My Professor's Secret

17|

seventeen

Everyday for a week leading up to my seventeenth birthday, I begged my parents to buy my first car. Avery and practically everyone else in my class—granted there were only a handful of people—were already driving a year before I even mustered the courage to ask. I never got the car because my dad didn't see the point in buying another vehicle for the house when my brother could take our mother's car out whenever he wanted. If you let my brother tell it, he'd probably recount the conversation playing out another way. Which in theory translated to them both forcing him to take me everywhere I needed to go until I managed to get my license.

Instead of the car, when I made it home from school on my birthday, there was a small white box wrapped in a grey ribbon and inside was a custom gold pendant in the shape of a typewriter dangling from a golden chain. They'd both been saving chunks of their checks for months just to be able to afford it. I couldn't even pretend to be disappointed as they watched me destroy the perfect ribbon tied bow to open it. It was beautiful. Etched in the middle row of keys was my name instead of the letters meant to be there. It was almost impossible to see if you didn't know to look for it.

After my mother's death, the only time I ever parted with it was unless I was going swimming, or showering. Somewhere in between the countless showers I endured in the co-ed bathroom and remembering to put it back on afterwards, I'd forgotten. I stifled through my jewelry box for the umpteenth time, desperate to pair it with the little black dress I spotted at Truths. Tay dragged me there for an outfit to wear to Wyatt's philanthropic frat party tonight to raise enough money to provide families at the local shelter with presents for the holidays. Despite not wanting to go, declining an invitation to a party meant to help the homeless children get toys for Christmas would've made anyone look like an asshole, so I swallowed the resistance and agreed.

Taylor was in the mirror rubbing away a smudge of maroon lipstick staining her chin. "Have you seen a necklace with a gold typewriter pendant laying around?" I prompt, now shuffling through her box of jewelry. "I know I took it off before my shower but I don't remember exactly what shower it was and I can't find it anywhere."

"The one with the letters of your name carved in the middle?" she questions, turning from the mirror to help look in her box of intertwined chains. I give her a subtle nod, afraid that if I were to speak, the stinging in my nose would unleash the tears forming in my eyes. "I picked it off the floor about three weeks ago. I was going to wear it once I realized you hadn't had it on but after seeing your name on it, I figured the reason you never took it off was because it was special to you. The last place I remember actively seeing it was on you before you went back home for Thanksgiving."

Her words were like weights off my ankles and despite it being the first time I talked to my Dad after leaving Dreycott, I shot him a text asking him to search my bathroom at home for it. The day was short only two hours from the next, and there was no point standing by the phone hoping he'd send a reply back this late. Taylor offered to help look more after the party, offering up one of her gold necklaces to compliment my dress until we could replace it with my own. Apparently she had no use for it since she realized gold complimented my skin a lot better than it did hers. Her words.

An all too familiar mist of stench welcomed us in with stinging eyes and laughter in pursuit of Lynn who was supposed to be meeting Taylor and I. Before leaving tonight, we thought it best to put use to the gummy's Sawyer had given me weeks ago and despite their shelf life, the effects hit the same. It took me and Taylor ten minutes to comb most of the house for Lynn but by then, Tony had come to steal Taylor away from our search and sadly, she was more than eager to leave me wandering aimlessly alone.