“Well, he’s doing a damn good job.” I shook my head.
It wasn’t like him to be this way. I’d figured he’d be upset, but I didn’t think he’d just act like I wasn’t even here.
“Want to sit up top today?”
I nodded and followed Nina to the only set of stairs conveniently located right next to my ex and paused beside him.
He twirled his pencil between his fingers and stared ahead through his clear-framed glasses, like I was nothing. No one. A leaf in the wind.
My jaw worked back and forth as he pushed those ridiculous glasses up his nose. They weren’t even prescription because the boy had perfect twenty/twenty vision. He only wore them on days that he wanted to be taken seriously. And he was seriously trying to ignore me.
I almost reached for them to tear them off his face, but then I reminded myself that this was my fault. I’d made this difficult. I’d hurt him. This was simply his defense mechanism.
“Avery.” Nina waved a few steps ahead of me.
I glanced back at him one more time, searching for the pain that had to be lingering behind his green eyes, but all I saw was the ice-cold barrier he’d put up. An armor of his own kind.
I stared at the back of Zayn’s blue shirt for the first hour of my lecture, counting the anchors on it over and over. It was my favorite shirt of his, but he knew it. Was that why he had worn it? It was the only one he owned that didn’t look like he went door to door, selling Bibles. I guessed that was the kind of wardrobe the son of a senator was stuck with. He was constantly being watched and trying to impress people that he’d never met.
I’d thought that perfect act he had down so well would come off behind closed doors, but it never did in the year we lived together. That was just Zayn. Not only did he have a body and a face sculpted by the gods, but he also had the personality and manners of a fucking saint.
Nina occasionally took a break from taking notes to eye the two of us. I could’ve burned a hole in the back of Zayn’s shirt by now if she hadn’t broken my concentration by turning the page in my textbook so I could follow along. It must’ve been hard for her. She had been friends with Zayn before she met me, sophomore year of undergrad, so I knew she was torn between the two of us. Not that there was really a side to pick.
A pulsing pain around the crown of my head grew stronger the last hour of my lecture, and I was sure Karma had come to pay a visit.
I watched the final minute tick by on the white clock hanging on the wall, ready to spring from my seat the moment class was over.
And I did just that.
I flew out the door, holding my hand to my forehead and begging the migraine to stop before it really took over. As if that could work.
Finding my favorite spot in the courtyard, I gripped the metal railing and sank down onto the first step just outside the doors to the school. It was quiet there. My own personal sanctuary away from the mass of med students constantly feeding off each other’s stress and anxiety.
But my privacy didn’t last long. The door screeched open behind me right as my head exploded, like a baseball bat colliding with my skull.
I whimpered and bit down on the sleeve of my jacket.
“Avery? Are you okay?” Zayn’s smooth voice almost hurt worse than my head.
I pinched my eyes shut and took a few steady breaths.
“Another migraine?”
This was the universe’s way of punishing me for being so stupid. I looked up at him with tears pooling in my eyes, and his frozen shield melted away. After a couple days of thinking I was completely empty and void of emotion, it all came pouring out.
He knelt down and pulled me into his arms.
And he held me. I knew how much it hurt him, but I let him do it anyway.
Selfish. That was what I was. Selfish and stupid. But, God, it felt good to have him near me again. I was always safe when I was with him.
“Avy, you need to calm down, or you’re going to make it hurt more.”
I knew that, but I couldn’t hold back the tears falling onto the anchors on his shirt. “I’m sorry,” I managed, but the words were muffled against his chest.
His spicy, expensive cologne surrounded me with a familiar warmth.
“One thing at a time. Let’s get you home, so you can rest. We can save the apologies for another day, okay?”
