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“Dad...” her mother said, but when she reached out to him, he turned away.
“No amount of talking about it will bring her back. No amount of dredging up the past will change anything. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to my room. Unless that’s not allowed,” he added, the dig hitting its mark as Abby watched her mother’s face crumple.
Silence ensued as Abby dropped back into her seat, trying to work through their argument in her mind, trying to find a resolution to ease her mother’s tension. But her thoughts only circled back to one thing. Her grandfather had been in Newberry, and there was no way that was a coincidence.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
What a crap day this was turning out to be.
Abigail stared at the big fat red “F” circled on the top of her Calculus test, and her stomach dropped. Worse than the “F” was the little note written in the corner: See me after class.
Abigail glanced around the room at her classmates, hoping no one noticed. How could she flunk a test? She may not be a straight A student, but she’d never gotten an “F” before.
Her cheeks reddened as she glanced to Kaden. Turning back to her own paper, she crammed it into the depths of her bookbag where she hoped to never acknowledge its presence again. It had only been a week since her grandmother’s wake, the day she received the first letter, yet her life seemed to have turned upside down. Seven days and she had, thus far, failed to uncover anything valuable, and now she had failed at calculating the nth roots of a complex number as well.
Go figure.
Abigail bit her lip as their teacher doled out their assignment for the weekend before dismissing class. When Kaden appeared by her desk, she smiled. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans with a pair of ancient sneakers.
“Hey. You have lunch now, right?” he asked.
Abby’s answering smile tightened, her excitement at sharing what she learned with Kaden forgotten. “Yeah, but I need to talk to Mr. Delgado first. If you wanna go on ahead, I’ll meet you there. Save me a seat?”
He nodded. “Wouldn’t want to make your friend any angrier.”
“Like that’s hard.” Abby smirked.
“Did you figure out what you’re going to tell her yet? About everything?”
“No, but I have some time. I’ll figure something out.”
When she glanced over at Mr. Delgado, she noted him eyeing her from his seat, waiting. “Catch you in a few, okay?” she asked.
She watched Kaden nod and turn toward the exit, and she made her way toward Mr. Delgado’s desk on wooden legs. Unused to being reprimanded for her grades, her stomach dropped as she approached.
Mr. Delgado shuffled the pile of papers in front of him, then glanced up at her from over the frames of his glasses. “Abby,” he said, his tone ominous.
He stood and rounded his desk, perching himself on the edge of it in front of her. “So, what’s going on? This week you’ve missed an assignment, not to mention classwork, and you haven’t been very present. Then, today, you got your test back with a poor score. I wanted to approach you about it now, while there’s still time to bring up your low scores before the end of the semester. We’ve got four weeks left, and your B in this class has dropped to a low C and is teetering on the edge of a D after your most recent test. I’d hate for it to fall that low. You know as well as I do that just because you got into college doesn’t mean they can’t revoke your admission if all your grades sink. You’re not completely out of the water yet.”
Abby bit the inside of her cheek. The thought of not going to George Mason in the fall slayed her. Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on the cake?
But what could she tell him? I’m sorry. I’ve been preoccupied with some mind-consuming scavenger hunt my dead grandmother sent me on to uncover a potentially life-changing family secret? Yeah, that’d clear things right up. I’m sure he’d make allowances for me then.
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said, then closed her eyes and brought a hand up to her temples, kneading the sudden pain. “This week was rough with my grandmother’s funeral and all. The test was just bad timing, but I promise I’ll do better now. I’ll get back on track.”
“Have you told your folks you’ve been having problems this last week?”
Panic surged through her veins, making her head spin. If he called her parents and told them she was struggling, it would be an all-out inquisition from her mom, making Abigail share her feelings, and she’d be forced to spend the next week with “quality family time”. She had a mystery to solve right now. There was no time for family movie night.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to worry them. I’m fine, and they have a lot on their plate.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Between you and me, my mom’s in a major depression and my grandfather...” Abigail paused for effect, then exhaled and said, “My parents are having a really hard time with him. Honestly, I’m not sure he’s gonna make it,” she said, only feeling slightly guilty for the over exaggeration.
Mr. Delgado frowned. “I had no idea things were so hard at home right now, but that’s certainly understandable. Maybe you should consider seeing Ms. Mandie.”
Abby fought the urge to grimace. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
She’d rather poke a fork in her eye than make a visit to Ms. Mandie, their twenty-something-year-old guidance counselor who paid more attention to her social media accounts than the students who came to visit her.
“Would you like me to make you an appointment?” he asked.
