I nodded and tilted my head. “Convincing argument.”
“Bullshit excuse.” Liam released his band, and his blond hair fell over his shoulders. He twisted the rubber band around his wrist nervously. “I’ve been gay for what? Two fucking seconds, and already both my parents are accepting and offered to open their house to you. Your dad is a coward. Hardly a man of God.”
“Whoa,” I cut in.
Jake’s eyes bulged before he leaned forward. “My dad wasn’t raised by gormless white trash, pikey. He has standards. Pardon me if those standards are over your head.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Liam matched Jake’s distance, and his blond hair fell over his face. “You know … I pity you, Jake. Really, I do. Don’t be crying for me when you’re standing in the desert with a SA80 strapped around your shoulder and piss running down your leg.” Liam jumped up, the chair screeched against the marble, and he took off, but not before flipping the chair to the ground.
My eyes slid back to Jake, who had his lips pursed, and arms crossed firmly over his chest.
“He has a point,” I stated.
“Bugger off, Crap-bag. No one asked you,” Jake said, moving his head back and forth.
I stood to my feet and dropped my head, so we were eye level. “He obviously loves you, and I know you love him too. You’re not choosing Liam over your father by doing this, you’re choosing love. Go with him. I promise you, if you don’t, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Now get your head out of your ass and go after him.”
With that, I left.
Two hours left before three-o-clock, and there was one last person I had to see before making my way to Lynch’s office to sign out. Tyler, Jude, and I said our goodbyes the day before, and Dr. Conway and me celebrated our last session last week. The rest of these two hours I’d saved for Ethan.
I searched the entire floor—every room, every hall, every bathroom. Nothing. I turned the hall, and my gaze fell on Liam and Jake in a deep make-out session at the end. From the looks of it, Jake came to his senses, and my heart squeezed in my chest. My feet made their way up the stairs to the third floor where the classrooms were, and again, I searched every room.
And my eyes checked every clock I’d passed to keep up with the time.
An hour and a half left.
I pushed through the last door when I heard sounds coming from an adjoined abandoned room. When I made it to the door, I slowly pushed it open. “Ethan?” I called out.
I made it through the door and completely froze at the view before me.
Lionel, a student I’d only known in passing, hung from the ceiling, kicking his legs back and forth over an abandoned chair with a rope around his neck. I wanted to scream, but fear wrapped a tight leash around my throat. I tried to run, but my feet felt as if they were nailed to the ground.
My eyes burned. My hands shook. And finally, I spun around to see Ethan. His eyes were hazy and red—a raging fire burning inside them. He covered my mouth with his hand and pinned me against the wall. “I’m so sorry, Mia,” he whispered, and I no longer recognized the man staring back at me. My eyes strained, darting back and forth to the guy struggling for his life hanging from the ceiling. “It’s not what you think,” Ethan chanted in my ear with his hand pressed firmly against my mouth, muffling my screams as the boy slowly suffocated before me.
Ethan pressed all his weight against me to keep me pinned.
The sight was too hard, and I squeezed my eyes closed to shut it all out.
I was confused. So, confused.
Anger rolled through me, and I snapped. My arms had a mind of their own as I fought against Ethan. I shoved him, and he pushed me ten times harder. I screamed, he squeezed my cheeks together. I pumped my knee into his groin, and Ethan took me to the ground and wrapped my wrists in one hand, putting his entire weight over my body. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I never wanted you to see this. You were never part of the plan.”
Then all I saw was black.
ollie.
I paced the road outside Travis’s car, my eyes itching to check the clock every five seconds. My palms sweat, gripping the bouquet of roses in my hand. In forty-eight hours, Mia and I would be in Spain getting married. I have been waiting for this day since I’d first felt her.
I would say saw her, but that would have been a lie.
I felt her first.
Her soul called out to me first, and then I saw her.
Where areyou, love?
The car was packed up with our clothes, her camera, my journal, our pictures, and the dozen or so roses Zeke and I had made her.
