Chapter Twenty-One
Tessa
After Lindsey and I were done with classes for the day, we went to the library to do some work. I finished reading Beloved for my feminist fiction class and then I wrote out a bullet list of everything that I had due. There was no way I was going to be able to write two different articles for submission to the Daily Journal, so I’d just write the one and send it to that email address and hope that it was the last time that person would ever be in contact with me.
“What’s that?” Lindsey asked, looking over at my notebook.
“It’s just all the shit I have to try to finish before the end of the semester.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Damn, that’s a lot. I was freaking out because I have two papers to finish.”
I sighed. “I wish I had just two. I’ve got a start on pretty much everything, except the article.”
“You should write something totally ridiculous,” she said. “Something like . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe something like what it says about your personality if you hang the toilet paper over the roll or under the roll.”
I laughed. “I don’t think so. What does it say about your personality, though?”
“I have no clue! It’s totally ridiculous. But it would serve that person right, whoever the hell they are. You could just make something up.”
“Maybe I should.”
“It could be something like you’d read in The Onion.”
“Except those articles are actually funny. Whoever sent this doesn’t deserve something that people are going to like. I’ll think of something.”
When Lindsey and I were done studying, we packed up our stuff. She had parked in the smaller north parking lot, so we went opposite directions after we left the library. I dug through my purse for my phone to text Leo and see if he was still here or if he’d already left for the day. I tapped at the screen as I walked along, glancing up every so often to make sure I didn’t run into something.
I heard some commotion, and as I rounded the corner into the main quad, I saw that there was a group of people hanging out by the benches. It was Nick, Seth, and a bunch of their friends.
They were horsing around, and Nick shoved Seth, and Seth shoved him back, and then Nick tackled him, and they both went sprawling. They were laughing as they hit the ground, throwing their backpacks off their shoulders so they could really try to get each other into a headlock or something. Seth’s backpack was open, though, and when it hit the ground, his stuff spilled out; a spiral notebook, a three-ring binder, a few textbooks. The wind caught some of the loose papers and they spiraled away. I made a grab for one, but it skittered just out of reach; I stomped my foot down on another stapled bunch right as it crossed my path.
“Hey!” I said. “Your shit’s blowing away!”
They stopped and Nick looked right at me. “Did you just offer to blow me?” he yelled, and his friends cracked up.
Seth seized the moment and pounced on him, and they went back to wrestling. I picked up the paper and was about to grab for another when the words on the page happened to catch my attention. Civic engagement is a crucial component of a healthy, functioning democracy.
I kept reading, the words familiar, even though it was Seth’s name at the top of the paper. I had written this! This was the second paper I had written for whoever it was that had been sending me those letters. I stopped reading and stared at the two of them, who had all but forgotten about me. Seth had sent those letters? It seemed impossible. He was probably the last person on earth I would’ve ever suspected of doing something like that. But the proof was right there.
“Tessa!” Nick yelled. Seth still had him in a headlock. “Come on; join us!”
More laughter ensued. Some of the guys looked in my direction to see if I was actually going to take Nick up on his offer, but when I didn’t move, they looked back to Seth and Nick. No one seemed to notice that I had the paper in my hands, and no one said a thing when I walked away with it.
I hurried to my car, and when I got in, I threw my backpack into the passenger seat, and I read the whole paper. My words seemed almost unrecognizable to me, but they were most certainly the words I had written, despite the fact that it was Seth’s name at the top.
I put the paper down on my backpack. What was I supposed to do? Go back and confront him? What would I say? My stomach muscles clenched. If Seth was the one that had been sending those emails, then it meant that he also knew about Leo and me. But how? How the hell had he figured that out?
I decided not to confront him about it, at least not right now, when he was with all of his friends. I got my keys out of my purse and I saw that Leo had texted back. He was out doing some errands, but he’d be back to the apartment in a little while, and was there anything special I wanted for dinner tonight?
Whatever you get is fine, I typed back. I wanted to call him and tell him right then and there, but I decided to wait. It wasn’t the sort of news I wanted to break to him over the phone, when he was standing in line at the grocery store.
