JACKSON

 

 

I don’t see her anywhere. This is the second time I can't find Lana in her regular seat when class begins. It has become my ritual to find her, acknowledge her presence and nod toward where she is, sitting in the third row, her posture straight and attentive, her blue eyes glued to me, and her shoulders tense.

Today, my ritual is disrupted when I don’t see her there, and I find myself scanning the auditorium. The last time this happened, she just showed up late. Today, it seems, she didn't show up at all.

I start my lecture, checking the rows again and again to make sure that I didn't miss her. Even fifteen minutes, the doors in the back spill open to let in another student who couldn't manage to get out of bed on time on a Monday morning.

But none are her.

Lana has been avoiding me ever since our little session in my office. I don't know where she lives, and I have nothing but an e-mail address that was listed on the attendance sheet I received for my class at the beginning of the semester. It has been a full week since I’ve seen or heard from her, which would not have been unusual before, as we never interacted outside of class, but it is now.

I expected her to come see me again, or at least show her face, so I could come to her. She knows where I am. I'm not on campus every day because it's neither necessary nor possible, but I have to be there for consultation hours and faculty meetings, even though they are barely relevant to me.

Lana knows that. She knows when I'll be around, and she knows where to find me. Yet, she has kept her distance since leaving my office with teary eyes and that hauntingly beautiful look of humiliation.

It's exactly what I wanted to see. Her, wax in my hands and hazy with lust, just to send her away without that release she so desperately craved.

It wasn't easy for me, either. I wanted her to come, I wanted to see her explode on my desk, to lose her inhibitions completely, even if it was just for a few seconds. The beauty of it is unimaginable.

I thought she was just being careful and smart about this. To be seen with me outside of class could still pose a risk, even if we were just talking to each other. Gossip is uncontrollable, and it would be all the more notable because I'm never seen with anyone else.

I'm aware of all the eyes constantly upon me when I walk across campus. While the initial excitement of the swooning crowd has subsided, there are still plenty who take note of me.

Enough time has passed for me to become accustomed to their attention. While I still carry that young boy with the broken heart inside of me, he had to make way for the person I have become today a long time ago. The boy who fell to the ground, accompanied by laughter and disgust, is long gone. He disappeared the very moment my gaze locked onto Aileen Watson and her ugly grimace.

Nonetheless, it still aches. The pain of losing something that beautiful - my innocent infatuation with a girl who was nothing but an idea of something - will never leave me completely.

However, breaking the Aileen Watson's of this world helps a lot in dealing with that pain.

In a way, she made me the man I am today, and I never thanked her for that.

It started with a physical change. There was no Jackson Fatson left by the time I entered my senior year of high school. In that regard, I had turned into the exact opposite.

It took me years, and it was as hard as they say, especially for someone with as little money as I had and a mother who couldn't care less about her own, let alone her son's, nutrition. I ran in secret and I ate smaller portions of what was provided at home, but learned to fill my stomach with less harmful fuel. I added push-ups and crunches to my runs, since I couldn't afford to join a gym until after I achieved financial success.

Once that crippling exterior was left behind, I had to get past my inability to follow a regime that wasn't for me. The way they teach you at school is not the way I learn and thrive, but I had to meet the right teacher to figure out what could be my way.

I was hoping to become that teacher for some of these kids here, but so far Lana appears to be the only one who wants to listen. What attracted me to her was her resemblance to Aileen and my strong urge to break that type of woman, but what keeps me hooked on her now is so much more than that.

I wonder if Lana would have reacted the same way Aileen did back then? I want to believe that she would not have. I really want to believe that.

I dismiss the students a few minutes earlier today, too distressed about Lana's absence to conclude class the way I had planned. Of course, they don't care. They flee out of the auditorium without any further questions, except for the usual group who tends to hang around and pester me with small talk before I'm allowed to leave.

