I jumped out of bed, threw on my hoodie and sweatpants, and peeked my head through the door. Chaos broke out in the hall. Shouting coursed around me. People scattered as papers littered the floor and painted the walls. White everywhere.
Ethan held a red-faced Bria back from Tyler.
Jerry had a guy in zip-ties faced against the wall.
Liam cowered in the corner as two members of his crew surrounded him.
Jake stomped toward me, eyes glossy, face wet, and chin shaking uncontrollably. “You promised!” he screamed, clutching a paper in his hand. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”
I snatched the paper out of Jake’s hand, and my eyes eagerly scanned over its contents as my heartrate spiked.My handwriting. The papers were covered in my handwriting. Tears blurred my line of vision, dropping from my eyes and landing on the ink, smearing the words together. It only took the first sentence to know exactly what everyone else knew.
The pages from my diary corrupted the hallway, filled their minds, and fueled their aggression toward each other. Everyone’s secrets had been spilled.
“No … ” I breathed, turning my head at the scene around me. People screamed at each other, tears bled out, venom spewed, spit flew as if it all happened in slow motion. Turning, I headed toward my desk. I ransacked my room for the journal I’d spent two months writing in since Dr. Conway gave it to me.
For two months, the journal had been my best friend, kindly accepting every thought I had of everyone, allowing me to share everyone’s deepest secrets so I didn’t have to carry the burden on my own. My brain went haywire as I remembered every secret that passed from my fingers, through the pen, onto the paper. The same papers that someone plastered on display for everyone to see. “This can’t be happening … ”
Gone. My journal was gone.
Empty-handed, I stood in the middle of my room. Tyler appeared beside me, hurt evident in her eyes. “You selfish cow,” her lips mouthed, but I couldn’t hear her, her voice drowned out by the screaming in the hallway and the clouding of my brain. Pushing past her, I needed to get away. I ran past her, shoving between people to find a way out.
To my left, Ollie stood posted-up in his doorway, shoulder resting against the frame. Empty green eyes locked on mine as his expression remained bleak and hollow. His lips parted, and for a second my stupid mind believed he’d pull me into his arms, but instead, his eyes turned away from me.
Curse words swarmed in the air, all directed at me, and I continued forward until their comments faded behind.
In a daze, my hand pushed open the library door, and my feet walked through the same maze I’ve traveled more than a dozen times before until my body curled into a ball in the only spot I could be alone and no one could find me. The same place Ollie created for me.
And it was there I closed my eyes and begged for sleep to take me away from this nightmare.
Chapter Twelve
“Once upon a time, there was a girl with a black heart and a lost soul. She was unpredictable, impulsive, never allowed anyone close enough.”
“Don’t tell me you fellfor her.”
“I am … falling, that is. No one tells you about the fall, how once it starts it never stops. But that’s a story for another day, my friend.”
“Go on.”
“They said she wasn’t capable of feeling, but the way she looked at me said otherwise. They said she was better off alone, but her kiss pleaded for me not to leave. They said I was wasting my time, but my heart begged to differ. They said she was thedevil … ”
“And what didyou say?”
“Even the devil was oncean angel.”
A chuckle comes from his throat. “How does the story end?”
“That’s the beauty of it, mate. It doesn’t. Love has no beginning and no ending, much like the fall no one warned me about. Love is unpredictable, impulsive, and doesn’t allow anyone or anything close enough to threaten it, much like the girl I fall every day for. Her black heart was a shield and her lost soul had been searching—protecting herself from predators while wandering the earth for me. Perhaps God gave up on his angel too soon … ”
“You’re questioningGod now?”
“All I’m saying is, I would’ve given her an eternity plus a day past crestfallen.”
—Oliver Masters
Ollie.
“Come sit with us,” Bria suggested, batting her lashes over me.
