you’re writing this situation into a story, who’s the bad guy?”
More silence.A lot of silence.By the time I’ve looped through downtown in multiple directions and gone all the way out through the unincorporated area outside of Belle Argo and the neighboring town of Beacon Hill, I’m getting prickles of something that feels an awful lot like suspicion on the back of my neck.
“You know who it is, don’t you?Or you have an idea.”
He shifts in his seat.“This isn’t a mystery novel.Things don’t happen the same way in real life.Some things aren’t actually possible.”
