She enjoyed toying with me, knowing that I would never cross the line with her. A line that I had drawn myself ever since we were kids. I wouldn’ttouch her when we were children and standing in front of that camera in the basement, and I wasn’t going to do it now that we were both grown up.
All at once, the memories hit me like a tsunami: the movie about Peter and Wendy, Kim’s voice, the freezing cold that got into my bones, the musty smell coming off the walls that enclosed us…
“That’s enough. Don’t fuck with me,” I warned her loudly, making it clear that I was no longer willing to joke around or have a conversation. At the same time, I suddenly became aware of Professor Robinson, standing awkwardly in the doorway. He cleared his throat, and I tried to pull myself together and make my face look indifferent. The professor just sighed and circled around to sit behind his desk.
Megan, finally, had stopped needling me.
It was all her fault. She and Alyssa—all they did was give us grief. Me and Logan and even…
My mind careened over to Selene, to my Tinkerbell, who was in Detroit at that very moment doing God knew what with God knew who.
I still couldn’t accept what she’d said, and I was still angry about it, but it was obvious to me that Alyssa had fed her some bullshit to freak her out. She probably told her I was the one who initiated the kiss or that I tried something else. Whatever else she needed to say to paint me as the monster that I definitely hadn’t been—at least, not with her.
I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket then and thought about texting Selene, about asking her what the fuck was going on in her head and if she was still sure about what she’d told me.
It was my pride, my goddamned pride that I could never put aside, that won out and ensured that I didn’t go after her.
I never chased a woman.
She was just like all the others.
I repeated that to myself for the umpteenth time, slipping my phone back in my pocket.
“Okay,” Professor Robinson said when I looked back at him. “Let’s talk internship logistics.”
* * *
After nearly three exhausting hours, I walked out of Robinson’s office with an intense urge to have a smoke.
I needed one because not only had my agitation not eased in the slightest, but also because the thought of trying to prepare for the internship amidst all these distractions was stressing me out.
I sighed, wondering when it was all going to let up and when I might get back to some semblance of peace, when I’d finally be able to actually solve these problems.
What if that day never came? I hoped it would, but I feared it wouldn’t.
I took the sidewalk to the parking lot, my forehead wrinkling up when I spotted a cluster of students gathered in the area where I’d left my Maserati.
What the hell are they doing?
I drew closer, cigarette trapped between my lips. A few guys noticed my presence and blanched, immediately making a hole for me to pass through.
What I saw left me literally in shock, and I immediately understood why all those people were crowded around my car.
I stood motionless, and I felt my heartbeat slow.
I blew the smoke out through my nose, tossing the still-mostly-unsmoked cigarette to the ground before moving forward at a sedate pace. I crunched across shards of glass on the pavement, and I thought for a moment that I might be dreaming or having another hallucination, but then I blinked several times and realized it was all real.
Someone had smashed in my window with a giant rock.
“Who did this?” I demanded, staring uninterrupted at the damaged glass. I couldn’t even recognize my own voice, the harsh tone making it obvious that I could not be reasoned with. “Who the fuck did this?” I asked again in a rasp. I glared into the shocked faces of the other students, who backed away fearfully.
They didn’t say a word; they were all just silently shitting bricks.
But I knew perfectly well about the code of silence the students had. They minded their own business and didn’t give a shit about what happened to other people, not even in the most serious cases. One of them could have seen the culprit; maybe they even saw more than one of them. Maybe the person was standing right there enjoying my enraged face, but none of those assholes would have said a fucking word if he was.
“Goddammit! Answer me, motherfuckers!” I stabbed a finger at a random group of people and narrowed my eyes. Sensing my intentions, they all took a few steps back.
Their fear didn’t give me pause, far from it: It gave me a thrill. I was like an animal that had caught the scent of prey.
