The lack of motive had not only made it difficult for the prosecution to proceed in the trial, it also made the trial interesting for the media. I shuddered in my bed as I thought about the frenzy of cameras that surrounded the court room. The trial was so public and dragged on for so long that I had no choice but to take time off from school. That was the first of three semesters away from Arrowhart.
Finally, the verdict came in. The forensic evidence was enough: Marco was found guilty of first degree murder. Cameras flashed in my face as the words were delivered—the journalists were probably expecting tears and smiles at justice being delivered but they got none of that.
All they got was the numb expression of a girl who had stopped feeling. From the pictures, you might have thought I’d been the one convicted. Even after the sentence of life in prison was delivered and everything was finally over, I felt nothing. My life had been damaged by an act so senseless lawyers couldn’t even come up with a bad reason for why the murderer did it. All I could do was stare into space.
And sit. After the verdict I did a lot of sitting and staring into space. When the anguish became too much, I’d curl into a ball on my bed and lay there for hours until I fell asleep from exhaustion.
Marco’s letter was bringing it all back. Just when I was finally beginning to feel again, my mother’s murderer had forced his way back into my life—for who knows what reason—making me numb to the world again.
Laying on my bed, I did my best to steady my breathing. The letter hadn’t mentioned my father. Had news gotten back to Marco about Dad’s suicide? Was he aware of just how much damage he’d done? That his pointless action had driven a good man to kill himself?
I managed enough strength to pick up the offending letter, ball it up, and throw it in the trash. The words “With much love, Marco” echoed through my head. How dare he write that he loved me? He had no right to pretend he had any connection with anyone.
There was no way I was writing him back. Although Dr. Schwartz had told me that I needed to forgive him if I was ever going to completely move on, I couldn’t. Not yet. He wouldn’t even take responsibility for what happened. He was sorry “for the pain of my family”—not the pain he had caused.
It wasn’t that I wanted something bad to happen to Marco. I just wanted to erase him from my life. I thought I’d managed to shut the closet door on my skeletons but one had managed to escape. I propped myself up and got under the covers of my bed, burying my face in my pillow. But even under the covers, I still felt cold.
Chapter Twenty-two
THE FALL
“Lorrie, get up! You can’t skip today. We have an exam!”
Daniela’s muffled yelling stirred me from a dreamless sleep. I reached over to my night stand and looked at the time on my phone: 8:00 AM. I had slept a long time, but I still felt exhausted. What the hell happened? What day was it? Why didn’t my cell phone alarm go off?
My friend burst into my room, making me realize I neglected to lock the door. “Your alarm was going off forever. Are you feeling okay? I wasn’t even sure you were here last night until I heard your phone beeping.”
I was aware of her words but couldn’t form a response. It felt like my jaw was glued shut. Something bad had happened. There was a reason I was supposed to be unhappy that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something in the back of my mind.
The letter.
My stepfather had sent me a letter begging forgiveness. Slowly, it came back to me: Marco, the letter, the murder, his dead eyes in the courtroom when he’d been sentenced. I had fallen asleep after I’d read it.
Daniela was staring at me, confusion on her face. “Lorrie, wake up! What’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost.”
I threw my covers off and sat up, rubbing my eyes. “Go on, I’ll be there,” I said quietly. I scanned my room, thinking of what I wanted to wear.
My friend watched me for another minute, then spun and left. I sighed as I watched her hurry back to her room to finish getting ready. As I absentmindedly packed my backpack, dropping books and papers in the process, I realized this exam was going to be a disaster.
The walk to the exam had been a daze. It felt like my head was a balloon loosely attached to the rest of my body. The sensation was familiar—I’d felt the same way when Dad told me with tears in his eyes that Mom passed away.
Daniela and I made our way through the crowded aisles of the auditorium, until we finally found two empty seats. One of the teacher’s assistants handed us test packets. Moments later, the professor at the front of the auditorium explained the exam was scantron multiple choice; eighty minutes for a forty question test.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the exam would be multiple choice, figuring it wouldn’t be too bad.
But I did not anticipate using every ounce of concentration just to focus my eyes enough that I could bubble in the letters of my name. Every thought that flickered through my brain felt like it was traveling through mud. Holding my pencil correctly took effort. My muscles did not want to listen to what my brain was trying to make them do.
I stared at my test blankly:
What anxiety disorder—characterized by its link to one or more specific events—is said to affect over 6% of women in the United States at some point in their lives?
The words seemed to pass in and out of my mind without processing. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, trying to follow the technique Dr. Schwartz had taught me to manage my anxiety.
Gradually, I became aware of being kicked in the shin. I opened my eyes and turned to see the coffee brown eyes and receding hairline of my stepfather, Marco.
My heart slammed into my chest, knocking the breath out of me.
I blinked. It wasn’t Marco. It was Daniela, and she was looking at me out of the corner of her eye suspiciously. I turned to study her. What did she want? How long had she been watching me? As I tried to put together the pieces, there was a cough at the front of the classroom.
