But the fact that I’d hooked up with Sterling made the idea of Kenna dating him weird, and it had nothing to do with me having any lingering feelings for him. To have lingering feelings, you needed to have them to begin with. There had been none. Not from me. He’d been nothing but someone to numb the pain.
Fun fact: that shit never worked.
Kenna gave a half shrug. “I won’t know until I try.”
Thinking about it for another moment, I said, “I fully support you dating, but I don’t think Sterling should be your first target.”
A tad of the excitement died in her eyes. “You make it sound like I’m going to the shooting range. But maybe your right. I need a few practice rounds to see how things go before moving on to the main event.”
I groaned. How did my problem suddenly become bigger? Kenna interested in Sterling, romantically or otherwise, filled my chest with pressure. Why did I feel so uneasy about this all? Was it because of Micah’s warning? What did he know that I didn’t? If he hadn’t found out about Sterling and me, then why did Micah seem so adamant about me staying away from him? Surely that same warning extended to Kenna and my other roommates.
I needed to ask Josie if Brock had said anything, and then I was going straight to the source. Micah needed to tell me what the hell was going on before one of us did something regrettable and stupid. Like let her cousin go out with a serial killer.
Stop!I hissed to my overactive mind.So not helping. He is not a killer. I did not sleep with the next Ted Bundy, for God’s sake.
At least I was pretty sure I hadn’t.
It had to be me, right? Just my wild imagination getting the best of me, because people weren’t giving me odd glances. Yet I remained unconvinced and unable to shake the feeling that everyone I passed stared and whispered.
This had to be a dream. One of those nightmares where you found yourself naked in a crowd, like the opening scene inBring It Onwhen Torrence ended up shirtless in the middle of a cheerleading routine, only to wake up moments later in her bed. That was what this had to be—just a bad dream.
Except… I glanced down quickly. I wasn’t naked. And… I pinched my underarm and jerked at the quick stab of pain.
Nope. Definitely awake.
Then what was the fucking deal? Had I become so paranoid that I believed everyone had nothing better to do than talk about me behind my back, including people I’d never seen or met in my life?
Apparently so.
I was not that important.
Seconds away from stopping in the middle of campus and screaming, “What?”I ducked my head, increasing my pace to a fast walk before I made a pariah of myself. I dashed into the café, hoping to escape the noise going on both inside and outside my head. Plus, I needed a tall flat white coffee pronto. Anything to calm my frazzled insides.
I had just put in my order at the counter when my phone buzzed in my back pocket. When I fished it out, my eyes roamed over the message.
Josie:Did you see this?
The text included a link to a KU school website.
A hard knot formed in my throat, making it next to impossible to swallow around it. Tapping on the link, I ambled down the counter to wait for my coffee and the website to pull up. The Internet in the café wasn’t the greatest, so it took a few seconds. The crunching and hissing of the coffee grinder suddenly hummed, and the air brimmed with fresh coffee beans, a scent that filled me with happiness.
As the machine trailed off, someone giggled from behind the counter, distracting me again. Popping my hip against the half wall dividing the dining area from the ordering section, I scrolled through the link to theKingsley Informer, the school's online newspaper.
Why did Josie send me this?
With the pad of my index finger, I swiped the screen, flipping through the articles until I came across… me.
Well, a fucking picture of me, which had no right being in the paper.
Legs sprawled up over my head, water sprayed down over my shocked face, mouth open in a silent scream, and arms flailing like an inflatable tube guy on a windy day. Mortified at the image mocking me in full color for the world to see, a little shrill of horror escaped my lips.
Son of a bitch. Really? They couldn’t have gotten a more flattering photo? Or at the very least one where you couldn’t so clearly see my face.
The headline readThe year starts with a splash.
My fingers went lax, and the phone began to slip right through them. I fumbled to keep it from crashing to the floor, bobbling it a few times before I secured it once again.
For the love of everything holy, could I get through a day of college without being humiliated? I didn’t want this to be an omen of how my time here at KU would be remembered. Not for me or my peers.