Chapter 11: The Last Call Before He Leaves
The display’s blank space followed Clara down the hall.
She kept the blue folder hugged to her chest while Dad walked beside her, Scout pacing at his knee. The school smelled like pencil shavings and floor wax. Behind closed classroom doors, children chanted spelling words and scraped chairs across tile. Ordinary sounds, carrying on without waiting for anyone to decide what had happened to her.
At the office, Ben checked the time on his phone. Clara tried not to look at it.
“I want you to stay until everyone believes me,” she said.
The words came out smaller than she meant them to. She felt her cheeks warm. Dad had work to return to. She knew that. Wanting him to stay anyway made her feel like she was asking him to choose her over something important.
Ben crouched beside her. Scout sat, his shoulder touching Ben’s leg.
“You’re not selfish for wanting that,” Dad said.
Clara stared at the red words on her folder. NOT VERIFIED. “But you have to go.”
“I do.” He didn’t soften it into a promise he couldn’t keep. “And I hate that the timing hurts.”
Scout leaned forward and nudged Clara’s wrist. She rested her fingers against his warm fur, just below the scar she’d drawn so carefully.
“What if they still don’t believe me after you leave?”
“Then they still have to answer for what they did,” Ben said. “Their choice doesn’t change what’s true.”
Clara wanted to ask if he was sure. She knew he was. The hard part was that being sure didn’t make the empty place in the display disappear.
A printer started up behind the office counter. Principal Alvarez came out carrying a few pages. Lauren followed her, reading the top sheet, her mouth tightening.
“Ms. Harrow submitted the Heroes Night schedule,” Alvarez said. “She’s listed to introduce Room 3B’s display before the school’s correction.”
Lauren looked up. “She’s planning to speak about the display without Clara’s project?”
“She’s planning to introduce it as it stands.” Alvarez’s gaze moved to Clara’s folder. “That cannot happen.”
She set the schedule on the counter. Clara could see her name nowhere on it. Eli’s drawing wasn’t listed either. The page had neat columns and tidy times, as if the blank spot in Room 3B had been planned.
Alvarez took out her phone.
“I’m canceling that introduction,” she said. “I’ll speak with Ms. Harrow and ask her to meet with you before the event. No one should be presenting a disputed version of what happened while the school is still deciding how to correct it.”
“Will she come?” Lauren asked.
“I don’t know.”
The answer was honest. Clara wished it were something stronger.
Alvarez stepped into her office to make the call. Through the glass, Clara watched her speak, then listen. Once, the principal’s shoulders stiffened. She lowered her phone, said something Clara couldn’t hear, and ended the call.
For a few seconds, nobody moved.
Then Ben’s phone chimed. He glanced at it and tucked it away.
“I need to get on the road,” he said gently.
Clara’s hand tightened around the folder. “Now?”
“Soon.” He looked toward the office. “I’ll wait a few minutes.”
Clara nodded, though she didn’t want to. Dad stood, and she rose with him. He didn’t pull her into a hug right away. He waited, giving her the choice.
She stepped forward and wrapped both arms around him.
His uniform shirt smelled faintly of laundry soap and the cold outside. Clara pressed her face against it, listening to his heartbeat. She tried to memorize it, then felt foolish for trying. She had heard that heartbeat in other hugs. She would hear it again.
Dad held her close, but not so tightly she couldn’t let go.
“You get to decide what happens to your project,” he said. “You don’t owe anyone a performance.”
Clara pulled back. “Even if you’re gone?”
“Especially then. It’s yours.”
A few minutes later, at the school entrance, Lauren stood with Clara while Ben clipped Scout’s leash into his hand. The front doors showed a pale reflection of the three of them: Lauren’s tense shoulders, Clara clutching the folder, Dad with one hand resting lightly on Scout’s harness.
Scout turned his head toward Clara. His ears pricked, the small scar above his right ear catching the light.
“Bye, Scout,” she whispered.
His tail moved once against Ben’s leg.
Dad kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Then he was through the doors. Scout went with him, nails clicking over the threshold. Clara watched until the glass closed and their reflections vanished into the bright parking lot.
She had wanted him to stay. He had listened. Now he was gone, and she was still standing there with the folder in her arms.
Lauren touched Clara’s shoulder. “Do you want to go home?”
Clara looked down at the damaged cover. The red mark was still there. It looked no smaller without Dad beside her.
“Not yet.”
Before Lauren could answer, Alvarez came back from her office. Her face had changed—not angry, exactly, but set.
“Ms. Harrow responded,” she said.
Clara’s stomach tightened.
Alvarez glanced at Lauren, then back at Clara. “She says she won’t meet with us unless you apologize for the disruption.”
May you like
For a moment, the hallway sounds faded: the scrape of a chair, a distant laugh, the office printer going quiet.
Clara looked at the folder against her chest. Her fingers covered part of the red ink, but not all of it.
