Lara and Jessie groaned as the three of us rolled our eyes. They’d grown up with me and knew how little interest my parents had taken in me unless it had to do with the family business or the family name, and while they knew that things hadn’t gone so well with Dominic, they didn’t know the whole story. No one did, and I preferred to keep it that way.
“Apparently he thinks that by bringing in the big guns, he’ll make me feel like he actually cares about my safety,” I told them in a matter-of-fact voice. “I say, whatever floats his boat. In two weeks he’s going to lose interest in trying to protect his little girl, and I’ll be able to ditch the security detail and go back to normal.”
“Well, at least we’ll have something to look at while you’re waiting for your time in house arrest to be up!” Jessie squealed.
“I’m not under house arrest, Jessie,” I corrected. “I’m simply being tailed 24/7. Big difference. If my father ever tried to keep me confined to my apartment, I’d totally lose it!”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot,” Jessie apologized.
“Nah, it’s fine,” I brushed off her apology and turned to see what Brian was doing. His eyes constantly scanned the surrounding area and it was starting to creep me out a bit. I wasn’t worried about what Dominic was going to do, but Brian’s vigilant watch was already getting to me.
“Besides, you know that my father doesn’t know the first thing about me or what’s going on in my life anyway,” I asserted. “He’s just using this as a way to garner sympathy and use it to promote himself by claiming that his poor daughter is a victim of some crazy ex-boyfriend.”
“He never met Dominic, did he?” Lara asked.
“Nope,” I replied. “Never had time to stop in town and have dinner or anything.”
“Man, I know my family is a mess, but your dad takes the cake, girl!” Lara’s sympathetic tone was almost more than I could handle, so I laughed lightly before turning and motioning them on to class.
When we finally reached the classroom, I breezed right in and dropped my things on my usual desk before I turned around and noticed that Brian was nowhere to be seen. I slung my purse over my shoulder and headed back out the door, motioning to Jessie that I’d be right back.
“What’s the matter?” I asked when I found Brian leaning against the wall across the hall from the door to my Psych class. “Do you have something against psychology?”
“Not as a tool of learning, but —” he replied.
“But what?” I pushed. I noticed the way he avoided looking at me as he scanned the corridor, opened his mouth to speak, stopped and scanned again, and then closed his lips and shook his head.
“Never mind,” he muttered.
“No, that’s not fair!” I protested. “You don’t get to start to say something and then stop.”
“Look, Ms. Klein,” he explained. “I’m here to ensure your safety, I’m not here to joke around and be your buddy. It’s best if you just act like I’m part of the surroundings rather than someone you can chat with, okay? It’s for your own good. Believe me.”
“That’s about the most idiotic thing anyone has ever said to me,” I shot back. I was angry that he’d cut me off when I was trying to be nice about this whole thing. After all, it was my privacy that was being invaded by his job, and I hadn’t asked him to do it. When I’m mad, I get very sarcastic, and I turned that on him as I asked, “So, are you going to sit in on class or is your bias too great to allow you to enter the room?”
“Actually, I think it’s best if I don’t invade every aspect of your personal life,” he said as he fixed his steel blue eyes on my face. “I will secure the spaces you are in, and then I’ll back off and let you do your thing. During class, I’ll be out here in the hallway.”
“And if I have to go to the bathroom?” I said in a snippy tone. “What are you going to do then?”
“I’ve secured the bathroom on this floor, so you’re free to use it if you need to,” he replied in the same even tone.
“Oh my God,” I laughed as I turned on my heel and headed back into the room. “You’re really taking this way too seriously.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Ms. Klein,” he said in a voice tinged with the hint of sadness.
When I snuck a look over my shoulder before I shut the door, I could see him scanning the hallway for the hundredth time, and murmured, “Well, you’re certainly vigilant, I’ll give you that.”
*****
I tried to focus on Professor Blake’s lecture, but my mind was racing a mile a minute as I thought about how pissed I was at my father for forcing Brian on me. None of this would make any difference in our father-daughter relationship, whatever there was of that. It was true that we’d never been close, but he’d never played the “dad card” the way he was right now, so I was suspicious of all the sudden concern for my well-being. Something strange was going on with my parents, but I had no idea what it was.
“Good morning, everyone,” began Professor Blake. “Today we’re covering chapter 23 in our textbook. We’ll be talking about the evolutionary brain and how it relates to what has been commonly labeled Stockholm Syndrome. Now, can one of you who have read the chapter tell me what evolutionary brain function has to do with today’s topic?”
“Hunter-gatherers were designed to solve certain problems!” came an eager response from the back of the room.
“Correct, Justin,” replied Professor Blake. “And what was one specific problem that they had to solve, specifically the problem that women had to solve?”
“Abduction of women would be used as a mechanism of asserting strength and increasing the size of a tribe, and women who resisted would often be subjected to deadly violence so they had to learn to give in without actually giving in, if that makes sense.” As usual, Lara summarized the issue in a succinct sentence.