“I pay you until 5, you stay ‘til 5."
“Okay."
The computer had already been shut down. A textbook lay open-face on the desk, its pages littered with neon orange sticky notes. Kenna’s hand hovered over the bright stack as she scanned the lines. Watching her study reawakened nostalgia of the countless hours they’d spent holed up in his office at Ponderosa. Dayton had been attracted to her quiet inquisitiveness. It was painfully clear she no longer saw him as she once did. Times had changed. Secrets laid bare.
She viewed him as some sort of sexual deviant, no doubt. Her flat gaze suggested as much.
He dared to get closer, squatting beside the desk and resting an elbow on the corner, a threatening foot away from a flinching Kenna. “What is it you're working on?"
“I see the ‘stay out of my personal affairs’ bullet point doesn’t extend to you.” Frustration frayed her voice. “Don’t act like you care."
“Kenna, I do care."
Her eyes snapped to his flooded with tears, mistrust, and a flicker of anger. “Please, just let me study." She licked her lips, imploring once more, “Please."
Jaw tense, Dayton rose to his full height and resolved to hide out in his office until Carmen notified him she was en route to the practice. He sat inhumanly still in his chair, letting his emotions wash over him one ugly wave after the next. For 45 minutes he stayed like that, breathing in and out and not moving a muscle nor touching any of the files scattered atop his desk. Fury laced his motionless limbs. He’d approached her with a gentleness that bordered on unnatural for him, and even so she put up fierce resistance. That was his folly.
Kenna was never the frightened doe he’d once believed her to be. She was a wise lamb who feared slaughter in whatever form it may take.
Once his sister’s message came through, he slipped his crossbody briefcase over his head and reemerged in the waiting room. Her blouse collar hung loose as she dug around in her bag but he didn't stare. He could be chaste on occasion—and, given their previously fraught interaction, it seemed the safest decision.
She wriggled into the straps and crossed her arms. “By the way, thanks for thinking of me and letting me borrow your old car but I don’t plan on using it. The whole university already thinks we slept together."
“We did sleep together."
He knew it was the worst thing to say, yet out it went.
“Do you have any idea what it's like for me on campus now? Can you imagine being stuck at a school where every student and professor seems to know you've gone to bed with a faculty member, and all you're trying to do is navigate graduate level courses so you can get your degree and get out?" Hurt fractured her tone as well as his heart. “There's nothing left for me here, you've made sure of that. But here I am. What does that say about me, doctor?” The next words she gritted out through trembling lips, “What's your professional diagnosis?"
Emotions Dayton had never seen her display flashed across her face, draping a curtain of malevolence over her ethereal features. The hard edges she carried from their affair.
He had done this.
His brows gathered in and his mouth opened but he failed to speak. Where could he have possibly begun?
Any ill-fated attempt at offering Kenna an apology was shot as Carmen pulled along the curb in the Taycan.
“Who is she?" she whispered, staring out the window. Then louder, “Whoisshe?"
He felt a pang of guilt. It would’ve been easy to tell her the truth about Carmen under normal circumstances, but Kenna was one shade of hysteric away from a psych evaluation.
She had no reason to believe anything he said.
“See you Monday, kid.”
7
WHAT’S AT STAKE
The weekend was nothing short of miserable.
Liza roped her into a comatose-inducing marathon ofThe Bachelor. When the end of each episode came and the too perfect looking bachelor commandeered the rose ceremony, Kenna couldn’t help but wonder who Dayton had been courting in her absence.
Her stomach burned as though someone were holding a lighter to her skin. Who was the dark-haired woman in the car and why had the sight inflamed her with jealousy?
This love refused to leave her. She wanted it gone, exorcized, but it persisted with such convincing authority that it must have altered her genetic makeup and become an inseparable part of her.
A pulling sensation in her gut yanked her forth, elbows resting on her knees, as her imagination ran away from her and she transposed the faces of the Polaroid girls with those of the female contestants. Bella McAnders twirled a rose between her fingers, winking at the camera. In this rendering, she was beautiful, restored to exactly how she’d looked in the vigil flier—short, curly brown hair and plump cheeks. And though this hallucination was more attractive than the decomposing body she’d seen at Striker, it was far from pleasant. Kenna shut her eyes.