Page 39 of Darkest Obsession

Molly shakes her head. “They wouldn’t let me. She said if I told she’d do much worse. She’s such a bitch.”

“I’m sorry. But you should report this to someone. They have to do something.”

“They don’t have to do anything,” Molly says. “I don’t need to run and tell. I’ll get revenge on her. Eventually.”

I think she’s just trying to cope. I can’t imagine Molly standing up to Martha Bloom and her friends. They’re all elite tennis players and all several inches taller than her.

“If you need someone to talk to her, I can get Sylvia to do it. She’s not afraid of anyone and I think they take a class together.”

Molly scowls. “It’s fine. I’m going to make ramen in the common room and finish this book out there. You sleep well, okay?”

“Sure.”

Molly grabs her cup of ramen noodles and her book as she leaves. I can’t believe what Juno did to her arm. There was a whole section on the Fox Academy website about bullying that probably should have been a red flag to me, but I didn’t think it would be as bad as school in America. Getting burned with cigarettes was definitely worse than any of the schools I went to back home.

When Molly leaves, I get back to my Ethics project. I can’t even think of the word ‘ethics’ without thinking of Thomas kissing me. His hair was so soft and his body… Holy fuck.

It’s so unfair that assholes have the best bodies. He definitely has a way better body than Kit and Jude. I know I shouldn’t compare him to other guys — it’s not fair to him or to them — but it’s true. They’re muscular, Thomas is chiseled. There’s a big difference. Jude has tattoos but they’re weird to put it mildly. Thomas curated his body to look like a work of art with those sexy patchwork tattoos.

And his lips… Ugh. I need to stop this shit and focus on homework.

I open my email to see if Thomas sent me any more notes to finish the assignment. He sent me three.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Ethics Conclusion

Attachment: conclusion_points.docs

Dear Clover,

Please include the attached points in the conclusion.

Cheers,

T

P.S. Sorry for kissing you.

Sorry for kissing you. Ugh, why does he even have to bring it up? I open the attachment and paste his points into my document. I guess he expects me to turn these bullet points into coherent sentences.

I take a few minutes to finish the task, bobbing my head along to Fantasy by Mariah Carey on repeat as I work. Once I organize Thomas’ points into coherent paragraphs, I open his second email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Fuck

Dear Clover,

Fuck. I didn’t mean to make things weird.

Thomas

His third email only has a subject line.