Chapter One
One Year Later
“Hello?” Nikki said into the telephone, gripping it closer to her ear when she heard the static in the background. Her eyebrows drifted together after several moments of it. “Hello?”
“Ni-”
That’s all she could pick out from the voice that was trying to speak to her. After a second, the static started to diminish and the man was easier to hear.
“Nikki?”
Everything inside Nikki grew with excitement at the sound of his voice. The loneliness in her heart started to clear away with the picture of him in her mind, hugging her and never letting her go. She could imagine him now, leaning against a humvee of sorts with a large telephone in his hand with a powerful signal.
“Matthew!” Nikki screamed excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. He had only been deployed for a month and already she was feeling so lonely without him. He was her everything since the accident, the only one she could talk to without having the insane urge to break down crying.
“How are you?” Matthew said, a light tone in his voice. Oh how good it was to hear his voice again.
Once he asked that, Nikki felt pain and frustration. Just the thought of thinking about her life made her want to be in a different world, a world where everything was normal and everybody was happy. Nothing bad would happen to anyone and you‘d live happily forever.
Unfortunately, things never worked that way.
“I’m okay… it’s are just different without you here. How are you?” she asked, trying to change the subject away from her.
“Things are going great. We came into a village today and have been helping them, bringing supplies that they need and some new technology we’re trying to show them. They’re friendly for the most part. Some of them are stubborn and don’t like us here, but I guess I know where they’re coming from,” Matthew said, a lingering in his voice. “What do you mean ‘different?’”
Nikki knew this would come up, and she didn’t want to talk about it. She had only been telling her two best friends about her feelings and even then, she always felt embarrassed. They didn’t know what it actually felt like to be in a situation like this, and now that Matthew was gone, it was almost like she was alone in this fight.
After the silence, she finally spoke.
“It’s… dad. He’s totally disconnected from me. It’s as if he doesn’t care about me, even you, anymore. He hasn’t made it to a single game this season and he’s already missed one of my concerts at school. If you were here, maybe he’d think about coming to my things instead of being with all of these women all the time,” Nikki replied, already feeling the anger rise in her voice.
His tone was relaxed, but also concerned. “Tell me about these women.”
“I don’t know… he’s seeing this lady now, and I know something’s wrong with her. She’s not a mother and she doesn’t know how to be one. She’s not right for him at all to be with,” she said, almost shouting now.
“Calm down Nikki. This is just his way of coping with the situations at hand,” Matthew explained. Her heart beat returned to normal as she fell back onto her bed, defeated.
Her words came out as a pained whisper. “I just can’t imagine dad being with anybody else except mom…”
All she could do was cringe with his response. The truth felt crushing as she heard those words again, words that had been repeated to her time and time before.
“Mom isn’t here anymore, Nikki. It’s just you, me, and dad now,” Matthew said quietly from the other line.
She could hear angry voices in the background and her brother yelling them off. They only had a minute tops before he would have to let someone else in his team use the phone. Who knew how many young men wanted desperately to call their loved ones and let them know how they were doing halfway across the world?
“Just be careful, Matthew. And promise me right now that nothing bad will happen to you,” she told him.
“I promise,” Matthew said, and all she could do was hang on to those two words as the static grew louder. A tear slowly made its trail down her cheek.
“Nikki?”
Nikki swallowed hard, feeling the lump in her throat. “Yes?”
The static’s intensity almost made it impossible for her to hear, and for a moment she thought the connection had been dropped.
“I love you, and don’t forget it.” After Matthew said those words, she heard the unmistakable constant drone of the phone of the ended phone call, just like the vital monitors that let everyone know Nikki’s mother was dead on the stretcher.
~~~
The bell rang just after Nikki crossed the threshold into her Chemistry class. The vile smell of chemicals met her nose as soon as she hit the door. She joined her partner, Jordan, near the back of the room. He had short red hair and always dressed up to school. He was a nice person but no one seemed to understand the awkward kid.
They greeted each other briefly before their teacher entered the room, but something caught Nikki’s eye immediately. Instead of the leather jacket that Mr. Henley always wore to school, there was a dark trench coat on the place of a man in his thirties, taking a place behind the teacher’s desk. He was somewhat tall with brownish-black hair that was starting to recede on his head with a five o-clock shadow dressed on his face.
There was something about the way he presented himself to them all, a superiority that no one tried to challenge. There was knowledge to this man that seemed unreal, almost like he could survive through anything thrown at him.
Everyone grew silent as his dark eyes scanned the room, falling onto Nikki for a short period of time longer than the others. She shifted uncomfortably as he spoke with a British accent.
