Suicide Med (30 page)

I seal the exam in an envelope and bring it to school with me the next day. Before classes are due to start, I hurry over to the locker hallway and go down to Locker 282. I look around and make sure that the hallway is completely deserted. I compress the envelope as much as possible and then slide it carefully under the locker door. It barely fits.

I can’t believe I just did that.

Matt wouldn’t approve. I know that for sure. But my intentions are good. Nobody can know about the two of us until anatomy is long over. Truthfully, I don’t care as much about the fact that I’d get kicked out of school—I just don’t want him to get fired.

There a
re guest lecturers teaching anatomy that morning, so I decide to skip them and go straight to his office. He’s usually working there in the morning. He sometimes scolds me for missing lectures, but he has to admit that none of the other professors are nearly as good teachers as he is.

The light is on under
his office door and I knock gently.

“Come in,” he calls
.

I
gingerly open the door. He’s working at his computer, his blue eyes pinned on the screen. I love the way he looks when he’s hard at work.

“Hi,” I
say.

He turns
away from the monitor and looks at me.

“Hi,” he says.
There’s something guarded in his tone.

“I just came by to see you,” I
say. I’m trying to sound sexy, even though I feel a bit foolish, especially with the way he’s looking at me.

“Uh huh,” he says.

My stomach sinks. Something changed. Does he know? But how can he?

“Sorry I skipped class,” I
say.

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he says, raising his eyebrows at
me. I’m quiet as he reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a sheet of paper. He holds it out to me. “You left something in my printer yesterday, Rachel.”

I
take it from him, my hands trembling. It’s the last page of the final exam.

Oh no.

I don’t know what to say. As I stare down at the page, the whole world around me fades to black. I sink down into the chair in front of his desk so I don’t fall to the floor. I can’t even lift my head to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” I
mumble.

“Don’t be,” he
says. “I’m the one who was stupid. Your old professor even warned me about you and I didn’t listen.
Everyone
warned me about you.”

“It’s not like that,” I
try to say, but I know my words sound lame.

“Then what’s it like,
Rachel?”

When I
lift my eyes to meet his, I expect to see anger, but all I see is hurt. I wish he’d be angry at me. I want him to start yelling and cursing. That would be easier to deal with—I’m used to anger. One professor threw his stapler at me and I needed stitches on my forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I
say again.

“Please stop saying that,” he says.
“I feel stupid enough as it is. I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit act.”

“It wasn’t an act,” I
say.

“Please.”
He holds up his hand. “Enough with the lies. Let’s just say we both lied, okay? You lied about being interested in me. I lied when I pretended I wasn’t the lonely, pathetic loser you knew I was all along.”

“You’re not a pathetic loser,” I
say.

“Let’s not kid ourselves anymore, okay?” he says.
“We both know what I am. I’m a disabled anatomy geek who hasn’t had a date, much less a second date in years. You know the last time I’ve been with a woman before you? I don’t even want to think about it.”

I
don’t know what to say. My mouth feels dry.

I
want to try to explain to him what happened. I could tell him about the blackmailer, about how I did it to save his career, so that we could still be together. I really want to tell him. But I hear the words in my head and it all sounds like a big lie. He’ll never believe me in a million years.

Matt sighs and closes
his eyes, “You really got me, Rachel, I have to admit it. I really believed that…” He shakes his head and opens his eyes again. “Look, I’ll let you keep the A on the last midterm and let’s just forget this ever happened, okay? I’ll change the final exam questions and we’ll just call it even. It’s… a valuable lesson for me, I guess.”

I want to cry.
I don’t care about the grade. That’s not what matters to me anymore.

“Matt,” I s
ay, speaking through a sizable lump in my throat. “You have to believe me, I never faked anything with you. I swear.”

He glances
down at the exam paper still in my hand, “Yeah, okay.”

“I know how it looks,” I
admit, “but you also know how hard I studied for that last midterm. I mean, we studied together. You were quizzing me—I couldn’t have faked that. And I wasn’t faking my feelings for you either. I… I love you.”

Matt looks at me like I just slapped him in the face
.

“Please just get out,” he says, his voice breaking on the words.

What else can I do? I get out. And as I shut the door, I see Matt drop his face into his hands, and my heart breaks in two.

I cry. A lot.

I feel like a hypocrite for all the times I mocked Heather for crying over Abe.
I get it now. This is the worst pain ever. I miss him so much. And knowing how much he hates me just makes it a thousand times worse.

I
keep reliving the whole thing over and over. I imagine the crushed look in Matt’s eyes when he handed me that exam paper. Maybe I made a big mistake—maybe I should have gone to Matt right away when I got that note.

Of course, the main thing I keep thinking is:

If only I had noticed that last goddamn piece of paper in the printer.

It’s stupid to think about “if only” though.
It’s over with Matt. He hates me and he’ll never forgive me. The best thing to do is just to move on.

