The freezer compartment on the fridge opens right beside me.I curse and lash out.Penelope’s roommate squeaks and jerks away, but not before he tosses a popsicle onto the counter.
Not a fancy popsicle either.No, a tube of plastic filled with a mixture of frozen sugar water and innumerable artificial dyes and flavors.
I haven’t seen a Freeze Pop since probably elementary school.
Like a savage animal, I rip it open with my teeth and push the top half of the concoction into my mouth.The instant brain freeze shocks me out of my spiraling thoughts.
A bag of frozen green beans lands on the counter.
“Sorry, you get the bag of second-rate veggies.The peas are for my face,” he grumbles.
I quirk a brow and shove the second half of the popsicle into my mouth as he takes out not one but two bags of peas and presses one to his cheek and the other to his chest on top of his shirt.
I’m no stranger to naked men—I’ve spent countless hours in locker rooms—but I breathe a silent breath of relief at his baggy pajama shirt and pants set.Nudity adds a visceral element to violence and sets my stomach to a slow roll.
“You took those punches better than a lot of men have in the past,” I say around my frozen tongue.
He shrugs and shuffles to the far side of the island.
“I’ve had plenty of practice,” he says with dry humor.
I shake my head and crunch through the flavored ice with my teeth.
“She must not care about you if she ignored the sounds you made when I punched you,” I scoff.
Peter rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
“She couldn’t hear.As soon as she locked her door, she put on her headphones, turned on her music, stuck the towel under the door, and put all her devices in a special lockdown program she created,” he explains.
“What kind of program?”I ask.
“The kind we can’t beat unless we want to pay thousands of dollars in fines for calling emergency services and wasting their time.”
I hiss as I scrape my bruised knuckles on my pocket, but I pull my phone free.
“I’ll pay millions if it’ll bring her back to me,” I growl.
“She’ll never forgive you for abusing the system.Her dad collapsed from delayed complications about a week after he got home from his first stay at the hospital.She would’ve lost him if EMS hadn’t been so quick.”
I swallow as bile and emotions clog my throat.
“Then I’ll sit outside the door until—”
“I tried that.Hell, I camped out in the hall for weeks, but it only made her more reclusive.”
“How reclusive?”I manage through the ball of dread threatening to consume me.
The popsicle sits like a block of ice in my stomach.
He sighs, shifts the bag of peas against his face, tosses the other on the counter, and runs a hand through his wet hair before responding.
“I didn’t see her for almost two years.We lived in rooms across the hall from each other, shared an apartment together, but I didn’t lay eyes on her for almost twenty-four months.She shut herself away and avoided all human contact for one hundred and one full weeks.No one saw her face or heard her voice for seven hundred and nine days.It was miserable.”
My heart lurches at the sorrow in his clear green eyes.He’s telling the truth.
Two years?Was this during college?After college?
Was she avoiding the entire world while I was conquering it?Did she pull away because I was invested?What demons did she battle while I built my business from scratch?
