Unwantedby Pale Waves blasts through the sound system in the sleek sports car I’m driving way too fast back toward Saints U.
I ignored everyone, including the four guys I’m supposed to fucking live with right now, and got the hell out of dodge.
My mother just smiled at me after Chase’s announcement, and I would bet my entire life, and on Iris’s grave, that she knew it was coming.
Selling her fucking daughter like some two bit whore to gain political capital for Chase.
Because that’s what this is. That’sallit is.
I don’t imagine Cole got much of a say in it either, but he could have fucking warned me.
Cowardly little boys, all of them.
Well, newsflash: I am not from their world and I don’t live by their rules.
By the time I get back to campus, I am still riled up and steam might as well be coming from my skin with the way rage radiates from my pores.
Driving or singing usually helps calm me down, and I already know that I can’t draw right now because I’m way past the point of being able to numb myself and spill my pain onto paper.
Instead, I pull the car into an empty space by the library and get out. It might be fucking freezing outside, but maybe, just maybe, a brisk walk might shock out some of the blinding anger.
My phone rings for the umpteenth time, but I ignore it again. Though, I’m definitely glad I just wore jeans and a sweater to Thanksgiving dinner, my Chucks probably aren’t the right footwear, considering the wet ground, but I’m too pissed to really care that much.
I walk around until the sun sets, and just keep going until I end up in the library. I’m pretty amazed it's even open right now, but the sanctuary of quiet is available and I take full advantage of it.
I wander through the stacks, aware that there’s me and maybe one other person in the entire gigantic building, and take comfort in the fact that I could get lost in here for days and no one would find me.
I find a copy ofPride and Prejudicebefore finding a dark, quiet spot. It’s almost perfect: a little lamp on a table next to a bean bag, a metal hour glass on the windowsill, and the giant window looking out into the darkness.
Moving the beanbag into the nook of the window, I curl up with the book and lose myself to my favorite book of all time, where even Lizzie got to decline marriage. But then, Lizzie’s parents, fault ridden as they were, are still leaps and bounds ahead of my biological and now step parent too.
If only life was as easy as it is the books I lose myself in.
Thunder rumbles through the sky outside, making me jump, but then I grin widely. I fucking love thunder storms.
Rain unleashes and cracks against the window as lightning illuminates the dark sky, the roll of thunder not far behind it again.
I abandon my book and run outside into the storm.
Running until I’m behind the library, in the middle of the quad, silence presses in around me except for the storm. It’s so dark out here I can’t really see anything until the lightning flashes.
I scream into the rain, trying to let out everything that's been building up inside of me. The thunder answers my screams with roars of its own and I scream back until I’m hoarse and soaked through.
But I don’t care.
For the first time today, I don’t feel like I’m going to suffocate, so I keep screaming and spinning in the rain with my arms spread wide.
The next time the lightning flashes, I scream again. But not in anger.
In fear.
I don’t know how he saw me. Or how he got so close, but when I see him, he’s so close I can practically feel him.
“Boo,” he shouts between cracks of thunder, and I take off running as fast as I can. His laughter echoes behind me, mixing with the sounds of the storm as my heart races in my chest.
This can’t be happening to me.
“You can’t run from me. I told you, this is my world. Not yours.” His shouts fill the space, and I keep running, trying to see where I’m going through the darkness and rain, but I don’t see the rock until it’s too late and I crash to the ground.