Taught by him

CHAPTER 9. The knock

The handle rattled again. Harder.

We broke apart like we had been burned.

Ethan's hand shot out and switched off his desk lamp. The office went dark except for the grey light from the window.

"Aria, behind the bookshelf," he whispered, breathless.

"I'm not hiding behind—"

"Please."

Another knock. Loud, impatient.

"Professor Black? I know you're in there. I saw your light."

A woman's voice. Older. Sharp.

Ethan froze.

"Mrs. Ashford?" he said.

Mrs. Ashford. Clara's mother.

I slipped behind the tall bookshelf in the corner, yellow dress crumpled against old theses. My heart was so loud I was sure she could hear it from the hallway.

Ethan unlocked the door and opened it a crack.

"Mrs. Ashford, it's late."

"I don't care what time it is. You didn't answer my calls." She pushed past him into the office. I could see her through the gap in the books. Sixty, perfectly dressed, hair in a tight bun, eyes red. She carried the same letter. "You went to the police with this?"

"I had to."

"They told me it was a hoax! That some student is playing a sick joke! Is it her? Is it that girl you are always staring at? That Vale girl?"

My breath stopped.

Ethan stepped between her and the bookshelf.

"Don't."

"Don't what? Don't say her name? My daughter is alive, Ethan. Alive! And you are here... what, moving on? With a student who looks just like her? Do you know how disgusting that is?"

"Clara disappeared three years ago," he said, his voice low and controlled. "If this letter is real, we need to find her. Not accuse my students."

"Find her? You didn't even look for her when she first disappeared! You just sat in this office and wrote poetry about her!"

"I looked every day," he whispered. "Every single day."

Mrs. Ashford stared at him, then her eyes flickered around the dark office. She sniffed the air.

"Why is it dark in here? And why does it smell like... perfume? Cheap flowers?"

Yellow. My dress. My shampoo. Lila always said I smelled like a flower shop.

She took a step toward the bookshelf.

Ethan grabbed her arm, gently but firmly.

"Mrs. Ashford, I think you should go home. I'll call you tomorrow after I speak to the detective again."

She yanked her arm away and looked directly at the bookshelf. Directly at me.

For a second, I thought she saw me. I thought the yellow gave me away.

Then she laughed, a cold, broken sound.

"You know what, Ethan? I hope it is her. I hope she is alive and I hope she sees what you have become. A professor who preys on girls in yellow dresses."

She threw the letter copy onto his desk and walked out, slamming the door so hard my thesis papers fell.

Silence.

Ethan locked the door again and leaned his forehead against it.

"Aria," he said.

I stepped out from behind the shelf, shaking.

"She knows about me."

"She suspects. She doesn't know." He turned and pulled me into his arms, burying his face in my hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to hear that."

"Is it true? What she said? That you didn't look for Clara?"

He held me tighter.

"I hired divers. For two months. I paid them with my father's money. We searched the whole lake. That's why I have no money now. That's why I live in a one-bedroom and wear the same three black shirts. I looked until there was nothing left to look for."

I wrapped my arms around his waist.

"Then we will look again," I said. "Together."

He looked down at me, surprised.

"You want to help me find my supposedly dead fiancée?"

"I want to know if I'm kissing a free man or a haunted one."

He kissed my forehead, my cheek, then stopped just before my lips.

"You are so much braver than me, Miss Vale in yellow."

"I have to be. One of us has to be."

He smiled, sad and real.

"Go home. Through the back door. Text me when you're safe. I need to stay and... burn this letter."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"No," he said honestly. "But I will be okay tomorrow when you wear yellow again."

I slipped out the back, into the cold October night, his coat around me again, the words _I DIDN'T DROWN_ burning behind my eyes.

Behind me, his office light stayed on.

And across the parking lot, parked under a broken streetlamp, a small blue car I had never seen before sat idling, watching his window.

Watching us.