A Heart Still

2 Ethics and Mr. Harris

Another day and still no signs of Claire, she didn’t call, she didn’t text and I was getting worried.  

I was currently sitting in my ethics class. The seat next to me was vacant, Claire being the one who usually sat there.

Mr Rogers started the class a few minutes ago but I couldn’t focus. I didn’t want to be the person who was overdependent on their best friend and couldn’t do anything when they weren’t around but I was worried about her.

This wasn’t like her at all. She would tell me if she was sick or something.

“Miss Grayson,” someone called, snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned my head and looked at Mr Rogers.

“Are you listening to me Miss Grayson?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Sorry, sir. I was lost in my thoughts.”

“I know Miss Grayson, I asked you a question. Maybe you can answer now. What does Plato say about soul?”

I knew this one. I read it last night but it seemed to slip my mind. “Uhm, he says that the soul is immortal and it is freed after death.” I tried to guess. That was what most philosophers thought.

“Yes, miss Grayson. But what does he say about soul while being alive?”

I tried to think a little harder but didn’t manage to remember. “I don’t know sir.”

He sighed and turned to the board. “Plato says that our soul is the reason we understand simple concepts, the reason we have momentum in life. That is of course just one of the ideas people had in the past. The soul is a difficult concept and that’s why I chose this topic for your new project. I hope you like it since it is the last project you are going to do before graduation.”

I tuned him out a bit, looking out of the window. Ethics and philosophy was usually an easy class. That was why you could see all kinds of people in the room and not just the nerds. There were athletes as well as artists, writers, nerds and all of the others.

“Philosophy and ethics are about asking questions and seeking different perspectives so you will work in pairs.” Mr Rogers exclaimed after a minute.

That caught my attention again and I looked around the room, there were stable groups, more or less. Now that Claire wasn’t here I wasn’t sure who I would be working with.

I raised my hand to get the teacher’s attention and he nodded at me, making me put it down and ask. “Mr Rogers, can I please work alone and pair up with Claire when she's here?”

He looked around the room and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We are in an even number and Miss Perrish will have to work alone when she comes back. You are going to work with Mr Harris.”

I scanned the room, having no idea who this Mr Harris was. Then I saw the guy from yesterday in the back corner. He was sitting alone, away from everyone. I hadn’t even noticed him there.

He looked at me with those dark green eyes and his gaze made my spine tingle. Why was he staring at me like that?

“Alright.” Mr Rogers clapped his hands together excitedly, “now that everyone's paired up let me tell you what you’re supposed to do…”

I averted my gaze from this ‘Mr Harris', looking back at the board to find out what this project was about.

Of course, Claire was missing on a day like this, so I would end up with him. I bet he would let me do this project all alone. On the other hand, that might be better so I could do it according to myself.

The class went by pretty fast and seeing as I wasn’t sure if I had other classes with my new partner, I hurried to catch up with him before he disappeared in the hallway.

“Hey!” I called after him, almost running to catch up. He didn’t stop but I finally ran to his side, taking huge steps to match his pace.

“Harris.” I tried, seeing as I didn’t know his first name. He stopped and looked down at me with a raised eyebrow, just like yesterday.

“Grayson?” he asked, waiting for me to talk. How did he know my name? Oh right, Mr Rogers called me that in class, just like I knew his.

“It’s Becca,” I said but he just scoffed. “Whatever, what do you want Grayson?” I ignored how he called me by my last name again and sighed.

“Look, we are supposed to work on this project together, I know this might not be your thing so just tell me and I’ll do it on my own. I don’t mind.”

He looked taken aback but then smirked and shook his head. “Don’t think so, we are supposed to do this together. I'm not going to put that project in your hands just like that. You might screw up. Do you have any afternoon classes tomorrow?”

I gaped at him, it felt weird hearing him say so many words at one go. I don't know why but I thought about him as the kind of guy who didn't really talk much.

“No, I don’t have any.”

He smirked, making me uncomfortable. “Great.” He said, but it didn’t sound like he actually thought it was great, more like the opposite. “Meet me in the library after school.”

All I managed to do was nod once before he headed away again. Oh fudge, he was really fast.

