Read Give Me a Reason for Free Online

doesn’t—”
    “He forgot.”
    “Ouch.”
    “Yeah,” Laura said with a sigh.
    “You know, every time I see her, she just seems so lost, so
hurt. It’s almost painful—”
    “Wait,” Laura said. “I’ve been here over five weeks and the
only time I’ve seen her was when I was in her classroom.”
    Holding up her pack of smokes, Susan said, “I occasionally
bump into her out here.”
    “Does she talk to you?”
    “No,” Susan said, shaking her head. “On second thought,
there’ve been a few hellos over the past two years, but nothing more than that.
Honestly, Laura, I think she’s terrified of everything and everyone.
Absolutely, positively terrified.”
    “Bastards,” Laura said under her breath.
    “You got that right.”
    “You know about...about what happened to her?”
    “Given her background, John wasn’t sure about her...um...her stability , so he pulled us all aside one day and
told us about what she had gone through. Of course, he didn’t go into details,
and seeing the way she is, I honestly don’t think I wanted to hear any.”
    “She just seems so fragile,” Laura said.
    “At first, I tried to help her,” Susan said, taking a drag of
her cigarette. “I mean, she must have been put through hell to end up like
that, and I thought the least I could do was to try to become her friend. So,
I’d stop by her classroom to chat, and I even invited her to the pub a few
times, but she always refused, and eventually I stopped trying. There are a lot
of wounded people in this world, including many of our students, so I decided
to stop trying to help someone who obviously didn’t want my help, and moved on
to others who did.”
    Hearing the bell signaling the start of the last class of the
day, they both walked back inside. Going their separate ways, Susan climbed the
stairs and Laura headed to her office, but when she saw John at the end of the
hall, she called out to get his attention. Jogging down the corridor to catch
up to her long-legged boss, she said, “I just wanted to remind you that I’m
going to need those reports for Toni Vaughn’s classes. They’re due next week.”
    “Which ones do I owe you?”
    “Remedial reading and the university-level creative writing
course.”
    Quickly stepping into his office, he returned with a file.
“This is the one for the writing course, and I’ll get you the other one early
next week. Will that work?”
    “Absolutely,” she said, taking the file. “Have a good
weekend.”
    “You, too.”
    Returning to her office, Laura glanced at her watch and then
at her desk. Grinning, she gathered her belongings, filled her attaché with
work she could do from home, shut off the light and left. For the first time in
weeks, she would get home before the sun went down.
     
    ***
     
    Irene looked up when she heard the sound of heels tapping
down the hallway. As Laura came into view, dismissing the usual morning
greetings, Irene said, “Silly man should have known better than to try to trim
the tree himself.”
    “I think that falls under the heading of hindsight,” Laura
said, glancing at the mail piled on Irene’s desk. “I hope you know I’m going to
be depending on you a lot in the coming weeks.”
    “Of course. I’ll do whatever I can. Have you come up with a
plan of attack?”
    “Well, I’ll need to see his calendar, and then we can start
rearranging some appointments.”
    “I know which ones are the most important, so let me get his
diary, and I’ll make some notes. That way, we’ll know who to cancel and who to
coddle,” Irene said with a smirk, knowing all too well the politics that went
along with funding.
    “Good idea,” Laura said, heading to her office. “I’ll check
my schedule and start making calls.”
    Two days earlier, while enjoying a quiet Saturday night with
Duane, Laura received a phone call from Constance Canfield telling her that
John, whilst trying to trim a tree, had fallen from the ladder and broken his
leg. His