Thread of Truth, стр. 31
“Not the kind of relationship I'm asking about.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “I think you should go.”
“I think you should answer the question.”
She tapped the pen rapidly against the essays, her lips pursed, thinking.
I waited.
“Fine,” she finally said. “I tutored him for a short time.”
“Tutored him,” I repeated.
“He needed some help with his writing,” she explained. “He came to me and asked if I could help. I told him yes.” She shrugged. “So I tutored him.”
“And what came of that?”
“His writing improved.”
“Not what I meant.”
“Mr. Tyler, I think I've had enough of—”
“I was able to look at his emails,” I said, interrupting her. “That laptop I looked at? I was able to access his email account.”
She was no longer tapping the pen, but her hand was shaking and it appeared as if the pen was vibrating in her hand.
I pointed to the board behind her. “It didn't hit me until I saw that.”
She turned in her seat. “Saw what?”
“Your last name,” I told her. “Gonzowski. And your school email. Ms. Z at Seaside.” I paused. “Desmond was corresponding with someone he called Z. I think it was you.”
The pen was still quivering. She'd turned back toward me, but avoided my eyes. She wasn't moving in the chair. She was rock still.
“Was something going on between the two of you?” I asked.
She dropped the pen on the pile of papers and looked at me. “Yes.”
TWENTY SEVEN
Christine Gonzowski stood up, closed the door to her room, and walked back to the desk. She sat on the front edge of it, her arms folded, looking as confrontational as I'd seen her thus far.
Which was saying something.
“I was tutoring him,” she said. “He came to me and asked for help with his writing. We worked on that for several sessions after school.”
“When was this?”
“Year ago,” she answered. “And it...it just became something else.”
“Right.”
“He pursued me,” she said, as if that somehow made a difference. “I wasn't ready for it, and I didn't act appropriately.”
“Okay.”
Her arms were folded, but it looked to me as if her hands were still shaking. “It happened twice. And I'm not going to turn this into a sordid movie-of-the-week kind of thing. I knew it was wrong and so did he. We talked about it and both realized it had to stop. Which it did. That was it.”
“You didn't tell anyone?” I asked.
“Of course not,” she said. “I'm aware of what's at stake here.”
“Weren't you aware of that before?”
She shook her head and looked away from me. “What do you want from me? You want me to say I wish it hadn't happened? Of course that's what I wish for. It was a stupid, stupid thing to let happen and any excuse I give you would be a stupid one.”
“Do you have an excuse?” I asked.
“Not one that matters,” she said. “I was in a bad place, personally. I'm not going to give you the details because ultimately they're irrelevant. But I was in a less than healthy place and not thinking clearly. I liked Desmond. He's more mature than most of the kids that come through here. He pursued me and I was too weak to draw the line.”
I appreciated that she wasn't trying to make excuses, but it didn't make what happened any less awful.
“I think in my head, I tried to justify it with the reasoning that he was already eighteen,” she said, then held up a hand before I could interject. “And I am well aware of the laws regarding teacher-student relationships and how the student's age doesn't matter. I knew it before and I know it now. I'm just telling you what was going through my head.”
“Okay,” I said. “So who broke it off?”
“It was mutual,” she said. “He came in the day after we'd been together for the second time. I'd already made up my mind to tell him it wasn't happening again. But he was feeling guilty and he brought it up. We agreed it was wrong, that we'd shut the door and move on.” She paused. “It was actually pretty easy in that sense. Neither one of us was holding on to something, and neither was angry with the other. It took me two months to sleep through the night because I was afraid I was going to get caught, but nothing happened. I've tried to block it out ever since and just focus on teaching.”
I thought that was an incredibly Pollyanna-ish view of what she'd done, not to mention wishful thinking on her part. It was clear that Donnie and Burt knew what had occurred or, at the very least, knew of the rumors. It was foolish to think they were the only ones. Whether that was because Desmond told them or because they'd heard it from someone else, I didn't know. But the story was out there and she couldn't put it back in the bottle.
“And don't think for a second that I haven't been worried that this would come back to haunt me,” she said. “I knew that it would. I knew it. I know what I've done. But I was hoping against hope that it would just go away. Which was stupid.”
“Very.”
“I don't need your commentary,” she said.
“Explain the emails,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “I thought he and I were good. I thought it was going to fade into the background and I'd be able to keep my job and just go on about my business. Yes, I was worried about me. Judge that all you want.” She paused. “But then he came here one day after school.”
“When?”
She thought for a moment. “About five months ago. I don't know the exact date, but it was around then. He came in and closed the door and I just knew it was going to be bad. He sort of hemmed and hawed a little bit and I really didn't know what he wanted. I honestly thought he was going to say he wanted to get together again and I