Professor Dupont
My thumb hovers over the Send button.
I shouldn’t push it. Shouldn’t indulge the woman more than I already have.
Noise from the other side of the apartment draws me away from the screen, and my thumb slips, hitting the sideways triangle just for Beckett to not even come back out of his room.
Well, that’s that.
Groaning, I run a hand through my hair and remind myself that he suffered a traumatic event—orchestrated it but also suffered—and isn’t handling the fallout well.
Bellamy was easier to deal with. She volunteered her feelings, and I didn’t have to guess at things until she caved. Beckett’s a different beast entirely. Like me, he bottles his problems and tosses them into the ocean, praying they don’t return.
I have no idea how to tell him it doesn’t work. The glass splinters and slices before it leaves your hands, and the scars are as unremovable as they are unremarkable.
No one else will notice, but you’ll feel them forever.
Maybe I should start dragging him to Visio Aternae meetings. He wouldn’t get school credit for them, but it might dohim some good to give back to the community he was raised to only take from.
When the light beneath his door goes out, I make my way to the kitchen and grab a bite to eat. As I’m chewing a forkful of refectory lasagna, my vision starts to break, growing into sharp, jagged lines even when I try to blink them away.
I grit my teeth, recognizing my earlier nausea as a symptom of an oncoming migraine—something I’d probably have noticed more if I hadn’t been absorbed in thoughts about Elle Anderson.
Christ, she’s bad news.
After popping an anti-inflammatory and triptan pill, I brace my hands on the counter and close my eyes, counting the time it takes for my vision to return to normal.
The minutes tick by slowly. I drop to my elbows, waiting—it doesn’t always work, especially if I’ve taken the pill too late.
Sometimes, the medication alleviates the tingling and numbness in my hands as well, though I never know if that’s just a psychological effect or the actual drug itself.
When I can see straight again, I quietly make my way to the foyer, cracking open the hutch and sliding my shoes on. Glancing over my shoulder, I make sure Beckett isn’t coming out of his room before slipping my cloak and mask from within and leaving.
11
ELLE
I’mtwenty-five minutes early to Acting for Beginners.
Not because I’m eager to see Sutton—er, Professor Dupont—but because being late makes me nauseous. Even though Idolove the spotlight, walking in when a class or meeting has already begun causes me to break out in hives.
I really hadn’t meant to be late the first time around, but Aurora’s snoring kept me up the night before, and then with one thing after another, the universe seemed to be trying to keep me from going.
Now I can’t help wondering if it had its reasons.
When I notice I’m not the first person in the auditorium, I pause at the entrance, checking to make sure I have the right room in the Lyceum: 137-A at eight.
A girl with deep brown skin and neat black braids sits in a wheelchair in the back, doodling in the margins of a notebook. Quincy would hate that—she was always so weird about keeping her papers neat. Asher would love it, since he draws on anything he can get his hands on.
I plop down one seat away, eyeing the doodles. They’re stick figures and warped flowers, almost like a nervous habit more than an actual hobby.
“This is Acting for Beginners, right?” I ask softly. Just to make sure I’m not fucking up again.
Her brown gaze swings to me. “It will be soon.” A long, pregnant pause. Then, “You’re the girl who was late on the first day.”
“Oh good. I was hoping that would be my lasting impression.”
Her thin brows arch. “You got chewed out by Professor Dupont and you’re still coming to class? Do you enjoy being humiliated?”
