“Jesus don’t even say it,” Michael said as he shook his head.
Adam clicked his tongue. “Maybe Lisette would be safest if she was in the public eye.”
“Adam are you even being serious right now?” Michael was clearly getting agitated. “You want to bring her back on this campus, which we all were quite literally DYING to get away from, and stay here with Rob, who is obviously a double-crossing piece of shit. You want to abandon the great thing that we had started in Asheville for this? For Lineage Academy? You’ve lost your mind.”
“I agree with Adam,” Rob said as he came back into the room.
“Of course, you do,” Michael snapped as he rolled his eyes. “Your opinion doesn’t matter anymore anyways. You’re not Julian.”
The mention of his name hurt me as if a knife was being buried into my chest. My chest hiccupped with a sob that I refused to shed as Michael knelt down in front of me and looked in my eyes.
Yet as much as I hated to admit it, Adam had a point.
“Lisette,” Michael said as he took my hands in his, “Julian wanted to take you to Asheville and that is where you have been more happy than I have ever seen you. You had peace there for a time and we can have peace there again. Choose me and let me take you back there. Leave all this bullshit behind for good…please.”
The other two men watched and waited for my reaction and my answer. But, I couldn’t think straight. I needed some air.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I said as I stood up.
Michael looked immediately distressed. “Lisette, please. I’ll get on my god damn knees and beg you if I have to.”
I waved my hand in the air mindlessly. “I just need to clear my head.”
“Then, I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No, I want to go alone.”
“Lisette it might not be safe to—”
“I want to be alone for a few minutes,” I said as I interrupted Michael and pushed past Rob to get out the door.
It was the middle of the day and the campus was filled with students going back and forth to class. It was as safe as anywhere else and all of the threats that I knew of were either dead or in jail.
I walked across the campus all the way to the edge of the Lineage tree line. Then I crossed over to Goldshire and walked that campus as well. It had been a long time since I was back at Goldshire. So long that it felt like it was a lifetime ago. Funny how I always thought my family’s heritage tied me to Goldshire and not Lineage.
“Headmistress,” I said to myself aloud as I walked. There would have been a time where that sounded like something I would have wanted. That was before I just wanted to run away and hide from it all.
Still, there was something about the idea that came full circle. It looked like Layla had done a good job of cleaning up the campus. Everything was functioning smoothly, all aspects of the treachery that had plagued the campus before had been removed. The colleges had been separated into their own entities again and the students seemed happy and content. Even the stone room had been taken away. What if there was a reason that this all happened the way that it did? What if my mother was right yet again and the universe did work in mysterious ways, with this too? I wondered if being at Lineage wouldn’t feel like being trapped anymore if I was the one running it.
Perhaps this was the ultimate way that I could finally honor everyone that I had lost.
My mother.
Julian.
David.
For a moment I walked without direction and daydreamed about what I could do if I was Headmistress and what I could build the college into. I could build a stargazing observatory in Julian’s name, and plant gardens in David’s memory. I could even start a new teen runaway program that linked to the halfway house, something that not only gave homeless teens a place to sleep, but also a place to learn.
The more I thought about it the more excited I became. I didn’t want to abandon our cottage in Asheville—that was absolutely where I wanted to live. And I wouldn’t break the promise that I had made to the guys. I promised them that if they came back here with me, that I would choose one of them to bring back to Asheville with me for good, and I very much intended to keep that promise. But I started to think that I could do this for a year first. Just one year to make all of the changes and differences that would help people and put into place the things that mom, and Julian, and David would have been happy to see.
Yet, there was some sort of weirdness going on with whatever whispers Layla had heard. And I still needed to figure out who had killed David and why, and what the one-word suicide note had meant. But I stood a better chance of figuring all of that out from here as well.
I also thought that Adam was right.
I didn’t need to hide in the shadows in order to stay safe for the rest of my life. I could hide right here in plain sight out in the open. If anything happened to me, everyone would see it. And by the time I had crossed back over to the Lineage campus, I had already made up my mind.
I think all three guys could tell it too, when I walked back in through the door.
“One year,” I said as I stood in the doorway in front of the three of them. “I want to give this one year. I’ll be Headmistress and I’ll make all of the changes that I want, and that Mom and Julian would have wanted. Then after one year is up, I’ll keep my promise to choose the one man I will go back to the cottage in Asheville with.”
I looked between them and let my eyes rest especially long on Michael, because it was his reaction that I was worried about the most.
“Can you give me one year?” I asked.
“I’m good with it,” Rob said.
Michael rolled his eyes so dramatically that it looked like they would roll right out of his head. “Trust me when I say that she cares least of all about you.”
Adam laughed at his comment and I turned my attention his way.
“Adam?” I asked.
He snickered as a grin spread across his cheeks. “You already know that I’ll stay with you Lisette, here or in Asheville. Although I have to say that I do like the mountains much better than this dump.”
“Thank you,” I said as I bent down to kiss him.
Then I walked over to Michael and sat down beside him to wait for his answer.
