He called after me, but I rushed down the stairs, not looking back. Fynn and Grayson were in the kitchen with Brock, drinking coffee as another pot brewed. Water percolating in the carafe joined the thumping of my bare feet as I padded across the room.
I hadn’t even bothered to grab my shoes, and I wasn’t about to run back upstairs and get them. The only thing I wanted was to get as far from Micah as I could. I didn’t want to see or talk to the Elite.
“Mads?” Grayson called as I strutted past the table, not looking up at any of them. I didn’t want to see their faces, see the sympathy or feel the awkwardness of them trying to work out what happened. It was bad enough that they knew Sterling had drugged me and what Micah and I had done most of the night.
Shame stained my cheeks as I shook my head, fighting back the well of tears that wanted to break free. I refused to let them. Not here.You have nothing to be ashamed of, I tried to remind myself, but the mantra hadn’t stuck.
“Not now,” I told Grayson and walked out the front door, feeling three sets of curious but worried eyes on me.
I hadn’t thought Micah could be a bigger dick than when I found him in bed with another girl.
I was fucking wrong.
This whole shit of him thinking he was saving me somehow by pushing me away, it was such a pussy move, and so not like Micah. Yet it was such an Elite scheme. I had to wonder if it was Brock’s idea, not that it mattered. All Micah had to do was say no, and he hadn’t.
I didn’t feel the shards of tiny pebbles cutting into my feet as I hiked back to the dorm, nor the strange looks I got from the few people moseying about this early in the morning on a Saturday. And because I didn’t want to go straight back to my room and face my friends, I stopped and bought a coffee at one of the vendors on the sidewalk, the smell taunting me since I’d left Micah’s.
Ugh!
Would my every thought circle back to him in all shapes and forms? It was like my brain couldn’t go more than a few seconds without somehow thinking abouthim. He’d woven himself into all aspects of my life.
The guy making my flat white coffee eyed me once or twice but didn’t seem fazed. “Fun night?” he asked, making small talk.
I was so not in the mood for chitchat. “Not exactly.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place for the perfect hangover cure.”
Forcing a grin, I took my coffee. If only overindulging in liquor was my only problem.
I walked aimlessly around campus with no destination in mind. Just like my feet, my mind roamed, losing all sense of time and the world around me. I paid no attention to the campus slowly waking up, becoming busier, and it wasn’t until a body sat down next to me and gave me a cheesy pickup line that I snapped out of the daze.
Blinking at the random guy beside me on the bench, I suddenly didn’t feel comfortable being alone. Without saying a word, I got up and left, speed-walking back to my dorm. With each step, the anxiety that sprouted inside me thrived like a weed after a rainstorm. By the time I got to my building, I was positive someone was following me. My fingers shook as I took out my ID card, holding it over the sensor and waiting for the door to unlock. The second it clicked, I tugged the door open and bolted inside.
Exhaling, I pressed my back to the wall and dropped my head, staring at my bare feet.
What the fuck are you doing? Get a hold of yourself.
After pressing the elevator button, I chewed on my lip, watching the numbers highlight one at a time.Why is this thing so slow?My patience level shot, I decided to take the stairs, out of breath by the time I reached my room.
“Where have you been?” Kenna demanded the moment I stepped foot in our room. She had her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, arms tented on her hips, reminding me a little too much of my mother. “I was two minutes away from calling campus security and filing a missing Mads report.”
The coffee I’d drunk earlier had worked itself out of my system, and the caffeine buzz crashed, leaving me fatigued. I dropped my bag. “I was walking.”
“For hours?” she prompted disbelievingly.
Shrugging, I shuffled past her and sank down onto the edge of my bed. “I guess. I haven’t really looked at the time.” I didn’t even know if my phone was in my bag.
Her eyes ran over me. “Where the fuck are your shoes?”
“I don’t know. Micah’s probably.”
“He called me,” she stated.
That got my attention. My head snapped up, and a snort breezed through my nostrils. “I do not want to talk about him.”
She crossed her arms. “Fine. He doesn’t exist in this room. Do you hear that, girls?” she hollered over her shoulder. “Micah Bradford no longer exists here.”
I rolled my eyes.