Journey
I readthe same line ten times, and I still had no idea what it said. The smell of St. Mary’s library used to calm me. The feel of the leather-bound books used to ground me. But nothing I did could soothe what had happened the other night. I had been quiet and brooding, two things that Tobias had pointed out to me during dinner last night, which led me to shooting him a knowing look because he was acting the same way—not that it was out of the ordinary. I pondered Bain, what had happened between us, and everything that Cade had said to me, which did nothing but irritate me even more.
“I’ve read it fifteen times. I don’t fucking know.” I leaned forward, half-smiling for the first time all week as Tobias broke a pencil in half with Sloane glaring at him. Sloane had been following Tobias around like a lost puppy per the SMC’s requirement of allowing Tobias to attend our school. She was his student aide, which meant she had to keep him in line and help him with any missteps he encountered with his schoolwork.
“Tobias Richardson!” She slapped her hand down on the table. “The fucked-up lens that you currently have on that says everyone is out to get you needs to be taken off. You do know. I’m here to help you. I’m not out to get you.”
I blew out a breath as Tobias sent her the chilliest glare I had ever seen. No one could pull off that look like Tobias, and no one other than Sloane could chew it up and spit it back out. She was the perfect choice for being his student aide—something Headmaster Ellison probably already knew.
Slamming the book shut, I started to climb to my feet to head back to my room. Was I hiding in the library, in the farthest aisle away that still had visibility of the doors so I could see who came and went? Maybe. I may have been trying to figure out who tried to hurt me, watching everyone as closely as possible, but I wasn’t stupid.
Unless it came to Cade.
He makes me so stupid! Just being around him made me act erratically and like some girl who had never been kissed before. But he was like a drug to me, enveloping me in his cool scent, making me feel safe and wanted. He gave me some fake sense of protection, like everything was okay, when, in reality, nothing was okay. I had the scars on my arms to prove it.
Right when I went to push Pride and Prejudice—my comfort read—back into its rightful spot on the dusty shelf, I stopped with a breath halting in my chest. Two big, honey-colored eyes that were strikingly intense and the very end of my being were staring back at me. Blond hair fell onto his forehead, and everything seemed to crumble around me. Not again.
“Stop following me around,” I whispered, trying to avoid a scowl from Mrs. Groves, the librarian, who was walking around, trying to catch sneaky teenagers who had nothing better to do than touch inappropriately in the depths of the aisles.
“Well, when you make stupid decisions, I really have no choice, do I?”
Something ticked on the inside, and I bit the inside of my cheek, shoving the book back into the shelf so far it blocked out every part of his face. It wasn’t as if I could run away at the first sight of him. I was tucked too far in the back of the library to escape, even with the direct line to the doors. So, instead of running away like the other night, I quickly went back to the feeling I’d had on those lonely, scary nights in the psych hospital and remembered how angry I was at Cade and how confused I felt. I let those feelings fester so I would have no choice but to deny him and put a stop to his words.
When he rounded the corner of the aisle, darkness following him like a thundering cloud, I stood my ground and leveled my chin. He looks good, of course. Cade Walker was no match for a girl like me. I wore hand-me-down clothes when I wasn’t wearing one of only two uniforms I owned. My sandy hair needed another trim. Sloane had been the last one to cut it in our room with dull scissors that she’d stolen from the kitchen. My face was free of any makeup, and my long-sleeve shirt was two sizes too big, making my already slender frame look malnourished. I’d never been a large person, and I had no idea if that was due to my genes, or if it was because I’d never been full a day in my life. The orphanage fed me, of course, but it wasn’t as if we were going to the grocery store every weekend for snacks. Three meals a day, if that, and soup didn’t do so much as fill me for the night, let alone give me luscious curves.
“What did you think was going to happen if you didn't barge in the room the other night?” I asked Cade as he slinked down the aisle, holding something tightly in his hand. The only eyes on us were those of fictional characters inside the spines of hundreds of books, and our whispers were hardly audible to each other, let alone anyone else in the library.
He shrugged, standing a foot away from me. “I probably would’ve ended up arrested with blood on my hands.”
My jaw dropped at his brave honesty. Nothing like scaring me with violence. I crossed my arms over my chest, ignoring my beating heart. “So, what? No guy can touch me because you once had me?” The devilish girl that only came out to play with Cade was here, and she was feeling feisty in our secretive little corner. “I have news for you. I’ve been touched since last spring, Cade. Multiple times.”
The sharp emptiness inside his dark eyes made my scars burn, like he was cutting me with unsaid words and a deadly look. “I’m sick of you twisting the knife, Journ. It’s been plunging in a little deeper each fucking day.” The papers in his hand crumpled with anger, and small puffs of breath were trying to escape as they filled my chest with an agony that I refused to yield to. “That’s the only reason I’m giving in. I’m waving the white fucking flag. Hate me or don’t; it will do nothing to change the way I feel about you.”
I swallowed his honesty whole as he threw a bundle of papers in between us. Each one hit the library floor with a loud slap, echoing in between the bookshelves. “Read them.”
My beats grew louder, my pulse thrumming in my ears, but this time, I wasn’t feeling that sexual pull between us that was fueled by butterflies and want. This time, there was fear and confusion lingering. Two things that I was very familiar with.
Dropping down slowly to my knees, I gave way to my stubbornness of pushing Cade away as if he were nothing to me. I couldn’t resist my need to know what he’d thrown to the floor or why he was so bitterly angry as the papers flew from his fingers. Hate me or don’t.
I wished I hated him.Then maybe my fingers wouldn’t be trembling as I read over each and every last paper that had torn edges and markings that looked as if they’d been rubbed against jagged spikes.
Stay away from her, or you’ll regret it.
Where were you last night?
She’ll end up hurt, and it’ll be your fault.
What will you do when she’s gone and you have nothing but a guilty conscience to feed your wants?
Journey does not belong to you or fit into your lifestyle.
She isn’t yours.
Stay away.
This is your last warning.
My eyes beganto blur the more I read until I couldn’t see the scribbles any longer. My back thudded against the bookshelf as the papers scattered around me like my thoughts. At some point, Cade had moved closer, his back resting against the same hardness that mine was on. Our elbows were touching, his warm skin mixing with my already rising body temperature.