Startled, I nearly jumped out of my seat. Did Muller think I was cheating? I looked at the front of the classroom and saw he was sitting at the table, reading a newspaper like he always did during exams. Nobody was looking at me. I had overreacted.
My heart still pounding, I went back to my test and realized I had lost my pencil. It must have flown out of my hand in my panic. I looked at the floor and saw it had rolled under the feet of the girl in the row in front of me. Why had I ignored Daniela’s advice to bring an extra? God, this sucks.
I stared at my fallen writing utensil in despair, knowing it was too far away to reach it with my foot. Suddenly, I felt a kick at my shin again. I turned my head and saw a pencil on the table. Daniela met my eyes briefly, then went back to her test. I smiled at her, but she was already focusing on her exam. That girl wasn’t letting anything get in the way of an A in this class.
My case was different. I looked at the exam and tried to answer the first question. The words might as well have been in a different language. The sound of a metal chair grating against the floor from the front of the room caused me to jump again.
After an hour of futilely reading and rereading the first damn question, I realized that it was hopeless. I bubbled in C for every question just so I’d have something, then struggled through the rest of the exam period trying to find some question that I had a clue on. It didn’t work. I had studied for this exam the previous day, but even understanding the questions was too much to handle at the moment.
After the exam ended, I told Daniela I wasn’t feeling well after all. She looked at me quizzically, but nodded and let me go without asking any questions. I headed back to my dorm and to the comfort of my bed. As I slid miserably under the covers, I thought about what was happening. Why had he picked now to contact me? Why not when I was taking time off school? How had he found my address, anyway?
I stared at the ceiling and drifted off to sleep, hoping I would feel better when I woke up.
A friendly hand shook my shou
lder, jarring me awake. I turned over lazily and looked up. It was Daniela again. Even in the darkness of my room, I could see she looked worried. I smiled and closed my eyes again. It was dark out. People were allowed to sleep when it was dark out.
“I hope you’re recovering well,” she said.
The words were the same ones used in the letter. Marco. I jolted up and looked around, my heart racing in my chest, my skin covered by a thin film of sweat. Daniela stared back at me, wide-eyed.
“Lorrie,” she said. “You’re starting to scare me. Are you sure you’re okay?”
My chest heaved in and out heavily as I worked to catch my breath. Adrenaline poured through my veins. “Sorry, bad dream,” I said unsteadily. I did my best to smile at her, but it was hard to even meet her gaze.
She put the back of her hand to my forehead. “Jesus, you’re having cold sweats. You should go to the health center.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be fine, just need to sleep.”
“Didn’t you have an Econ exam this afternoon? Did you go?”
My heart felt like it had been mashed into little sinews. In my rush to get over what had happened during my Psych exam, I had totally forgotten about the Econ exam I had later in the same day. A few hours ago.
“No, I forgot,” I said softly.
Her face didn’t move as she studied me. She just nodded slowly. “Okay . . . Well, I’ll let you sleep. When’s your next exam?”
It took a long time to remember, but eventually it came to me. “I have sociology tomorrow morning.”
“What time?”
“Ten.”
“Okay, I’ll come wake you up. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Daniela woke me up on Thursday to make sure I went to my exam. As I got dressed and ate a granola bar for breakfast, my head still felt like it was filled with a hazy cloud. All the muscles in my body were tensed in frayed knots. Dammit, I felt awful—why couldn’t I just put the letter out of mind long enough to take my exams?
Backpack over my shoulder, I left Floyd Hall with my mind swirling. Everything on campus looked slightly off; I kept asking myself if the campus always looked this way. The detailing on the street lamps, the flyers on the bulletin boards, even the way the sun looked—everything seemed to belong to a strange photograph rather than real life. I kept waiting for a tug at my shoulders to pull me out of this nightmare, but it never came.
Passing the student union, I sighed. After bombing a test yesterday because I was so upset I couldn’t read properly, it was looking like the same thing would happen again. A storm was still thundering inside my head. I had a hard enough time with sociology when I was at my best so I knew that taking the midterm in this condition was going to be a disaster.
Hot tears welled up in my eyes before rolling in thin lines down my cheeks. I tilted my head toward the ground and wiped them away, hoping no one would notice.
Dammit. It was unfair how he could ruin my life again, and this time by a simple letter. I just wanted a fair shot at being normal and not having to deal with something awful for a while. A few months of a normal college life: passing my classes, figuring out my career, working on my relationship with Hunter. Being in my twenties in college was dramatic enough without fresh reminders of the dear loved ones I had lost.
I looked up at the clear blue sky as I entered the arts quad. The sun reflected painfully against the tears in my eyes; I shut them and turned away. My chest heaved as the tears began coming more freely. My life was taking yet another shitty turn. What was I doing even taking this test when I knew I had no prayer of passing?