Just like every Monday after class, I check my phone for any urgent messages that might demand my immediate attention. My affiliates knew that I'd be present less for the duration of this semester, but I couldn't assign all of my responsibilities to my co-founders, and Mondays are still the worst days when it comes to catastrophes and developments that call for my personal attention.

However, not today.

I browse through the few e-mails I received and decide that none of them need an instant reply or even another thought.

Good. I have other things to take care of right now.

I head for the faculty lounge because I need to drop off some papers. My plan is to get in and out as quickly as possible, but when I walk in and find Lilia Esquin sitting in one of the lounge chairs, casting me a bright smile as soon as I walk through the door, an idea pops into my head, a plan of action that could help me solve the Lana dilemma sooner rather than later.

"Hello," Miss Esquin sing-songs in my direction, as I walk past her to the shelf where I need to drop my papers. I place them in the assigned box and turn to her.

"Hello there," I say, applying the nicest voice possible. "Miss Esquin, if I remember correctly?"

She nods excitedly, sitting erect within a second as she beams at me.

"Yes, exactly," she says. "I'm surprised you remember..."

"From the sociology department, right?" I add, smiling at her as I approach. "May I sit with you for a moment?"

She nods, slightly confused, but seemingly happy, as I take a seat next to her.

I have a goal, information that I want to extract from her, but as is always the case in these situations, I won't be able to get to my goal without a little chit-chat first.

So, I engage her in a little small talk about the school, about how long she has been working here, how she ended up here, how she decided on teaching sociology, and so on. Like most people, Lilia Esquin is more than happy to talk about herself and flattered by my sudden interest in her and her life. She talks without interruption, and makes it easy for me to lead the conversation where I want it to be: her students.

I test the waters by trying to deduce as much as possible using her talkativeness to my benefit. Soon, I find her dropping names left and right, about kids who annoyed her, kids who impressed her, kids who surprised her.

To my disappointment, Lana Harlington isn't among them. It would've been so much easier to talk about her without having to bring her name up myself. I don't want to raise suspicion in any way, but I want to know if there's anything Miss Esquin can tell me about Lana's whereabouts. It's a slim chance, because I don't even know if Lana is one of her students, but I'm willing to waste a few minutes of my time in the faculty lounge if it could help me locate Lana. I'd hate to wait another week for a chance to see her, and I'd hate it even more if she decided not to show up for class again. If she misses another one, she's jeopardizing her chance of passing the class at all, due to the standard attendance rule that - ironically - she was behind.

The longer Lilia talks, the more I find myself zoning out, but just as I'm beginning to lose hope on retrieving anything helpful from her, I'm drawn back by her mentioning a party that resulted in most of her students being hungover in her classes the following day.

"Those sociology majors sure know how to make the best use of their dorms for throwing parties," she says, giggling as if she was a freshman attending those parties. "Well, I should know. I still remember when-"

"It was a dorm party?" I interrupt.

Miss Esquin looks at me, a hint of surprise on her undoubtedly pretty face. I'm sure she's never run short of admirers, which only proves how she's so not my type.

"Yes," she says. "Most of the sociology majors live in Cleveland Hall. They try to keep students with the same major close to each other when they assign housing, and-"

"Is it just the undergraduates?" I want to know. "Or do they do the same with the graduate students, as well?"

"Oh, graduates are more scattered around, or live off campus, but-"

"But some of them live in Cleveland Hall?"

She nods. "Yes, sure. Some, if not most."

"I see," I murmur.

Some, if not most. That's not a definite answer, but it’s a start. Together with what Lana told me about her Monday schedule, I now have two pieces of information that could possibly lead me to her.

I endure a few more minutes of small talk with Miss Esquin, quickly diverting the topic away from her students and their living arrangements. She was casting me weird looks for asking in the first place, and I certainly don't want to give an impression that I’m showing a little too much interest in that regard.

When I manage to excuse myself, leaving behind a visibly disappointed Lilia Esquin, I decide that I’ll pay a quick visit to Cleveland Hall this evening. I’ll be sure to arrive there shortly after six, which is when Lana’s last class of the day ends.