“I think we’re going to call it a night…”
Eliza’s gaze shot up from her laptop at the sound of Professor Holstein’s announcement. While she could have half-listened to the study session for another hour or so, it was very apparent that the table of first year students was ready to call it quits. Seconds later, books started to close, the rustle of backpacks sounded, and laptops were packed up. Everyone in the small study room looked almost as exhausted as she felt most days. First year, unfortunately, wasn’t an easy one, and it only went downhill from there.
“Be sure to bring in your first draft case studies for our next session,” Professor Holstein continued, as the students started to file out of the room. A few nodded and smiled, but it was clear the rest of them just wanted to get out, which always made her glare. She and Holstein organized these study sessions to help people. They weren’t mandatory. Sometimes they even had upper year students dropping in just to brush up on some information. Most nights Eliza found them to be an extremely helpful reminder of lesson learned, and she hated seeing ungrateful little brats wasting them.
When they were alone moments later, Holstein turned from the huge circular table that took up the majority of the room, then began erasing the notes he’d scribbled on the whiteboard. Eliza, meanwhile, began to slowly pack her things. Life had been going in a slow, drudging pace since she called things off with Nash. Food didn’t taste as good. The sun didn’t seem as bright. Eliza didn’t move as fast, her limbs weight down by the heavy feeling in her heart. But still she forced herself to do things: go to class, keep up with readings, and help Holstein with his voluntary study sessions. If anything, she wanted to just keep busy; it had only been a few days since she flew out of Nash’s apartment in a storm of tears and rage, and rather than hiding in her apartment, shoveling down ice cream, and binging on mindless TV, Eliza thought it more productive to keep busy.
She’d already let her grades plummet once this year because of Nash—it wasn’t going to happen again. She knew she had to be stronger than that, not only for herself, but for her father, too.
“So, I think that went well enough,” Holstein remarked, his voice cutting through the dull fog of her mind, sharp like a whip. Eliza looked up from her things, needing a few seconds to digest what the heck had actually come out of his mouth. He was such a handsome man, Professor Holstein, with his chestnut brown hair and bright blue eyes, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. Not as muscular as Nash—not of a classic academic handsome. Sometimes she found it hard not to stare, if only to admire how attractive he was, though Eliza had no real interest in the man who had morphed into her mentor beyond admiring his physical handsomeness.
Oh, and that he was highly intelligent. That, too. But Eliza didn’t want classic good looks and an academic’s mind. Not anymore, anyway. Not now that she had seen what else was out there.
“Eliza?”
“Yeah, I think it went well,” she repeated back to him, having no real opinion on the issue. “Hopefully they all bring their case studies next time so you can give them some tips.”
“Hmm.” She looked down from his penetrating gaze, though it took her a second to remember what she was doing. Packing. Getting ready to head back to her apartment. “Eliza? Are you okay?”
Her eyebrows shot up, her eyes flickering to him. “What?”
“Are you okay?” Holstein tossed the whiteboard eraser down, then crossed his arms as he studied her. “You seem a little… out of it today. Well, the last couple of days.”
“Oh?” Was it that obvious? She’d been trying so hard to seem normal, to keep going on with her life as if she hadn’t broken her own heart by walking out the door at Nash’s apartment. That night she’d been so tempted to go back, to tell him that she knew he wasn’t ignoring her evidence on purpose, but she couldn’t. He refused to listen to her. Refused to see logic, or even listen to the information she had. As far as she was concerned that night, Nash was trying to drive a wedge between her and her father, to alienate her from the man who had raised her, albeit with a strict hand and an inability to tell him he was proud of her, but he’d raised her all the same. While she might have been falling head-over-heels in love with Nash, and even that she wasn’t entirely sure of, Eliza knew that her loyalty ought to be with her father.
Mostly because she knew he was innocent.
But also because that was what he deserved after all these years of being a single parent. Eliza owed him more than the benefit of the doubt, and she refused to let Nash fill her head with lies.
Or half-truths for that matter.
“You seem distracted,” Holstein noted, a kindness in his voice that she appreciated. “Is everything okay?”
