“ COULD YOU BE a little more subtle tal, " gen’s eyes cut towards the girl beside her burning so intensely they could leave a mark pink against the skin, face soft lines and the perfect demeanor of calm. “ not everyone needs to hear this. “ everyone being the other patrons of the cafe; a few lingering tourists from the summer season, some students hunched over books and laptops, a couple on their first date. then gen and tallie, perched surreptitiously at a table not quite in the corner ( gen’s selection ) with two hot drinks and a biscotti jaggedly split in half between them ( tallie’s purchase ). “ what was it that aileen said she heard again ? because what i heard was that he didn’t show up to the seminar and everyone just left, it isn’t like him to be late, i mean obviously. and all that was missing from his office apparently, when i guess dr. emmerson went to check, was a fucking stack of pop quizzes. " she pauses, teeth biting at the side of her cheek, eyes digging into the back of the man on the first date’s head before flitting back to tallie. " people are saying crazy things, like he doesn’t show up for a class and suddenly he’s missing, fucking ghost stories people are telling — doesn’t that all seem a bit brutal. i’m sure there’s a perfectly sensible explanation, something much less messy. " lips curling around the word messy, bitter, acrid on the tongue. gen was determined to get to the bottom of the rumours swirling around campus, and determined for the bottom of them to be something that would have very little effect on her plans. ( @talliebernal )