I don’t go to class and lab, mostly out of respect for Matt.
He’s required to go, so the least I can do is be the one to back out gracefully. I keep to the library when I have to go to school. I try studying for the final, hoping that a stellar performance might convince him that I hadn’t been trying to con him.

Unfortunately,
it’s pretty hard to concentrate. Plus I lost the best tutor I’ve ever had.

On the Saturday night before the final exam, I
find myself in the library, studying late. There aren’t many students around, but I recognize Ginny, my quiet, little lab partner. I sort of like Ginny. She doesn’t talk much, she seems really nice, and she’s not terribly annoying. I wonder if Ginny might consider being my friend—I could use a friend these days.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one here o
n a Saturday night,” I comment to Ginny as I slide into the seat across from her.

“It’s never empty here o
n Saturday night,” Ginny replies with a kind smile. “Do you usually study at home?”

“Sort of,” I
say, thinking of all the late night “study sessions” at Matt’s apartment.

I guess I must look pale or maybe my eyes are bloodshot from all the crying, because Ginny is giving me a funny look.

“Are you okay,
Rachel?” Ginny asks.

Ginny is reaching out to me—maybe I should confide in her.
I eye Ginny, a tiny little pixie of a girl with olive skin and a plain face. Ginny looks much younger than twenty-two, more like a high school girl, and I can’t imagine she could know much about love or sex.

Then again, did
n’t Heather say that Ginny is hooking up with Mason Howard? Ginny must know
something
if she’s getting it on with a guy like Mason.

“It’s just this guy I’ve been seeing,” I finally
say. I appreciate how Ginny doesn’t immediately start grilling me to find out his name, like Heather would have. “We sort of… broke up recently. I really messed things up.”

Ginny frowns
. “I’m sorry. Did all the studying get in the way?”

“No, not really,” I
nearly laugh at how opposite Ginny’s question is from the reality. “I just… did something dumb. He wouldn’t even let me explain.”

“So you’re having a fight?”

“No, it’s over,” I assure her. “I did something… pretty unforgivable.”

“You cheated on him,” Ginny says, nodding with understanding.

“No, it’s not that…”

And t
hat’s when I realize something:

I didn’t do anything wrong.

Okay, technically, I did.
I stole an exam. But I did it for honorable reasons. The worst thing I’ve done is that I wasn’t honest with Matt about why I did what I did. He deserves to know the truth before he decides to dump me. Honestly, I owe it to him.

“Ginny,
” I say. “I have to run out for a few minutes. Can you watch my stuff?”

Ginny looks confused but nods
in approval. I leave behind my books and coat, and I run out of the library. I hurry up the stairs, past the anatomy labs, over the Matt’s office. It’s dumb, because of course, he’ll never be here. But I have to try.

Just as I
get to Matt’s office, I see the door opening and the prongs of his cane peeking out. I race over then pause doubled over, trying to catch my breath.

“Matt,” I
gasp.

He looks up at me.
There’s no affection in his blue eyes.

“What is it
, Rachel? I’ve been stuck here all night rewriting the exam.”

Well, at least he seems more angry than hurt right now
.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I
ask.

“There’s nothing to say,”
he mutters.

“Please.”

Finally, he nods. He backs up to give me room to enter. He gestures toward the seat and I sat down, while he plops down in his own chair. He crosses his arms and glares across the desk at me.

I
had been working on a brave little speech as I ran over here. Something about how I gave in to the blackmailer to save his career and only did it because I care about him so much, and if he couldn’t understand that, then maybe we
weren’t
meant to be together. But he keeps looking at me with that hurt and angry expression, and the second I open my mouth to speak, everything I planned to say suddenly flies out of my head.

And then I’m crying.
Huge, ugly tears are gushing down my cheeks. My shoulders start shaking with wracking sobs. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard in my whole goddamn life. I wipe my eyes, trying to keep up with the rapid flow of tears, but I can’t.

“
Rachel,” I hear him saying, “Rachel, please stop crying…”

“I… I can’t!” I
sob. “I miss you.” I sniffle and hiccup. “I know you don’t believe me, but I only stole that exam because someone was going to tell on us.”

He frowns.
“What are you talking about?”

“I got a note,” I say.
I wish I’d brought the note. Oh well. “It said that if I didn’t put the exam in Locker 282, everyone would find out about the two of us. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Yeah, sure,” he mutters.

“It’s true!”

He’s quiet for a minute.
The only sounds in the room are the whir of the heater and my persistent sobs. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop. They’ll put me in the
Guinness Book of World Records
for crying.

Finally,
I hear him sigh loudly. “I don’t know what to believe anymore…”

I
look up at him and wipe my eyes. “It’s true,” I insist again, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “I swear it’s true. I swear on my life.”

Finally, Matt stands up and hobbles around the desk.
He touches my shoulder gently and I look up at him. I feel really unattractive with my swollen eyes and runny nose.

“Look,
Rachel,” he says, “I do believe you, but… it doesn’t really matter. We’re wrong for each other. For starters, I’m your professor and I’m also a lot older than you. Maybe we had some fun together, but that’s it.”