“Uh…” She tucked her hair behind her ears, feeling a blush creep up. Oh, why keep it to herself? There was no shame in admitting it. “I think my boyfriend and I are kind of… I think I broke up with him.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “You think?”
“I just, uh…” Her blush worsened as he grinned, and Eliza suddenly felt the urge to run out of there. “I don’t know. I’m in a weird headspace. I’m sorry if it’s affecting my work.”
“Your work’s been fine, Eliza,” he insisted, as she finally switched into high gear as she packed. “I only say it because I noticed something was off. We spend a lot of time together, after all.”
“Right.” A nervous laugh slipped out as she grabbed her stuff, not even bothering to pull on her jacket, and made a beeline for the door. “Well, see you in class tomorrow!”
She barely heard his goodbye as she booked it out the door, not stopping until she was down the hall and halfway through the flight of stairs that led to the outdoors. Eliza stopped on one of the landings to slowly pull on her jacket, the fog settling back in. Once she was all zipped up, she trudged onward, the memory of what had just happened feeling exactly so—just a memory of something that wouldn’t matter, regardless of how silly she felt in the moment.
Using her body weight to push open the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell, she stumbled outside and cringed when she found herself in a light misting of rain. Darkness had settled across Blackwoods campus, and in the soft light of the occasional lamp along the walkways she saw a thick sheet of rain spitting down, which would probably be ice by tomorrow. Miserable, she pulled her hood up, tucked her chin into her coat, and started the slow, forced march back to her dorm. While passing one of the parking lots, she swore she heard the revving of a motorcycle engine. Her heart pounded in her chest as she sought out the source of the sound. Suddenly, everything was moving rapidly again, as if someone had pressed the fast-forward on a remote, but it all came crumbling to a stop when she spotted the biker.
With a woman wrapped around him.
It wasn’t Nash, thank god. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing him with someone else so soon—or at all. But the bike was different than his, smaller, and the rider was tall and trim, nothing like her hulking, bulk of muscle Master. Licking her lips, she watched them go, wishing it was her and Nash zooming off into the night and knowing that she was the reason they weren’t.
No. Her gaze narrowed, and she turned sharply in the direction of her dorm building. Their end wasn’t her fault, not entirely. Nash was the one who refused to look at her evidence. Nash was the stubborn one. He wouldn’t even entertain the information she had retrieved from her father’s office, not for a second.
But perhaps he had a point, the little voice at the back of her head cried, refusing to be squashed and silenced no matter how many times she tried. It was the voice of logic, of reason, who whispered that maybe, just maybe, Nash had a point. After all, if her father had been involved in illicit dealings, why would he make a record of it in his personal journals? Did she expect to find her father, or any criminal for that matter, holding the smoking gun?
Eliza groaned, coming to a stop near the entryway to her dorm building. Normally the steps were littered with people smoking or drinking or just being in the way in general, but the weather had kept them all indoors. There, before her, stood warmth and solitude, but she couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that she didn’t deserve either until she got to the bottom of it. If Nash was right and all her evidence was circumstantial, she would need to find something better, something harder, to prove her father’s innocence.
And then she would have to forgive Nash, somehow, because his questioning of her logic might actually lead her to the truth.
“Shit,” she muttered, taking a few more steps toward the door of the building looming ahead before stopping. She bit her lower lip, staring at the door hard as the rain continued to drench her.
Then, against her better judgement, she turned back and headed for campus again. She had to find more. She had to get something more than circumstantial bullshit. This was her first real test, to prove her knowledge of the law, to find a way to fight for the innocent. So far she was doing a mediocre job, just as she’d done for most of her years in law school.
Today, she needed to step up and do more, be better. Her grades were good but her drive was low—and that needed to change. Two profoundly influential men in her life hinged on the amount of effort she put in at that very moment. Her father, who she needed to save, and Nash… who may or may not deserve another chance. The fate of her relationship with both depended on what she found.
And this time she wasn’t about to snoop through her father’s office. No, Eliza still went to the administration building, but she went to the lower levels, and before long, she found herself standing at the doors of campus security with the intention of going through her father’s private study when she was done. Beyond those heavy doors might be the proof she needed, the video evidence to put this matter to rest once and for all.