CHAPTER 2: HAUNTED MEMORIES

“If you touch me that way were going to have a major problem on our hand Conner. We should be hiding, asleep in fact.”

“You look too perfect not to.” Warm hands caressed my face and then down my body leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

BANG

There’s blood. Everywhere. I’m being pulled. I can’t fight. I don’t fight. They killed him. The love of my life. They’ll kill me next. Tears run down my face as I succumb to my faith.

SIMEON

I jolt awake, breath shallow and sharp, like I’d just surfaced from drowning. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. The dream-the same one- clings to me like smoke, and the fragments that linger are enough to make my hands tremble.

I sit up slowly pushing aside the sweat-drenched sheets. The room is dim, painted in early dawn’s orange and pale lavender. My heart thumps a steady, uneasy rhythm in my chest. The dream always starts the same way; the slamming door, sterile white tiles, muffled voices outside a closed curtain. Then the scream-sometimes mine, sometimes belonging to another-and that same helplessness, like being frozen in place while the world spins violently around me.

I run a hand through my dark messy hair and sigh. Just a dream. Fragments of a bitter memory clawing away at my sanity, trying to find purchase. Again

My reflection in the mirror across the room brings me back to my reality. Pale skin, shadows under my eyes and a hollowness I can never quite shake. I barely recognize myself anymore. I now remain a silver of the man I used to be. Thirty-two and worn thin by a past that refuses to stay buried.

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I let the chill of the wooden floors ground me. The apartment is mostly boxes still, some left unopened from the move. I haven’t unpacked beyond the essentials; a coffee maker, plate, cup, some clothes and a drawer of gym wear. Too clean. Too impersonal. But that’s exactly how I need it. Neutral. Safe.

Six months ago, I had it all. A respected position in an elite school in Edinburgh. Students lined up for all my classes. A department that worked like clockwork. My payroll was booming and then suddenly in a flash I was left with nothing. It was all gone. Everything I had worked so hard to build evaporated like it had always been a fever dream.

A parent with too much influence coupled with a colleague holding on to a grudge, a very unstoppable team I would come to realize a little too late. No proof. No charges. Just rumors, accusations and panic. The board didn’t want a scandal. They apparently respected me too much to cause a scene. I was let go.

So I disappeared.

Packed the bare minimum, torched the rest in my mind and closed off to the world. Andrew- an old friend from college- offered me a job at a new school. An all-boys school tucked in the country side. Not glamorous, not as elite. But clean. Private. Isolated. And for a struggling man trying to pick up the broken pieces of his life, it was enough.

I shuffle into the kitchen to fill the kettle up with water. Morning rituals keep me sane. Small routines that make the chaos manageable. Out the window, I see the stables spire above the trees and the neat cobbled paths winding through manicured lawns. A Few early students move across the grounds, preparing for orientation.

As I start to take a sip of coffee from my mug, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll think of me. A newbie in the sea of others. An outsider. The one who kept to himself. The kettle whistles reminding me that I forgot to turn the stove off. I grab my phone, a message blinks from Andrew.

“Don’t ghost me Sim. You alive?”

I smirked. “Barely, settling in.”

He replies fast, chronically online as always. “Get some sunlight. And don’t forget to smile otherwise you’ll scare off all the kids.”

Andrew thought himself to be one of the funniest people on earth. Some days, I humored him. The rest? I let him know how bad his jokes were. On this particular day, his jokes seemed like they would be enough to help with the day. If only they could also take off some of the weight that threatened to crush my skull.

Coffee still in hand, I make my way to one of the little pieces of furniture that line my apartment. A simple couch with a coffee table, big enough to hold my student orientation files at least. Now feels like a good time to acquaint myself with the students I’ll have to see for the better part of my year. The file is old and brittle, bringing to mind the question of why all these important details weren’t put in a system for safer keeping. I make a mental note to bring it up at some point. Shelving the thought for later I start to flip through the pages putting names to faces and looking for anything particularly interesting. I find none. No surprise there seeing as the school didn’t seem particularly interested in whether or not the students had a social life.

An hour into my student detailing, my shirt catches in a crack on the table. I hadn’t realized just how far I had bent down studying their faces. I yank on my shirt, bringing both my empty mug and the file crashing to the ground. Muttering a curse under my breath, I bend to pick up my mug and as I make for the files I realize it had opened to a different page on impact with the floor. Two sets of light brown eyes stare up at me. The next thing I notice is the beautiful trail of light brown specs that line his nose and cheeks.

“Hosea Navarro,” I mutter. Attached to his page is a note that says “Recently lost a sibling. Reserved, Strong potential, Watchful.”

The word “Watchful” jumps at me from the pages. He noticed thing, details. People. My curiosity stirs even more and a voice inside whispers to look closer. This is my cue to shut the files and pace the length of my small apartment. I should keep my head down. None of this concerns me and I have to not make it any of my business. As I scrub my hands through my hair a part of me knows in more ways than one that I will royally screw this up.

A knock on the door startles me, drawing me out of my thoughts. I open it to find a grinning Andrew; sunglasses perched on his head, coffee in hand.

“You didn’t answer my last text,” he says, stepping in without waiting for permission. “Thought you might’ve drowned in your melancholy.”

“Almost,” I mutter, accepting the steaming hot coffee in his hand.

“Charming as ever.”

He takes a glance around the apartment and I all but feel him judging me for the minimalist look and unopened boxes.

“So this is your idea of settling in?” he says gesturing to everything and nothing at the same time.

“I’m here to survive, not decorate.”

“Right,” he says plopping himself onto the armrest of my couch. “Because being emotionally unavailable is the new self-care.”

I shoot him an angry look and the fool full on grins at me.

“Relax Sim, you’ll love it here. No one beating at your door and best of all, no monsters from your past. Let yourself live a little would you?”

“Thanks Andrew, for everything.”

“Its fine, I–

Before he can finish whatever he’s about to say, a shrill scream pierces through the air. Panic follows. People are running. Others are shouting words I can’t make out and before I can stop myself my legs are pumping. Out the apartment and towards the direction of the scream. This can’t be happening. Not again.