Cogent

THIRTEEN

It was midnight when Carter placed the call. Static and a recurring dull tone gave him a taste of the repetition he'd been missing lately. The days used to be the same. Now, they were...not different. But not the same, either. It was starting to feel normal living with his entire world upside down. Every day brought memories and each one seemed to hurt in a new place. This couldn't keep going. Something had to change.

Mikael didn't answer until the fourth ring. That was enough to guess she'd been sleeping, but the croak in her voice assured him that he'd definitely woken her up. "Who is this?" she asked in an unforgiving tone.

"You have to give me something to work with here, Dr. Boyer. I can't go at this on my own. I need your help, and I need to know what you need to help me." There was a long pause—so long, Carter thought she'd hung up. "H-hello?" he stuttered hesitantly.

"...Dallas?" Mikael finally said. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's me. I didn't say that?" he rubbed his face, sitting up. "Shit, I'm sorry."

"Please don't swear at me. It's two in the morning and I haven't the patience for bad manners." She retorted agitatedly. Her irony was met with his waiting silence. "What is it you want?"

Carter opened his mouth, popping his jaw. "A clue," he finally said. "A hint. Something that can direct me."

"I'm not sure that I follow you, Mr. Dallas."

"Carter. Please. Only my students call me 'Mr. Dallas' and I don't really want to think about them at the moment."

"Is that so?" Mikael's voice had gone flat.

"Yes."

"Maybe you should reconsider that," she advised. The sounds coming from her phone abruptly ended with a loud 'click.'

"Dr. Boyer?" he held the phone close to his mouth, "hello?"

There was no answer.

"You hung up." He dropped the phone onto his lap, letting it sink into the folds of the bedspread, using both hands to cover his face. "Shit."

The numbers on the clock change slowly before the sun comes up. When Carter stared at them, they didn't change at all. His eyes never closed that night, except to blink stupidly at the dark, waiting for the revelation. It would come. I had to. Because he owed it to Lenny—hell, he owed it to himself—to figure this mess out. But there were no answers in the dark. So he turned to the files instead.

Carter had searched through the rest of the boxes that night—or morning, depending on the individual perspective. It might as well have been night, since the street lamps outside were still shining an orange glow into his bedroom window when he went back up to find his reading glasses for the fine print. Some of the files were really old—obviously inherited from the last counselor who'd worked at the school. Mrs...something. He couldn't remember her name. She probably couldn't remember him either. She was so old when she retired that it was possible Mrs. Something wasn't even alive any longer. When she worked at the school, she had the annoying habit of making ugly notes all over the student files. Timmy was disruptive in Mr. McDowel's class on Tuesday...must speak with parents about temper-tantrums... Carter would normally have skimmed her notes, but tonight, everything felt like it was important. Every detail was crucial—or could be, anyway.

Carter spent the better part of the morning reading Mrs. Something's notes, praying to the universe that he'd find a clue. It all would've been so much easier if Mikael had just told him what she wanted from him. What could he do to show that Lenny had trusted him?