As I drove, I wracked my brain trying to figure out how it was that Seth could have found out about Leo and me. Seth barely even noticed me; the only reason he knew I existed was because Nick and I had been seeing each other. Or at least, that’s what I had always assumed.
Maybe I should email him, at the anonymous email address he’d set up. I know it’s you, Seth, I’d write, and I’m not going to write any more of your damn papers!
But even though I knew who it was, I still couldn’t call him out like that. Because he could still tell the dean about Leo and me, and that was really the main concern here. That was the one thing that I couldn’t let happen.
When I got back to the apartment, I went into the living room and got my laptop out. It was very tempting to at least send an email to that address, maybe the only thing being the subject line saying HI, SETH or something like that.
When Leo got home, he came in, whistling, carrying two bags of groceries. “I was thinking I’d make Fettuccine Alfredo,” he called from the kitchen. “How does that sound?”
“That’d be great.”
I set my laptop on the couch cushion and got up, carrying Seth’s paper with me. “How was your day?”
He came over and gave me a kiss. “It was good. How was yours?”
“Mostly good. I found out something interesting today.”
“Oh yeah?” He went back over to the counter and pulled a container of strawberries out from one of the grocery bags. “And what might that be?”
“I know who’s sending me those letters,” I said.
He paused, his hand on the refrigerator door handle. “Who?”
“Seth.”
“Seth Douglass?”
“Yeah, him.”
Leo raised an eyebrow skeptically. “How do you know that? Why would Seth do that? He doesn’t really seem like he’d have the forethought to do something like that.”
I held the paper out. “Because this came flying out of his backpack today when he and Nick were horsing around.”
Leo put the strawberries down and took the paper, reading the first few lines. “Ah,” he said. He put the paper down. “You know, it kind of surprises me that his teacher for this class doesn’t realize there’s no way in hell that Seth would have written something like this. Mainly because it’s coherent and very well written.”
“Maybe the teaching assistant is grading it.”
“Even if it was the teaching assistant, I think anyone who was actually capable of reading words would know that Seth Douglass didn’t write this. For fuck’s sake! Well. Now you know who did it.”
“I know. But does that really change anything? I mean, I’ve still got to write that last assignment.”
“Fuck that,” Leo said, shaking his head. “You’re not writing the next paper. Are you kidding me? Now that we know who is behind this? No fucking chance.”
“I want to, though,” I said. And I did, because suddenly I had an idea. I knew exactly the article I was going to write.
“Are you serious?” Leo asked. “You want to? Why? Why the hell do you want to help him out any more than you already have? You are way nicer of a person than I ever could be. Seth better hope I don’t run into him because I’ll probably fucking deck him.”
“No you won’t,” I said. “Because that would probably get you into more trouble than anything that we’re doing here. No, I have a plan.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I’ll show you. When I’m done with it.”
I could tell he was wishing I just would’ve given him the okay to go kick Seth’s ass, but that wasn’t how I wanted to handle it.
He shook his head. “It might be Seth that’s reaping the benefit from this,” he said, “but it wasn’t him who had the idea for it. No fucking way.”
“Really?”
He stopped and looked at me, raising his eyebrows. “You might not know Seth that well, but I don’t think he’d really have the forethought to do something like this. The fact that the letters you’ve gotten haven’t had any typos makes it blatantly fucking obvious that there is no way Seth wrote these himself.”
“So who, then?”
Leo crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling for a second. “His fucking mother,” he said. “Of course. Carla Douglass.”
“You really think it was her?”
“Oh, I know it was. And you can go ahead and write that article if you want, but I am going to talk to his mother about this.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something, I’m sure. Carla Douglass.” He shook his head. “I can’t fucking believe it. What a bitch.”
“Stop,” I said. I didn’t really know Seth’s mother, but I had seen her around, and she seemed like a nice person. It was hard to think that she would do something like this, especially since she was also a teacher at the school and would probably get into a lot of trouble if word about this got out. “Don’t you think it would be better if I just did the last assignment and then we never talked about this again? It would be over and done with, and everyone could just move on with their lives?”