I tried wiping my eyes with my sleeve but I couldn’t stop the fresh waves of tears from flowing. I was forced to stop near a large tree to collect myself. As I unslung my backpack and sat against the tree I noticed people were staring at me. I covered my eyes with my hands and cried harder. Each choked sob led to another one I didn’t have the strength to stop. I could try as hard as I wanted, but the crying continued no matter what. Too much was pent up inside.
I reluctantly peeked through my fingers and saw students craning their necks, trying to get a glimpse of my face.
Yes, I thought, that girl is really crying in the middle of the quad. Uncontrollably.
Groaning in frustration, I picked up my backpack and turned toward Floyd Hall instead of the exam building. Who was I kidding? There was no way I was passing that exam. I decided to spare myself further embarrassment by going back to my room.
As I dragged myself back to Floyd Hall, something that had been in the back of my mind since I failed my psych exam came to the front: I might have to withdraw from the semester.
I spent the rest of the day Thursday locked in my room. Daniela knocked on my door that night to check on me, but went away after I called out that I was still sick. I was thankful she left me alone. There was nothing to say about how I was feeling. I didn’t want to talk to her about the possibility of withdrawing from another semester. Not yet.
Friday was more of the same. I skipped swimming, deciding that there was no point in splashing around in a pool when I already felt like I was drowning. As I lay in bed I realized with more and more certainty that I would have to withdraw from Arrowhart again. The thought depressed me: I had been doing so well, but then that damn letter derailed me, causing me to already fail two classes. Now there was nothing I could do.
I texted Hunter in the afternoon asking what he was up to before rolling over for a nap. It was weird we hadn’t been in contact since Tuesday, but we both had a lot of stuff going on. Maybe he was just extra busy with exams.
Daniela came in that night and made me swear that if I still felt bad the next day that I would go to the health center. I agreed, wanting to placate her so she would leave. When she did, I rolled over and checked my phone. No response from Hunter. I wrinkled my brows finding the situation strange. Frustrated and tired, I burrowed into my pillow and tried to sleep, hoping I would somehow feel better in the morning.
I woke up Saturday and sat in my bed thinking about how I could recover. Even if I was going to withdraw, I couldn’t stay in bed forever. I had to get up and eat, shower, and try to pull myself together.
I looked at my phone on my night stand. Still no reply. It was weird that Hunter hadn’t responded to the text I sent him yesterday afternoon. What was he thinking about the way I’d disappeared? Where had he disappeared to?
I thought about calling him, but decided I wasn’t ready to talk to him about the letter yet. The first person I wanted to talk to was my Aunt Caroline. I dialed her number and put the phone to my ear. It rang four times before I heard her voice.
“Hello?” she answered. She sounded sleepy.
I did my best to make my voice perky. “Hi Aunt Caroline. Did I wake you up?”
“Lorrie? You did, yes. It’s five o’clock in the morning!”
I looked out my window and realized it was still dark outside. A glance at my phone’s clock proved Aunt Caroline had been right about the time—it had totally escaped me. I put the phone back to my ear, trying to think of what to say next.
“Is everything okay?” my aunt asked. She sounded very worried.
It started with a single tear escaping from my right eye and falling warmly down my cheek. As it fell from my face, the dam broke and I cried hard, my chest convulsing with powerful sobs. Tears poured from my eyes as if they’d been saved up since I’d walked home from my econ exam.
Why had Marco sent that letter? Why now? The effort of crying so hard was exhausting and yet the release was such a relief that I couldn’t stop.
“Lorrie talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out.
“You’re sorry?” she asked. Her voice had raised a pitch, indicating her concern. “What are you sorry about?”
I tried to get words out, but blubbered instead. My aunt stopped asking me to speak. I could hear her breathing tense on the other side.
Several minutes passed as
I tried to gather myself. The prospect of telling her about the letter kept bringing fresh sobs. I couldn’t imagine what a mess I’d be trying to talk to Hunter about this.
“Lorrie, do you need me to come get you?” she asked carefully.
I swallowed a hard lump in my throat. “. . . He sent me a letter,” I said quietly.
“Who sent you a letter?”
I tried to say the name but it made me too scared, too angry, so it came out as a mumble.
“No!” she yelled. It was so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “That monster?”
I said nothing. There was silence on the line for several seconds.
“What did it say?” she asked quietly.
I breathed in and out several times, trying to steady myself. “He wants me to forgive him.”
“Bastard,” my aunt spat. I was surprised to hear her swear. That was unlike her. “He has some nerve sending you something like that.”
“He also said he loves me,” I added.
“What?” she screamed, even more loudly than before. I heard my uncle grumble in the background.
I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. “I couldn’t believe it either.”
“How did he know where you live?” She sounded panicked.
“I don't know . . . I don't think he does, it was forwarded from the Cook County Penal System, they must have our records.”
“Those idiots need to get it together, how could they forward something like that to you? Haven't we suffered enough already? I'm going to get a lawyer to give them a call.”
“No Aunt Caroline, forget it,” I pleaded. The thought of interacting with more lawyers and making the situation bigger than it already was made me sick.
She paused. “When did you get the letter?”
“A couple days ago.”