“Good morning class. My name is Mr. Clark and I will be filling in for Mr. Henley for the rest of this semester,” he said.
There were murmurs around the room. How could that be? It was only March and to have this strange man fill in for their Chemistry teacher for the rest of the three months didn’t seem natural.
“I don’t remember him subbing for anyone here at the school before,” Jordan whispered to Nikki as they stared at Mr. Clark with studying eyes.
Not only did this man just come in from nowhere, Mr. Henley hadn’t even told them about where he was going. It was unlikely for him not to say anything. He was the type of guy to tell you everything about his life. It wasn’t that he was a boastful guy, but he was cultural and liked to share his experiences with people.
“And besides, why would he be wearing that huge coat in Georgia? It’s got to be sixty-five outside today,” Jordan also added, pointing at the coat that now hung on the teacher’s chair.
Nikki looked at the desk. All of Mr. Henley’s things had been cleared away. The posters he had hung around the room were gone, along with a strikingly beautiful painting that used to hang in the back of the room. It was strange, seeing this lifeless room now filled with a lifeless person.
Mr. Clark started to pace the room, casting glances at all of the students he walked by. None of them dared to make eye contact with him. They all seemed too frightened to even speak in his presence. But Nikki wasn’t about to be put down by him. All of her emotions started bubbling to the surface, her anger and pain, the grief for losing her mother, and the heat of the moment. This man came in and had the guts to steal away this man’s job without any explanation as to why.
When he walked by, Nikki looked him right in the eye, never faltering her gaze. She could see Jordan in the corner of her eye look confusingly at her, trying to understand why she was doing this. Mr. Clark stopped at their desk.
“May I help you?” he asked her, none too politely.
“Where is Mr. Henley?” she said, asking it as a statement rather than a question. He cocked his head to the side.
“Away on vacation.”
“To where?” Nikki asked.
Every eye in the room was on Nikki and Mr. Clark. This man was being challenged in front of everyone, and she could tell he was feeling threatened as his eyes turned cold.
“I don’t know. I was called to be here so I’m here,” he said, glowering down at her. He turned to the rest of the class. “I want you all to write a paper on why it is important to know the correct dosage a person should apply to any life or death situation. I don’t care what it is or why it is, but tell me. This is due at the end of the hour.”
There was a groan from every student except Nikki. All she could do was continue to look at Mr. Clark, trying to figure out how this man ticked. He was insufferable, rude, and didn’t make an effort when it came to socializing with others. Maybe he had a hard childhood, quite possibly going having gone through what she was going through.
Mr. Clark returned to the front of the room, sitting in the chair that once occupied Mr. Henley. He continued to survey the room from his perch as students grabbed their notebook and started writing this bizarre paper that didn’t seem to make much sense.
Then he looked at Nikki, who had nothing on her desk, continuing to stare at him.
“Ms. Dawson. Get out a piece of paper and start writing,” Mr. Clark demanded. Pencils were laid down on the tables as the attention was brought back to Nikki as she held her ground. Fear started to grip her. She had never disobeyed a teacher in her life before, and she wasn’t sure why she was starting now. Maybe it was because she was tired of living through difficult emotions, trying to find her place back in society. Maybe it was because Mr. Clark was suspicious.
Her heart skipped a beat. How did he know her name? She had never seen this man in her entire life before. There were lots of people who learned her name after her mother was killed, but they were the ones who she had seen around town, who she saw but never really talked to. This man was completely lost to her.
“Ms. Dawson, I’m not going to ask you again. Start writing or you’re going to the office,” he threatened, but she held her ground.
Swiftly and almost like a vampire in the night, Mr. Clark appeared at the side of her desk again, his arm extended toward the door and a pleasant smirk on his face.
“Then, after you, mi’ lady,” he hissed.
Nikki held her head high and got out of her seat. There were more whispers around the room, some people laughing and others giving hoots of encouragement. It seemed as if they were proud of this somewhat shy girl standing up to this terrifying teacher. It would also be her first time to the principal’s office, well, since her mother was killed.
They exited the room, and the only thing Nikki could hear were the clunks of Mr. Clark’s very expensive looking shoes. He wore a plain white dress shirt with black pants, but those shoes looked very shiny, almost Italian by the shape of them. He looked out of place in this drab school.
Mr. Clark walked close to her as he stared straight forward, almost leading the way with his strides, gliding across the hall. There was something to this man(well, several things) that she couldn’t put a finger on, something he knew that Nikki didn’t. And she knew from that moment, Nikki was never going to get along with Mr. Clark.