Falling From Grace: Student-Teacher Forbidden Romance

Chapter 45

[RECAP: The worst has happened: Leonie's arch-enemy, Suki Laverne, has found out about her relationship with Father Gabriel, and is now blackmailing her...]

"Did somebody die?"

Mai was only half joking as she asked this. It was obvious that something was seriously wrong with Leonie. She was lying on her bed, motionless, gazing up at the ceiling with her eyes open, and didn't move or react when the others entered the dorm. She looked absolutely stricken.

Leonie couldn't even respond. She was drowning in the biggest terror and misery she had ever known. She had thought it was bad enough when she had got into her trouble back in the US.

But this was a thousand times worse.

"What is it, Leonie?" Figgy asked. She looked anxious, worried for Leonie. "Have you had bad news from home?"

Leonie managed to answer. "It's nothing. I'm okay really."

But she couldn't deceive Harry. "Is it what I think it is?" Harry asked.

"Probably not exactly."

Now both Mai and Figgy were getting curious. "What's going on?"

"It's nothing," Leonie insisted. "Just some personal stuff. Nothing important." Except it was the most important thing in the world.

"If it's something Harry knows, then you can tell us as well," Mai said. She sat on her bed across from Leonie's, cross-legged. "Spill."

Leonie sat up. "You might freak out."

"Nothing freaks me out," Mai said, which was totally untrue.

Leonie took the plunge. She hugged her pillow in front of her. "So it's Father Gabriel."

Mai was nonplussed. "So he gave you detention? He gave you fifty Hail Marys? What?"

"So I kind of have a thing going with him."

Mai's mouth fell open at this and Figgy gaped. She had been tidying up her drawers, folding some clothes away. She was easily the tidiest of all of them, but now she stood there, a pair of socks dangling from her hands.

"You mean on his side too?" Figgy asked.

"Yes."

Mai swung around to Harry. "Did you know about this?"

"A little bit, yes," Harry said.

"What exactly do you mean by 'a thing'?" Figgy asked, stuffing the rest of her socks away quickly.

Leonie tried to explain. "I've kind of fallen for him, and he has too. Except he's a priest of course, so it's complicated." She knew this was the understatement of the century. She also knew that Mai in particularly would want every gory detail of how they had got together, and right now Leonie couldn't face talking about that. Not while it was all so threatened. "But that's not the issue right now. The problem is that Suki Laverne found out, and she's blackmailing me."

This part was news to Harry, who looked shocked. "How?"

"My stupid fault. I guess we weren't discreet enough. Like when he asked me to stay back after class and after rehearsals a couple of times," Leonie said.

Mai disagreed. "I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Other than you have that poetry book he lent you, which did seem a bit friendly on his part. Did Suki know about that?"

"I don't think so. But he wrote me a letter at half term, and she found it. She went searching through my stuff, and she's taken it."

The others were outraged. "That cow was rummaging about in here?" Mai said. She was indignant. "She had no right to come in here."

Figgy agreed. "It's a matter of honour. Even if things aren't locked, you just don't do that."

Harry was cynical. "You can hardly rely on a girl like that to have any sense of honour. So what did she want? Or more likely, knowing her, what did she want first?"

Leonie told them. They were horrified.

"You can't drop out of the scholarship application. That's totally wrong and unfair," Figgy said. "You've got the best chance of winning it out of anyone here."

Mai's mouth was set in a grim line. "We'll get that letter back. And we'll make her pay."

"It won't make any difference though. She still knows. And if she goes to Mother Benedict with everything, I don't know how convincingly I could deny it," Leonie said.

"Or how convincingly he could," Harry pointed out.

Mai stood up. "Either way, we'll make her pay for this. No one tries that kind of shit and gets away with it. We've got your back, so don't worry."

But Leonie did worry. She had every fear that Suki would get away with it. And where would that leave Gabriel and her?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What would you like to do to Suki Laverne right now?!