“Yeah, except what if it doesn’t? Seth’s got another year left of school. What if they’re so happy with the quality of the papers you’re writing that they just decide you’re the one who’s supposed to do it for the rest of the year? No. If you’re adamant about doing this last assignment, then go ahead, but that shit stops after this one.”
“You don’t care if they tell everyone?”
“You know what? They can go ahead and try, but really, what proof do they have? And it goes both ways here. Let’s just say she does have some sort of proof—we also have proof that her son has been handing in work that wasn’t his, orchestrated by her. There’s no way that she’d be able to talk her way out of that one, and I really don’t think she wants to risk it.”
“I have proof,” I said.
“Proof of what?”
“Of us.”
He cocked his head. “What—you mean that video you took of us?”
I nodded. “Yeah. And . . . the first time I ever came over here, I had the voice recorder on my phone turned on.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I had kind of forgotten about it until just now, but talking about proof made me remember. I haven’t shown it to anyone. I’m not going to.”
“Well isn’t that something. Am I supposed to feel violated now? I had kind of wondered why you wanted to video it that first time, but I thought maybe you were just into that sort of thing. Have you watched it?”
“No.”
“Maybe we should. What’d you do it for? Insurance in case the end of the semester rolled around and I didn’t give you a good grade?”
“Originally, yes. But that’s before things had really happened between us. I mean, I hope you know that I wouldn’t do anything like that now.”
“I think I know that,” he said. “And I appreciate you being honest with me. But you didn’t need to worry—I was prepared to give you an A after that first time together, regardless of what happened after.”
I smiled. “I believe you,” I said. “At the time, though, I just couldn’t totally believe that someone like you would really want to be involved with someone like me.”
“Someone like you. What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know . . . you could clearly get with anyone you wanted.”
“Stop—you’re going to make me blush.”
“I just wasn’t expecting things to turn out like this. I didn’t know what was going to happen, to be honest, and it seemed like it would be good to have some sort of insurance in case you ended up being an asshole about it and telling me you weren’t going to give me a good grade after all.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Now why don’t you come over here and we’ll work on a little more extra credit . . .”
Lindsey and I were both done with our classes at the same time the next day, so went out to lunch, off-campus, and I told her that I had finally figured out who it was that was sending me those letters.
“I can’t believe it was Seth,” she said. “He’s like one of the last people I would have guessed. That’s so . . . weird. You should slap him the next time you see him.”
“I’m not going to do that,” I said. “Even though that was basically what Leo wanted me to do, too.”
“I don’t blame him! If that paper hadn’t happened to fall out of his backpack like that, you’d still have no idea who it was! Who’s to say the blackmailing wouldn’t go on until he graduated?”
“I don’t think it would. Once this semester is over, it doesn’t really have to be a secret anymore that Leo and I are seeing each other. We’re not going to flaunt it or anything, but he won’t be my professor anymore.”
“How’s that going, anyway?” she asked. “Living with him? Can you believe it—that you’re actually living with him? I mean, who would have thought at the beginning of the semester?”
“I know,” I said. And it did seem kind of crazy, sometimes, but also not. It sort of seemed like it was exactly what was supposed to happen, because I couldn’t imagine my life without Leo.
Lindsey shook her head. “Seth,” she said. “Shit. I really can’t believe it. So . . . you’re still going to write the article? Even though you know it’s him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I actually wrote it already. Well, most of it. It’s not very long, but it’s good. It basically took me an hour to do, once I got the idea.”
“It did? You’re amazing!”
“Sometimes it works out like that.”
She grinned. “Can I read it? Actually, no, I’ll wait until it’s published. That way I can read it with the whole rest of the school, too.”
“I don’t even know if it’s going to be published,” I said. “I have no clue how many other students are submitting articles.”
“I’m not,” Lindsey said. “So you’ll have one less article to be competing with. Not that it would be any competition between the two of us anyway; your worst article would be way better than my best.”
“Stop it,” I said. “You’ve written plenty of good stuff. Remember that paper you got an A- on? You got a way better grade on that than I did.” And that was what had started the whole thing with Leo. I smiled thinking back on it now; it seemed like such a long time ago. I remembered the dread I had felt when I saw the grade, how truly awful it seemed like things were going to be, but they had turned out so differently than I ever could have imagined.