Last Christmas (Private 0.60)

She still needed to call Daniel, to find out if he was actually in Vermont. And to do that, she needed a cell

phone that actually worked. As long as Mr. Holmes was busy holding his perverted version of office hours, he

wouldn't miss his cell.

Ever so carefully, Ariana inched her foot out from beneath the stairwell, keeping her gaze fixed on Mr.

Holmes and Isobel to be sure they didn't see her. She nudged the pants toward her, inch by inch, until they

were close enough that she could reach out and grab the cell phone without exposing herself to the happy

couple.

Shielding the phone with her cupped hand, she flipped it open and stared at the screen. As her eyes adjusted to

the light, the pixels on the screen coalesced to reveal a smiling pregnant woman, one hand resting on her

belly. Mr. Holmes's wife was standing next to his desk,

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gesturing proudly with the other hand toward the nameplate that was perched on top of a stack of books.

Ariana forced herself to look away from the screen. That woman deserved better than Mr. Holmes.

Don't we all deserve to be happy? Or at least to search for what we think might make us happy? Isn't that a

basic human right?

Her jaw tightened as she remembered Mr. Holmes's words in class a few days ago. Now, they took on an

entirely different meaning. She'd thought he was challenging the class with those words. Pushing them to go

deeper. But he was just using his lecture to justify an affair with a student. And she'd been stupid enough to

listen. She shook her head in disgust, cursing herself for trusting him. For always trusting the wrong people.

Her hand slipped against a button on the side of the phone, and suddenly she was staring at a crooked image

of Mr. Holmes and Isobel pressed against each other. The furnace blocked part of the screen, but the flashlight

on the floor offered just enough light for the screen to capture their faces.

A tiny red dot throbbed at the top of the screen next to the letters rec. The phone was recording video. Her

heart started to pound in her chest. What was she doing? All she had to do to stop the recording was press the

button again, but something stopped her. A

riana felt betrayed-used. Disgusted that two people whom she

had admired had turned out to be so unworthy. She wanted to preserve the evidence of this moment. The

evidence of their debauchery, the depth of their duplicity. Numb, she stared at the grainy image until their

bodies melted out of focus on the screen.

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