“Hey, Becca.” I turned to look at Molly and Rachael who was standing next to her.

“Hi Molly, Rachael.” I greeted them, smiling a little bit. “You seem to hang around the new guy a lot,” Molly smirked at me.

“Yeah, we are doing this ethics project together.”

“Cool.” She said, looking kind of excited. “Yeah, lucky me.” I sighed, not really matching her enthusiasm.

Rachael just stared in the direction he walked off before turning her eyes back to me.

“You might want to be careful around this guy, he seems off.” She said with an untrusting glare. Rachael was that typical good girl. She was pretty with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Some people said she was the prettiest girl in school, but I thought she was kind of plain. There was nothing interesting about her appearance or personality but I had nothing against her.

Molly could be annoying sometimes but she was really pretty. She had those long straight black hair I always wanted. She had grey eyes and a pretty figure, unlike me.

My hair and eyes were boring dark brown and my curls could not be tamed by any force in this world. I stopped trying and made peace with it a few years back.

Anyway, guys seemed to appreciate Rachael’s appearance more than Molly's, which I didn’t get.

It didn’t really matter, Rachael was that good girl who waited until marriage and even had a boyfriend, Denis.

He was a basketball player, one of the best in our school. You see, I told you how cold it was here, so we didn’t have a football team, because they wouldn’t be able to play most of the year, instead, we had a basketball team.

“Why do you think something is off, he’s cute,” Molly said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“I don’t know, the attitude, the tattoos…”

“Everyone is not like you with your religious approach. I’m not saying it’s wrong but you should know that people are different, you can’t judge him, you don’t know anything about him.”

This surprised me because Molly was usually the one to judge people, not defend them. Rachael seemed taken aback but then sighed and traced the cross on her neck with her fingers. “Sorry, you’re right Molly.”

“Alright girls, it was great to see you but I need to go, my class starts in a few,” I told them, ready to walk away before Molly spoke again.

“Right, one last thing. I am throwing this little sleepover on Saturday and me and Rachael were thinking you might want to come too.”

My eyebrows crouched together, I was quite surprised. “Yeah, why not. I’ll bring some snacks.”

Molly and Rachael both smiled brightly at me and I hurried off to make it to class in time.

Finally, after long hours of boredom, it was over and I could head home. I decided to go to Claire’s place to find out what was going on. She lived about 15 minutes from my place so I headed there right after I stopped home to leave my bag there.

I knocked on the door and Mrs Perrish opened them, staring at me.

She knew me quite well, me being there all the time. She and her husband were great, I envied Claire her parents. I didn’t remember my dad very well, but I would like to think he was like Mr Perrish.

“Hey Mrs Perrish, is Claire home?”

She looked surprised at the question, but let me in, before replying.

“I’m afraid she isn’t, we thought she was at your house and just left her phone here.”

There was this glint of fear in her eyes while she spoke.

“No, I haven’t seen her since Monday. She wasn’t at school yesterday and not even today and didn’t reply to any of my texts so I thought to come by. She isn’t here?”

Mrs Perrish shook her head and I started to get a little dizzy. Where was she?

“Frank?” Mrs Perrish called her husband, who came out of the living room with another man behind him. I had never seen that man before. Another stranger? What the hell was going on.

Mr Perrish and that other man seemed to be arguing about something, both looking tense.

“Oh, hi Rebecca. How are you?” Mr Perrish asked at seeing me but his smile faltered at seeing our faces.

“Frank, Claire wasn’t at Becca’s place. She hasn’t seen her since Monday.”

Mr Perrish seemed to have a momentary heart attack before he regained his right mind. “What do you mean, where is she then?”

I looked at the stranger behind them, he looked weirdly familiar, but I didn’t know why. Actually, he and Mrs Perrish shared some features. Were they related?

“Rebecca, dear. I think It would be better if you go home. We will call you when Claire comes back home.”

I looked back at them and I could see she was acting like everything was alright, but I knew it was anything but. “You too Richard, we’ll talk later.”

The man behind them nodded and they rushed us out of the door. I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay and find out where Claire was. If she wasn’t home, then where the fudge was she?

I couldn’t stop the thoughts going through my mind while walking back to my house. Was my best friend really missing?