The Scars She Hides

Part 25 - RIP

HOLDEN

I dug in my pocket for my key to the workshop door, half paying attention to the students slowly exiting the building as my mind was focused on other things. Charlotte was supposed to wait for me at her dorm so we could pick up Tiffy from school and head to my parents house to finish harry potter before dinner. I had to grab my helmet from the workshop before I could swing by my parents house and saw my bike for Bronson's truck. Tiffy had been relentless since waking up last saturday to Charlotte long gone and her marathon unfinished. Everyday it was texts, nonstop.

When if Charlotte coming back?

Why cant you bring Charlotte over today?

What did Charlotte want to eat for dinner?

Has Charlotte read Twilight? Is she team Edward or team Jacob?

And on and on and ON. All week Tiffy has been frantically collecting information about Charlotte like she was putting together some kind of profile on the poor girl. I rolled my eyes to myself as I thought about the onslaught of questions she would probably face tonight.

My smile faltered for a moment as I thought of Charlotte's oddness this week.

She had been more... tense than usual. Gone was her mega sized, over caffeinated coffee, replaced by deep bruising under her eyes from lack of sleep and enough anxiety to make me almost ask her if she had already dumped her pills for the month. Almost.

I hated to think it, but since driving her home saturday morning something had been off about Charlotte. It was like watching a snowball effect, every day her distress growing in size as she hurtled full speed downhill.

Had Bronson unsettled her that much?

So focused on my own thoughts I didn't see the student going around the corner in time to avoid him. We clipped shoulders hard enough to send each other stumbling a bit. I swore softly and caught my bag from falling off my shoulder. Looking over to the guy I'd run into I saw him already walking towards the exit swiftly, fixing his ball cap firmly over his eyes. Before I could even apologise (or tell him to watch where the hell he was going) he was gone from my sight.

I adjusted my bag again, watching the now empty hallway. What was another student doing all the way up here on this floor? I chewed on this thought for a moment, something not settling right about the whole encounter, when my phone chirped at me, Distracting me from my train of thought.

Bronson was asking if I had left yet. Apparently Tiffy was not getting quick enough responses from me, and had now taken to rapid fire texting Bronson about Charlotte and my ETA.

Sighing I hurried down the last halfway to my workshop and pulled my key card out to unlock the door when I saw it.

The workshop door was half open. My heart picked up speed, pounding in my chest like a drum. It pounded faster and faster with every step I took into the room.

I could smell it first.

Alcohol, the sharp scent of beer reached my nose moments before I felt the crunch of glass under my boots. Green beer bottles were scattered around the workshop, empty and intact and some shattered into pieces. They had been poured all over the floor and spread about. My eyes scanned my equipment and work on the tables, and I couldn't tell if anything was missing or not. The majority of the tools and half finished projects were strewn on the floor with the broken glass.

I cringed as the glass crunched harshly under my boots. Every step added to my anger. Who had been in here? How had they been in here? This was a private workroom, only given access to me because of the long hours studying and kissing ass to pompous professors my freshman and sophomore year. I knew that no one but a few professors had a key to this room, and none of them were even on my list of suspected stalkers.

The guy from the hallway flashed into my mind. Had it been him? He had seemed like he was in a rush to get out of the building, not even stopping after they had crashed into each other. This was too big to ignore. Campus police were going to have to get involved, for the property damage alone, not to mention any school equipment gone missing, and my personal property that had been destroyed or stolen.

I pulled out my phone, dialling Bronson's number before wedging it between my ear and shoulder so I could keep inspecting my tools and equipment. It was a few rings before the call connected.

"I'm going to need you to pick up Tiffy for me." I sighed angrily, turning to glare at the trashed room again.

"Everything ok?" Bronson asked. I could hear him already stomping towards the garage, the door shutting behind him.

"Some idiots trashed my workshop." I kicked at the broken green bottles near my feet angrily. "I'm gunna have to call campus police. It's going to take me a while to get out of here, and then I have to go pick up Charlotte."

A piece of crumpled paper was on the floor, covered in green shards and drops of alcohol. I crouched down to grab it. I listened to Bronson grumble back a reply about college kids these days and what not, the expected response from the grumpy old cop. I was half listening, more paying attention to the scap paper I had picked up from the floor. Gritting my teeth, I shook the paper off. If this was an assignment or worse- part of my senior proposal i was going to go find that punk from the hallway and find out just what exactly he had been doing up here.

Wrinkled, like it had been crushed into a ball once or twice, was a printed picture of a man on a folded piece of starch paper. I did not know the man on the front of the tri folded, but something about him seemed familiar. Like a word on the tip of my tongue, I couldn't quite place what it was, but there was something about him that I recognised. I unfolded the pages and my heart stopped in my chest.

"Bronson." I interrupted him, voice hard and flat. "I'll call you back."

I ended the call without waiting for him to reply. My heart was pounding in my ears, my fingers trembling a bit. I snapped my head to the open door, like someone was watching me.

Charlotte had watched that same door with and intensity that bordered paranoia the other day. Had refused to take her eyes off of it like someone was coming for her. I hadn't judged her for it, knowing that sometimes people couldn't help the things that their minds made them do. I hadn't understood it, but I hadn't judged her for it.

I understand it now.

The feeling of security ripped away from you, leaving you like a wound to open air. Raw. Vulnerable. I wanted to run into the hall and check, to see if whoever did this was still there. To run and chase and find who did this and stop him with my bare hands.

Whoever had broken into my study hadn't come for me or my tools. Hadn't come to trash a random room on campus for fun.

They had come for Charlotte.

I stared at the picture printed on the front of the paper.

The obituary that someone had left behind for Charlotte to find.

Henry James Brown

May 16, 1976 - March 27, 2022

Son, Husband, Father