Blood Sugar(22)

I had learned in my many psychology classes that silence is often the thing that makes people most uncomfortable. The majority of us would rather be yelled at than ignored. So I decided to remain silent, and let one of the three adults around me break first and tell me more.

After a few awkward moments, Professor Barnes filled in the blanks. Roman had already been accused and brought in for questioning earlier that morning. He agreed the man on the video could have been him, but it wasn’t. He proposed that maybe another student who would be taking the final hired someone outside of Yale to break in? Someone who coincidentally had his same build? Or maybe it was a prank pulled by someone outside the history department altogether? Maybe a student knew there was a camera in there all along and did this to prove some sort of point about privacy on campus? Roman had a lot of theories. And all the professors had was circumstantial evidence. But I knew him well enough to know that beneath his bluster that I was hearing about, he was gravely worried that the video was compelling enough to destroy the future he so desperately wanted. So Roman created one last ruse that would irrevocably clear his name of this dastardly crime. He had an alibi.

It was then that the dean spoke up again. He looked right at me. Not taking his eyes off my eyes. Summoning his thirty-odd years of experience dealing with college students and their lies in order to suss out the truth of this matter. The dean said, “Roman Miller claims that he was with you last night. Something about an art project? Therefore he couldn’t possibly be the one on the video. And so, Ms. Simon, we’ve brought you in here to ask, is this true?”

And there it was. Roman had used me as his alibi. He was probably sequestered in some office, unable to warn me that when backed into a corner he chose to put his life in my hands. He believed that even though he had betrayed my trust by ratting me out to Melody, our bond was so strong that I would lie for him, to preserve his future. He picked me above any other friend because by lying for him I was putting my own future in jeopardy. And who else would even consider doing such a thing? Who else loved him that much?

He had a lot of nerve. He once said when we first met that I had balls, but he had balls. How dare he put me in this position? How dare he use me in this way? Especially after breaking my friendship heart.

The dean then said, “Well? Were you with him last night?”

This specific mentioning of an art project could only mean one thing. The dean had cleverly left it vague, but I knew Roman must have wanted me to tell the story of coming over and hanging out while he sat around naked to make sure he didn’t get an erection in preparation for him posing nude. A story so specific and preposterous it couldn’t be a lie. All I had to do was say this happened last night instead of two years ago. My stellar record at Yale plus this outlandish story would exonerate Roman. The dean, the chair, and Professor Barnes all waited for me to answer as I contemplated my two options. I could ruin Roman, or I could save him.





CHAPTER 14


    CAT



There was a loud, quick knock on the interrogation room door. It startled me and I jerked a tiny bit, rattling my flimsy metal chair. This seemed to please Detective Jackson. “Come in,” he said toward the still-closed door. A stout twenty-something man with his arm in a sling popped his head in. He ignored me and only spoke to the detective. “There’s a call for you. He says it’s important.” I assumed this messenger was on some sort of desk duty because of his injury. Based on his build and his tan lines, I would guess he did not hurt himself in the line of duty but on a wakeboard. I was not in a position to ask him. Detective Jackson now seemed annoyed by the interruption.

“Well, who is it?”

“A Dr. Hamilton. He says you called him.”

Once the man said that name, I knew this was not an unplanned interruption. This was a clumsy attempt to put me even more on tilt. And it worked. Why did the detective know who my veterinarian was? Why was he talking to him? How much did he already know about my life?

Detective Jackson waved the sling guy away. “I’ll call him back later.” The guy was about to shut the door when the detective stood up abruptly. This time I did not jerk. It only took him a quarter of a stride to get from the table to the door. He whispered something to the guy. I wished I could hear it, I tried to will the words to float my way, but they never made it into my ears. The detective sat back down and looked across the table at me as if nothing had happened. As if Dr. Hamilton’s name was never mentioned. And my mind raced to put the pieces of my past together. So I would know what the detective’s next move could be.

Right after college graduation, I decided that I would move back to my beloved Miami Beach, get my doctorate degree at the University of Miami, and warm my chilled bones. One exceptionally hot day I was heading to my car from the office I shared with my supervisor, Dr. Don, a laid-back, snarky man in his sixties. We worked in a nice new medical complex on Forty-First Street, just five blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. I usually parked in the employee lot behind the building, but today I had a large unwieldy lamp to carry in, and I had seen a parking meter right out front, so I took the spot. As I got back into my car, I heard a sad, muffled mew. I looked around and noticed a garbage can at a bus stop a few feet away. I walked over and the mew got louder. I looked inside, and saw the saddest thing I had ever seen in my entire life. A kitten was tossed on top of the trash, and it was tightly wrapped in duct tape. I scooped the little guy up, glanced down to make sure there weren’t any more animals thrown inside, and raced to the nearest veterinary hospital. Sour bile moved up my throat when I dwelled on the evil of man, so I forced myself to focus on saving the kitten, and not focus on the monster that had done this to him.