On the Outside

Chapter 7

Samantha felt a gradual drain on her patience over the next several weeks.

After confronting her landlady about her room being intruded upon and not being met with a straight answer, Samantha felt more insecure living at the old dilapidated house. Mrs. Goodwin either did not understand the question or pretended not to understand. She simply walked away with a vacant look saying something like,

"That is Maron's room."

Then, she saw Mrs Goodwin herself right outside the bedroom door just as Samantha was coming up the steps, home from classes. Mrs Goodwin had that deer in the headlights look, indicating that she had heard Samantha approaching.

"What do you want Mrs Goodwin?"

"Nothing," and she carefully descended the stairs. Of course she had been up there with the intent of going into Samantha's room, there was nothing else up there.

There was a bright spot in Samantha's days though. Samantha had discovered after the first few weeks of class, that Lucien would be working for the professor of one of her English classes. She had seen him around the Liberal Arts building in the departmental office, and remembered that he was a Teaching Assistant. But she did not expect to be working so closely with him. He would be assisting her teacher and grading her papers and interpreting her thoughts and opinions. Although he did not make eye contact with her upon being introduced to the class, he did not make eye contact with her, she was hoping to make him remember her.

School was a haven from Mrs. Goodwin's house. Samantha even drove to campus to study late into the evening as long as the buildings were still open. It was getting too dark at night to walk. Plus it was not like when she was working during the summer on campus and the weather was pleasant and she could enjoy an evening walk in the balmy air. Now it was dark and cold and she was weighed down with papers, her laptop, and supplies.

Her job on campus at the library began at 8am for a few hours followed by one class after another into the afternoon with barely enough time for lunch and then it was back to the library to work another short shift until her day was over. It made sense to her to just stay on campus to eat and continue her studies in the student lounges.

But not having a kitchen was getting expensive. Samantha did miss cooking. The lack of privacy and facilities at the house was more obviously inconvenient to her when the weekend came around and she realized she had to go to the laundromat to wash clothes. She wanted her own bathroom. Samantha had been so preoccupied with school, she didn't even see as much of Allison and Bryan unless she happened upon one or the other on campus.

Anna was almost always gone from the house as was indicated by her locked door and vacant parking space. Even on the weekends she was seldom heard from. Aaron too. Although Samantha still saw him around, Anna was never with him.

It seemed a long time since that night with the strangers at the car and all that followed.

And just as she was starting to forget about them, she remembered. She remembered them as she walked to her car at night. Was it just something she was seeing out of the corner of her eye in the shadows? Sometimes she would startle easily late at night in the sitting area outside the English office, she became jumpy at night when it was too quiet and a faculty member or student would walk by. There were some classes that went until 10 in the evening and a few good hearted tutors that did not keep strict office hours when a student really needed help or advice. There was always someone around at school. Someone working somewhere. She considered getting into a study group where she might make better use of her time than she would working by herself because alone her mind would drift, especially with too much caffeine.