Graceful Deception

3. This Southern Belle Is Packin'

Chapter 3

This Southern Belle Is Packin’

 

 

Let’s just say that I’d completely forgotten my previous paranoia.  Now, it was replaced by suspicion.

Suspicion regarding my roommate, who I thought that I’d gotten to know pretty well in the past month that I’d known her. 

Later that day when I went to my afternoon class, Stella wasn’t there.  Instead of calling me like she usually did when she wasn’t going to be able to make it, she sent me a text saying that Ren had made it in early and that she was going to pick him up at the airport.  I wasn’t suspicious of her going to pick him up.  That’s what she usually did anyway.  It was the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be coming in until the following night that made me a little wary.  Was there a reason he’d come earlier than planned?  Did it have to do something with what had happened when Stella and Ryan saw each other as I watched from the window of our room? 

And when she made it back later that night, Ryan nowhere in sight, she didn’t act like anything was different. 

“Hey,” she smiled as she closed the door behind her, locking it.  She walked over to her bed and threw her bag down on it.  “Sorry I’m back so late, but Ren wanted to go out.  Sorry I couldn’t make it back for dinner.”

I shook my head.  I’d been lying on my stomach on my bed with my laptop in front of me, working on my paper.  I had been surprised that I’d gotten as much finished as I did, especially when I couldn’t seem to concentrate on basically anything.  But when you find a subject that completely engrossed you for the very fact that it was something relevant to what was happening to you at that very moment – different languages that were spoken by ancient peoples and used in secret dealings – it was kind of hard not to crank out a ten page paper in under an hour.  “It’s okay.  I hardly ate anything anyway.  I’ve been working on my paper.”

And also left a message on John’s phone, telling him my suspicions about her…but I definitely wasn’t going to say that.

She grinned as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail.  “Are you almost finished with it?”

“Only a half a page left and I started it an hour ago.”

“How you do that, I have no clue,” she said, shaking her head. 

I shrugged.  “It’s really not that hard.”

“Well, I’m going to change and get to bed.  Ren wants to go out again tomorrow, but you’re coming along.  He’s starting to like you a lot, actually.  One of the first questions out of his mouth when I picked him up was how you were doing.”

I smiled and watched her out of the corner of my eye as she grabbed her pajama shorts and tank top before going into the bathroom to change.  From the way she usually acted, she wasn’t really any different.  Maybe nothing was really going on…or maybe she was just a really good actress. 

 ...

“So have you and Stella really known each other all your lives?” I asked Ren as we sat outside at a table of one of the restaurants a few blocks from our dorm building.  It was just the two of us at the moment, since Stella said that she had to go pick something up really quick from a bookstore down the street when she dropped us off.  We’d only been there a few minutes – the waitress hadn’t even brought us our drink orders yet – so I was trying to make small talk. 

Well, investigative small talk, that is.

Ren was leaning back in his seat, the picture of ease as he stretched his legs out beneath the table and his hands resting on his stomach.  “Yeah, actually.  Her brother and I were friends to begin with and we all grew up together.  Is it strange that I can remember holding my girlfriend when I was little and she was just born?   But that just goes to show how long we’ve know each other.”