I can’t seem to care as much these days. The eventual pain will be worth these moments I am trying to hold onto.
“Max?” Deena asks. “Max Fielding?”
When I glance up, she isn’t smiling. Her eyes are wide, and her lips have thinned.
“Yeah,”
“You had dinner with Max Fielding?” She repeats.
Oh shit. Does she fancy Max.
“It was just dinner,” I rush out. “We have a class together and we were going over a paper. Nothing more than that,” I try to reassure her.
Her face takes on a look of betrayal and her face flushes red before she pushes her chair back to stand.
“I have to go,” She says as she picks up her bag and tray.
“Deena…wait,” I try but she turns and walks away.
“What the hell was that?” Corden asks watching her retreating form leave through the doors.
“I have no idea,” I pause. “Do you think shelikes him, likes him?”
Corden shrugs. “Maybe. They do spend time together,”
My eyebrows hit my hair line. “They do?” I ask confused. “I have never even seen them acknowledge each other,”
“Rue they’re from the home Marrowton supports. I see them walk there a few times a week to help with the younger kids,”
“Oh,” I wince. “I hope she knows there’s nothing romantic between us,”
“Explain it again the next time you see her,”
We are silent for a while as Corden finishes his plate of food and I flick through my phone before my final class of the day. Then I remember I haven’t seen Corden alone since the night of the records room.
“Oh hey, I have been meaning to ask you something,”
“Shoot,”
I move a little closer to him and lower my voice. “In the records room,” he quickly scans the hall and then looks at me. “Who’s was the file you took a photo of?”
He clears his throat before glancing around a second time.
“When my brother attended here, he always spoke of a girl he was partnered with in class. They hated each other, sort of rivals trying to win the top spot. Anyway, things changed, and they became friends. Best friends,” I stay silent as he grabs his phone.
“In their final year here, she suddenly stopped showing up to class. Whenever he tried to contact her, it went unanswered. Then when he asked the faculty, they said she has dropped out,” My eyes widen at the familiarity of it all.
“But he knew that couldn’t have been the case. She was joint top of the class with him, she wasn’t struggling at all so she wouldn’t have dropped out. She had an internship at some big tech company coming up after graduation, so it just didn’t make any sense,”
He sighs. “Weeks went by of him trying to get in contact with her. He even tried to call her parents, but they were out of the country. When they eventually came back, he went to her home in Kent, but they told him she had gone. Left them a letter that she didn’t want anything to do with the family anymore and they hadn’t heard from her since,”
I notice my hand is tapping my thigh as I listen to Corden, the rhythm soothing to my racing heart. I pull it away and clench it between my other hand.
“My brother didn’t believe it at first. Even if she wanted to run away, she would have told him about it. He would have helped her do it. But then he started to look into everything, hacked into accounts and every file he could to do with her and the family. He found out that her parents had her set up in an arranged marriage to a man thirty years older than her,”
My stomach rolls.
Who does this to their children. Everyone thinks all the money and power are things you would want, but it very seldom comes without a catch.
