Once upon a time, when my mother was alive and relatively well, I asked her a serious question: “How did my grandma die?” She told me that the cause of her death was a brain tumour—the physician had called it a malignant neoplasm—and during the few years preceding her unfortunate and untimely death, she’d had a propensity to go berserk.
As I walked dilatorily to Mr Grills’s office, I wondered if that poor, crazy, atrophied woman whom I had never met, had ever killed another human being in a fit of sheer madness and got away with it. I wondered if that other human being had deserved it.
Mr Grills was slumped over his desk, writing. I didn’t knock. I entered the room looking boneless and haggard. My clothes were all rumpled and my hair was a frightful mess. But so what? I thought dejectedly. I’ll be an even bigger mess by the time I leave—an emotional wreck.
“Shall I close the door?” I asked him. “It’s a zoo out there.”
He nodded without looking up. “Sounds like it, doesn’t it?”
I closed the door. “I’m tired. Will this take long?”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Where should I sit?” I asked him listlessly. I didn’t think I could stand for much longer. I surveyed the room for a second chair to collapse into but there wasn’t one. It was just my luck. Maybe I would fall and Mr Grills would catch me. If he wasn’t too busy preparing tomorrow’s lectures.
Mr Grills set his pen down on the desk, stood and gestured for me to take his chair.
What? No lap? I thought, too tired to feel contempt.
“Always the kindly gentleman,” I said, without smiling.
I unslung my bag and let it drop to the floor. I moved forward, languidly sidestepping a disorganised pile of assignments in the centre of the room. I was about to step around him and take the seat that was offered to me when, quietly, he enounced my name. Detecting a note of sadness in his voice, I had to look up at him. He isn’t that much taller, I thought, a nice height for a tall girl like me.
What I saw in his eyes confused me.
“You are just,” he remarked softly. “You are the right to their wrong.”
“Am I?” I lamented.
“Oh, yes.” His eyes studied me.
He wants to touch me, I thought.
Do it, I urged him. Oh, please. Please, do it.
“You look so forlorn,” he said. “You ought to be happy. I wish you were,” he added.
“Me, too,” I whispered.
You can make me happy. If only you would touch me. Hold me. Love me back.
My chin trembled. “I—I think I messed up.”
Mr Grills lightly squeezed my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You did only what you thought you had to do,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. The kiss? I wondered. Telling him that I love him? Thank God he doesn’t know about Dad. I never want him to know, because even though he’s the man that he is, I doubt he’ll understand why I did it. Self-defence, yes, but did I have to take it as far as I did? Personally, I believe I had no choice in the matter. His slaughter was a foregone conclusion.
“Do you regret it?” Mr Grills asked me.
Do I regret the kiss?
No.
Do I regret telling you how I feel?
No.
Do I regret killing Dad?
No, Mr Grills. He practically asked for it.
I shook my head. “Never.”
Mr Grills tilted my face up to meet his, and ever so gently his mouth locked onto mine.
Last week, when I kissed Mr Grills in the car park outside the clinic, I’d been rash and clumsy. Mr Grills had been startled, taken aback and incapable of responding. But yesterday, inside his office, he was relaxed and patient. He was so tender.
He looped his brawny arms around my waist. I stood up and clasped my hands behind his neck. We took our time exploring each other’s mouths and touching each other in places that are acceptable even in public. He is a remarkable teacher of many things, I discovered.
There was nothing awkward or embarrassing about it. Nothing at all. Sure, we were breaking the rules. Going against what certain people and institutions—the school and the law, for example—believe in. But I thought the principal and the other teachers could all go to hell.
The kiss was sweet and chaste. In our hearts, we felt there was nothing wrong with it. Yet our mutual understanding of it told us there was. There was something very wrong with it. We knew from now on how very careful we’d have to be.
I opened my eyes. Mr Grills leaned away from me. His arms remained wrapped comfortably around my waist.
“Hello there,” he said, simpering.
I gingerly touched my lips with my fingertips. They were very wet, especially the skin around them. “What did we just do?” I asked, daring myself only to whisper.
“You mean to say you weren’t awake for it? I bored you so much you fell asleep on your feet?”
I smiled sheepishly. “On the contrary, Mr Grills, I felt like I was airborne.” Floating somewhere in that blissful stratosphere between heaven and earth.
“About that Mr Grills business,” he said.
“What about it?” I teased.
He grinned. “Presently, we’re not in class.”
“Yes, but in a sense, you’re still teaching me things I never knew before.”
“Such as?”
I didn’t want to say it because I was too embarrassed. “Just things.”
“Like kissing?”
“You’re very good at it.”
“It takes two to make it good,” he said, laughing.
I said coyly, “Does this mean you’re not married?”
“Who do you think I am?”
Besides a trusted member of the education body taking advantage of his student’s infatuation with him?
“So you’re telling me you’re available?” I asked out loud.
“One hundred and ten per cent available,” he assured me. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I declared.
“Is that because of me?”
“It’s because you were far better in real life than you were in my dream.”
“I was in your dream? What was I doing?”
“I’m not telling. It was immensely private.”
“Oh, I get it. It was immensely titillating.”
I pushed at his chest. “Stop it.”
He laughed again. “You’re even more beautiful when you’re embarrassed.”
I grew serious. “What are we going to do now?”
Mr Grills stepped back and motioned for me to sit. I sat down and, feeling horribly nervous, started to play with the hem of my dress. Mr Grills stared at me, possibly thinking: She’s just a girl. Only a girl would play with her dress like that. I stopped fidgeting and folded my hands in my lap. I frowned.
He lowered himself to one knee, right in front of me, looking for all the world like he was about to propose. Instead, he introduced himself. “My name’s Bryce,” he said.
“Bryce,” I echoed. “I love it.”
“No one can ever know what is happening between us,” he said.
“Of course.”
“We can never meet here again, or at any other place within the school grounds,” he admonished. “We can never look at, nor communicate with each other like two people who are romantically involved. In the laboratory, even though you’re my top student, Justice, I’ll grant you no special attention.”
“This morning…”
“Shh.” He nodded. “From now on, that’s pretty much how I’ll act.”
“I hated it.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But that’s the way it has to be.”
“All right.”
He took hold of my hands, squeezed them. “We can do this,” he said optimistically. “We will do this.”