Page 22 of Anatomy Lessons

I can still taste her. Still smell her. Still feel the touch of her soft skin on my hands. I had her. My sweet angel. My princess. And then Karen showed up like a meteor crashing down from outer space and blew a hole in everything.

I didn’t sleep a wink. All I could see was Maisy running away from me, tears in her eyes, while Karen kept stepping in front of me and shouting, threatening to make a scene and call the cops if I didn’t pay attention to her.

After almost half an hour of arguing on the steps, she finally went back to her motel. She wanted to spend the night at my place. She even had a bag packed in her car. I told her that wasn’t happening.

Now I’m sitting here during office hours, thinking about my next move. Do I just go to the cops and blow this up into something bigger? Or do I try to handle it personally and keep it under the radar? Either way, I need to talk to Maisy soon. I can’t imagine how she’s feeling right now. She probably thinks I’m a scumbag, that I betrayed her, and it’s like a literal dagger stabbing me in the stomach. Torture.

I called her countless times, but she didn’t answer. Every time my call went to voicemail, it was like a piece of me was breaking away. And to make things worse, it was the middle of the night, so I couldn’t even figure out where she lived to go and see her.

There’s no class today, so I came in early to go visit my buddy who works tech support for the college. I’ll get her mailing address from him and go over there myself and sort this mess out. He should be here in ten.

Maisy deserves to know the truth: that my life cannot go on without her.

I grab my keys and my phone, but just as I’m getting up from my chair, the dean of the college, Robert, knocks at the door. Robert’s always been a nice guy, but I’m not feeling the look on his face right now. It’s the kind your parents give you when they need to have ‘a talk.’

“Hey there, Clark, how we doing?” he says in a casual tone, stepping into the office and closing the door behind him.

“Robert.” I nod, taking a breath, trying to look like I haven’t just been riding an anxiety-driven adrenaline high for the last sixteen hours. Robert and I have always been on good terms, but it’s not normal for him to just drop in unannounced like this. And by the way he’s fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing his arms, I’ve got a suspicion that he’s not just here to talk about the new Marvel movie coming out this weekend.

“Listen, Clark,” he says, clearing his throat. “You know I like you. I’ve had nothing but good feedback on you as a professor since you started teaching here.”

“And I appreciate that.”

He nods again, frowns, and twists his lips uncomfortably. “And you know I don’t enjoy having to have these…types of conversations.”

My stomach clenches. “What types?”

Robert scratches his head and paces over to the couch, admiring it. It is a nice couch, but if he knew what had happened on it…

“It’s come to my attention that there was a bit of a disturbance at your house last night,” he says slowly. My heart sinks. I tried as hard as I could to keep things quiet, but I guess it didn’t matter. Somebody must have called in a noise complaint.

“Yeah, just a bit of old drama,” I reply. “I’m going to sort it out.”

“Right.” He nods, clearly unconvinced. He paces back to the door, then turns and looks at me. “Clark, I got a call today.”

“A call? What kind of call?”

I already know.

“A woman,” he says slowly. “She’s made some…heavy accusations against you.”

Karen.

“Accusations?”

Every muscle in my body goes tight as I feel my life starting to melt away. Just like two years ago.

Robert is clearly uncomfortable getting into this with me. He’s a guy who doesn’t like confrontation, which is ironic considering he’s the dean of the college. He waves a hand dismissively in the air and frowns deeper.

“Let’s not get too mixed up in it all, Clark. I think you know what I’m referring to. And as you know, Greenhill is a small school. We can’t afford to be tangled up in a scandal.”

Anger sparks inside me. I’m this close to snapping, and if Robert was any other man, I would have already.

“A scandal, Robert? Seriously? Karen is lying. She was an obsessed student at my last school, who I tried to deal with, but I ended up having to leave my last position and move here just to get away from her. And now you’re telling me I, what, have to leave Greenhill?”

“No, no, no,” Robert replies, shaking his head. “Nothing that severe. Just…a leave of absence until we can get this all sorted out.”

Adrenaline pumps through me. Images of Karen two years ago flash through my mind: her staring at me in class, showing up to office hours with made up questions, following me to bars after school, and eventually tracking me down and showing up at my apartment.