Right then, I knew: there was more to this situation than I was aware of. Ms. Miller knew things.
“I just want what I’ve always wanted,” I told her. “I want him to stay away from me, and I want him to do it sincerely, not trying to psych me out or whatever he’s been playing at today.”
She didn’t ask me to clarify that statement, which was another warning sign. She rose from her chair. “I’m going to go out and speak with Steven, and then I’d like to bring him in here so the three of us can thrash this out.”
It was the most unfortunate terminology I could imagine, and from the look on her face Ms. Miller realised it right away. “Well, any objections?” When I shook my head, she got out of there fast.
She was in such a hurry she clearly hadn’t fully thought through the implications of leaving me alone in her office, because after the door clicked behind her, there I was with a bulging file with Steven Dillon printed on it now sitting just inches away from my fingertips. My folder, much smaller, peeked out from underneath it. On the one pre-Steven occasion I’d been alone with Ms. Miller, when she’d gleefully set up my folder, she explained to me that she had been strongly encouraged to take up digital record-keeping but was too worried about the possibility of her students’ files being subject to a security breach. Her method of security didn’t seem to be working out very well for her.
Maybe she hadn’t been worried, because I was not the sort of girl who poked her nose into things that were clearly not meant for her.
But I wasn’t exactly the sort of girl who harassed her friends when they didn’t want her around, or got into physical altercations with people twice her size, so I thought maybe she hadn’t spent quite enough time thinking that one through either.
I still wouldn’t have even thought about touching that file, if not for my sudden realisation Ms. Miller was hiding something. If I was going to trust her to sort this situation out between Steven and myself, I needed to know everything she did.
I felt like the instant I put my hand on that folder, there had to be a reaction. An alarm, a camera flash. Ms. Miller would rush back in.
When I touched it and there was nothing, I felt bolder. I took the folder in two hands and tilted it so it fell open, flicking through the neatly handwritten pages. I remembered Ms. Miller had taken some notes during our meeting, but there was no way she could have kept up a conversation and written this much at the same time. I had no desire to look at what she’d said about me in my folder, but I bet if I looked I’d see much more text than she’d written while face-to-face with me.
And I definitely didn’t need to see any of it after just a quick look through Steven’s. Ms. Miller had written what looked like whole essays about her thoughts on Steven. I skipped through belligerent and issues surrounding claustrophobia and likely sexual dysfunction, none of which was any of my business. Actually I wasn’t sure what I might be looking for, and I was starting to think maybe I was violating Steven’s privacy for no reason other than tasteless curiosity… and then a phrase stopped me.
Restraining order.
I read over the full sentence. Restraining order from J— M— heavily on his mind. Probably the only thing stopping him from being more aggressive with me.
Who was J— M—? Someone who had a restraining order out against Steven, clearly. It didn’t match the initials of anyone I could immediately think of who had anything to do with Steven’s group, not that I knew Steven that much better than he knew me. I was assuming the initials were even the actual initials of a person of course, when it would make some sense for Ms. Miller to have used a code name to hide the individual’s identity from casual eyes.
I thought I could assume some things, though. J— M— was probably female, and Steven had definitely done something to hurt or frighten her. That was the requirement for a restraining order, wasn’t it?
A memory struck me: Callie, some weeks ago, asking if I knew anything about a girl she was trying to find out about. Obviously someone who had something to do with Lucas. I remembered the surname because it had sounded really pretentious to me: Montgomery. What was the first name? Jane or something? Was it possible that the girl Callie had been trying to find out about was the same girl whose full name Ms. Miller was wary of mentioning?
Well, I couldn’t exactly ask Callie about it now. And wasn’t I looking just as crazy as she’d looked to me then, obsessively researching some guy I should really be running like hell away from? My situation was a little different because honestly, Callie had always wanted Lucas, even before she’d been able to understand that, but that just seemed to make what I was doing more questionable.
I had to knock it off before I really got myself in trouble. I put the folder back exactly as it had been before, and rearranged myself into a more innocent position. Not a moment too soon either, because I could hear approaching footsteps.
Chapter Five: Steven
I was pretty done with Ms. Miller and her meddling and would have just not waited for her to come and ‘deal with me’, but it wasn’t like I wanted to go to my next class either. So I sat myself down on the bench outside her building, and let her waste my time until she stepped out and sat next to me.
“Steven. What was all of that? You know better than to think you can get away with that, surely.”
“I don’t know what that was,” I said. “You tell me. She seems to have it in for me now no matter what I do.”
“I’
ve had a quick chat with her, and that is not how she sees the situation at all,” said Ms. Miller.
I got up and started walking, and of course she followed me. Nobody could ever leave me alone when I wanted them to.
“That’s it then, isn’t it? You’re going to believe what she says, because she’s the female. Anything I have to say doesn’t even matter.”
Ms. Miller rolled her eyes like I had no reason to say something like that… which sort of proved my point. “That’s not it at all. I can’t tell you how sympathetic I am to you because of what you’ve been through… but at the same time—and this is actually something I’d say to the both of you—when you act like this, you are making your own bed. The consequences you face are consequences you should expect.”
“Well it’s not—”
“Fair,” Ms. Miller interrupted, “no, it’s not. I would be doing you a tremendous disservice if I only advised you on the way life should work for you. You know you will never be able to go through life the way your friend Lucas does. If he had done what you have done, it’s very likely he would be able to talk his way out of it. But the same will probably never be true for you, and it’s too late for you to go on denying that.”
Something about her mentioning Lucas hit me hard. Maybe because of that Tamara bringing up Lucas too before, acting like the two of us were the same, which just showed how much she knew. Ms. Miller might be fucking busting my balls half the time, but she got it.