Suzie Elliot, Evil Genius?

Chapter 18

By the time Monday morning rolled around, Suzie was a mess. She had forced herself to watch all the video of her parents being questioned as punishment for having put them there, and had hardly eaten or slept since she had seen the first video. Yilin had tried to make her stay home sick, thinking the illness would need medicine and rest, but the illness Suzie had was in her heart, and she had to save her parents to fix it. And that meant she needed to go to school.

She saw Simone waiting for her by the front door and hesitated. She had dodged calls and texts from her all weekend because she didn't think she could handle lying to her friend about why she was so miserable. Sighing, she gathered her courage and marched up the stairs, smiling shyly at Simone who looked concerned at her appearance. Suzie had noticed the dark circles under her eyes, and the general pallor of her skin, but really couldn't have done anything about it.

"Hey Suzie, are you okay?" asked Simone.

"Hi Simone. No, I really feel lousy actually. I'm sorry I never returned your calls, but I spent the weekend in bed," admitted Suzie.

"Why didn't you stay home?"

"Well, I missed you, and I was sick of staying inside, and I wanted to turn my paper in."

"I still would have stayed home," said Simone with a smile.

"Well, maybe tomorrow."

They made their way to class, and found their seats. Suzie joined all the other students by placing her report on the front corner of her desk and waiting for it to be picked up. She was trying to calm her pounding heart when Casey walked in.

Suzie was stunned, Casey looked even worse than she did! She had none of her usual make up, and her hair looked like it hadn't been brushed all vacation. Had they made her go out and live in the wilderness for a week? She looked over her shoulder to see Simone's eyes as wide as silver dollars as she stared at Casey. Maybe nobody would notice how Suzie looked now that Casey was here!

Joe Kelly had a very productive Spring Break. He didn't do anything fun, but his little condo was finally looking like something that was his and not a generic "guy" pad. He had finally painted all of the rooms, which wasn't as bad as he thought since he wasn't too attached to any of the furniture so he just draped sheets over them. Once the painting was done he got some new carpets as well, since the old ones showed signs of a lot of previous pet abuse. Or at least he hoped it was pet abuse. Regardless, it was disgusting and he got new ones.

Now, after a week of working he was ready to get back to class. No doubt he would hear the students chattering about all the fun they had during their vacations for at least the first week back. More if he knew some of them. As he watched the students slowly fill the classroom, he noticed that Susan Elliot seemed very out of sorts. With the pale skin and sunken eyes, she looked like she hadn't slept all vacation, and he hoped that she was doing all right. She was completely different than the girl who left the classroom just a week ago.

He amended that as soon as he saw Casey though. If Suzan looked a little under the weather, Casey looked as if she had crawled out of a hole after being buried alive. Evidently the episode that Casey had before the break completely changed her attitude, because he never would have imagined the old Casey showing up to school looking like that.

He had decided to let the first day back from the break be more of a review day so the students wouldn't struggle to regain focus, and judging by what he has seen before the class had even started.

"All right, welcome back everyone," he said to get the day started. There was an answering chorus of "good mornings" and grumbles and mumbles.

"Can you all please pass your Rubicon reports up to the front row please?" he continued. There was a sudden shuffling of papers as everyone passed theirs to the front. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Susan placing hers at the bottom of the stack instead of placing it on top like she usually did. He said nothing, but was curious. He had been planning on saving her report for last, as he was expecting something very good from her.