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Journey

The pancakes tastednothing like they should have. With each syrupy bite, I had to force them into my mouth and down my throat. The layer of lip gloss over my lips didn’t help either.

I could taste one thing and one thing only: Cade.

He kissed me. His lips had been on mine, and it was the only thing I could think of for the rest of the weekend. His hand around my neck and how a burning chill bellowed in my core, making itself known in between my legs, replayed when I shut my eyes that night and continued to do so the next day when I sat in the lounge area with Sloane and Mercedes.

Cade was in there, too, staring at me from across the room with his hand rubbing mindlessly over his chin as he likely thought about the previous night.

Things were so different between us now, and it was hard to know the rules to our little game. A part of my ruined heart hated him and blamed him for the scars along my arms. But the other part, the part still intact, wanted to reach for him in the worst way. My fingers had nearly trembled when he walked into the dining hall this morning, his eyes set directly on me at my little table in the corner, away from everyone. I shifted my gaze to Sloane, and she gave me a soft smile. She wanted me to sit at their table today, and when I declined, she said she was going to sit with me instead, but I refused, telling her I needed to review some notes for English. I knew she didn’t believe me, but Sloane knew when to give space.

I saw everything through a cracked lens now, second-guessing everyone in the room, focusing on the way someone would stare at me for a little too long and how their eyes would linger on my covered arms. Were you the one who put them there? Skepticism was born from broken trust, and my trust at this school was shattered like the window that Tobias and I broke out of that chilly evening not so long ago.

I shoved my food away and rubbed at my lips that were somehow still tingling from just the mere thought of Cade and me in the headmaster’s office—which ended up being a total blow; there wasn’t anything useful in my file. My grade cards and special notes from teachers. That was all, and it frustrated me.

My back was to Cade,as I continued being the school hermit, when I heard the door open and close with a loud thud.

Did Cade leave?

Without being able to stop myself, I flung my eyes over to Aubrey, seeing if she was following after the person who left. She was too busy shoving a breakfast burrito in her mouth to notice me, and whoever had left the dining hall didn't seem to gain her attention, so I knew it wasn’t Cade.

The jealousy was there, burning brighter and brighter at the thought of his mouth on someone else while I was away. My throat closed at the visuals my overactive imagination was painting, and I wondered if he had said the same things to her that he used to say to me. The fork in my hand clattered down to the wooden table, and I clenched my eyes, wishing away the thought of being jealous of a boy who stood me up, which then landed me in a literal psych hospital.

There were more important things to focus on, like who wanted me gone from St. Mary’s. Or who brutally attacked me and left me for dead. But Cade. The teenage girl that I still was at my core lived and breathed and rolled around in resentment like a pig in mud at the irrational thought of Cade never caring about me at all.

I refused to believe it on the inside.

He and I were too real. What we had was vehemently intimate.

Tobias’ words floated around and brought me back to reality. “Maybe it was only real to you, Journey. To people like us, love is easily manipulated and can often be one-sided. When you’re desperate for something, you likely believe it at the very first glimpse.”

His words hurt at the time, but he did a good job at snapping me out of heartbreak when I needed it the most.

I wish he was here. He’d wrap his forever blood-stained hands around my face and bring me back down to the real and shove away the what-ifs and the past. Tobias was skilled at turning off emotions. In fact, I think I’d only ever seen him elicit emotion once or twice, and it was in this very school that I saw the slip in his mask.

After leveling my breathing and remembering the wise words from the only person who I knew had scars that went much deeper than mine, I opened my eyes back up and stared down at my half-eaten breakfast. I placed my hands on my plaid skirt and gripped the fabric to keep me present, but that was when I realized the entire dining room was near silent.

I could hear myself breathe and the heavy beating of my heart in my ears. What’s going on? There was a screeching of a bench nearby, and when I finally peeked through the wavy strands of my hair, I found Cade staring directly at me.

I would find him in a sea of students all dressed in the same damn color.My stomach bottomed out as if I had been flung from a cliff, so I pulled my attention away, hiding my half-snarl to disguise my present hurt. I followed a blur of maroon as it rushed through the dining hall toward the door.

A gasp left me, and my head whipped up, causing my hair to whiz away from my face. Tobias. Gemma’s arms wrapped around her brother’s middle, and tears pricked the backs of my eyes like a million little needles trying to show the entire school that I wasn’t as strong as I was pretending to be. Not that it mattered. They already had formed opinions of me before I came back hiding my emotions like a chameleon.

Tobias looked the same. Still expressionless, even with his long-lost sister’s arms wrapped around his slender middle. His shoulders were as muscular and broad as they were at the Covens in that underground bunker-like room that I found myself in way too many times when I couldn’t sleep through the nightmares. His one solace in that place was the constant building of muscle as he’d do hundreds of push-ups while I lay on his bed, willing my eyes to stay open so I didn’t have to deal with the past as it came for me in my sleep. The little scar was still there on his eyebrow, and his jaw was as tight as a rubber band as he stood right inside the dining hall, wearing the same uniform as the rest of the guys, looking more of a brute-like soldier than anything else. Tobias was what bad boys were made of. If we were here under different circumstances, I bet he’d fall right in line with the Rebels in a heartbeat.

I could already hear the slow murmurs of St. Mary’s as they took in our new student. I was pretty sure there was a collective shift of girls as they crossed their legs and parted their lips at their shiny, new toy.

I had news for them, though. Tobias was off limits. Not because I wanted him—we were never anything more than two broken teens trying to save our lives and each other at the same time—but because Tobias’ heart was just a single organ keeping him alive. Nothing more than that.

Before I knew what I was doing, I pushed myself out from underneath my lonely breakfast table and locked right onto Tobias. Gemma was still hugging him around the middle, and he didn’t quite reciprocate the motion, but as soon as we caught onto each other, he let out a breath and gave me a subtle nod.

We’re okay.

The closer I got to Tobias, the more my body grew warm. I knew everyone was shifting their attention from Gemma and her twin brother to me as I walked on quiet feet over to them. Gemma must have sensed that Tobias was relaxing a little, because she pulled back briefly, dropping her arms.

“I told you she was fine,” she whispered as I grew closer. Gemma peeked over her shoulder at me and shot me the warmest, softest smile I’d ever seen, and it sent something gooey into my heart. I like her.

“I like to see things for myself,” Tobias said with no intention of lowering his rough voice. Gemma half-rolled her eyes and stepped away.


Tags: S.J. Sylvis Romance