“It
was a lot more than that for me,” I whisper.

Matt pulls
a tissue from a box on his desk and gently wipes my cheeks. The gesture is so tender that I start to cry harder.

“Yeah,” he says, “it
was more than that for me too.”

It probably can’t ever “work out” with Matt, but I don’t care anymore.
I just want to be with him right now—that’s all that matters. I stand up and fall into his arms, and he clings to me like he’s missed me as much as I missed him. When we kiss, I feel like I can’t bear to ever be apart from him again.

“
Matt,” I murmur, “I do love you. I really do.”

“I love you too,
Rach,” he says, and I gasp as his mouth settled on the connection between my neck and my shoulder.

That’
s when we hear a knock at the door.

“Shit,” Matt mutters.
He looks at the door, willing the person to go away. No such luck—there’s a second, more urgent knock. “Shit,” he says again. Then louder, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Mason Howard
.”

Mason?
What the hell is
he
doing here in the middle of the night on a Saturday?

“I’l
l get rid of him,” Matt promises. He runs his hand through his short black hair to comb it out slightly. “Although it probably wouldn’t look too good for you to be seen here, huh?” He glances around his office, “Do you think you can make yourself out of sight for a few minutes?”

I
scan the room.

“The desk,” I
say. I approach Matt’s large mahogany desk and lower myself onto my knees. My body fits perfectly into the nook underneath the desk and I’m completely undetectable. Well, as long as nobody’s looking for me.

The floor of Matt’s office is cold and hard, tiled with off-white squares.
Many of the other offices have carpeting, but Matt told me he’s worried about snagging his foot. I feel the bones of my hips digging uncomfortably into the floor as I hear Matt opening the door for Mason. I shift, hoping Matt will get rid of him quickly.

The
door slams closed and Matt slides into his chair, being careful not to ram into me in my hiding place. I strain to listen, but the desk is somehow filtering out the sounds. I can only make out hushed voices. I’m only able to clearly hear one sentence, spoken by Mason.

“Is that the excuse you’re using?”

Oh my God. Is
Mason
the blackmailer? He really doesn’t seem like the type, although he’s certainly very competitive. I mean, it’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility. And God knows, he’s been acting weird lately.

I
perk my ears up, trying to hear what’s going on through the thick wood of the desk, when I hear a fist slam into the desk above me. I nearly jump out of my skin and I hug my knees to my chest. What the hell is going on up there?

I tug on Matt’s pants, but he doesn’t acknowledge me.
I have no idea what to do. I want to come out, but that would look really suspicious. It’s bad enough I’m in Matt’s office late on a Saturday night, but I don’t think I could possibly explain why I’d be hiding under the desk. I can’t. If I come out, we’re so busted.

“Tell me how you
killed him!”

I can just barely m
ake out Mason’s words, but that’s what it sounds like. Except that makes no sense. Matt didn’t kill anyone, that I know for a fact. I must have heard him wrong.

That’s when I
hear the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard in my life: a soft click.

I
don’t know what it is. But I’ve never heard anything quite like it and suddenly I know with absolute certainty that there’s something terrible going on in this room.

I’ve got to come out.
Whatever is going on, I’ve got to stop it.

Except then I see Matt’s left hand underneath the desk.
He’s making some kind of sign at me. He’s pointing emphatically at the ground. It’s pretty clear he wants me to stay hidden.

Okay, one
more minute. One more minute and I’m coming out.

Just when I
can’t stand it another second, I hear Matt’s sorrowful voice, loud and clear.

“I’m really sorry,” he says.

And then I hear the explosion and Matt’s legs jolt with the impact.

I
have to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Even though I’ve never heard a gun go off before except for in television or the movies, I know instinctively what it is. For some reason, Mason has a gun. And for some reason, he has fired it.

And now it’
s very quiet in the room. It’s so quiet that I can hear my own heart thudding in my chest. And another sound: Mason whimpering. If Matt got shot, wouldn’t he yell? Curse?
Something?
I tug on Matt’s pants leg, but he ignores me again. I wait for him to gesture at me again, but he doesn’t. And then I see his left hand, hanging limply off the side of the chair.

Oh no.
Oh God…

“Shut-up!”
Mason screams.

At first I
think he must have seen me and is screaming at me, but I know I’m well hidden. For a moment, I delude myself that he’s screaming at Matt, but the silence in the room makes that seem unlikely.

I want to come out, but something stops me.
I remember how fervently Matt had pointed at the ground, signaling to me that I needed to stay hidden. He did that for a reason. I need to stay down here—my life may depend on it.

So I wait.

After what seems like an eternity, I hear the door to the office open and the footsteps of someone walking out then shutting the door behind him. Mason is gone, or so it seems. I wait hopefully to hear Matt’s voice, for him to tell me that everything is okay and it’s safe to come out. But it’s getting pretty damn obvious that isn’t going to happen.