“That’s all you’re going to get. Meeting’s over.”
I stand.
“Is it because of the house rules?” Benson asks.
I stop.
“Is that the thing?” He’s looking at me now. “You don’t want to break them, is that it?”
I look back at him.
Stanley shrugs. “Man. If it’s killing you, we can loosen up the rules.”
They have no idea.
They have no idea what has been killing at me since the day I learned Melly Sorcha set foot on my campus. The rules are not the problem. The rules are the smallest possible version of the problem. The rules are a Sharpie on a whiteboard, and what’s in my chest is this fucking monster of something I can’t explain. And they think I am stuck on the Hawthorne House rules? Fuck the house rules.
I take another step.
Stanley says, “Come back here.”
I keep walking.
He calls out. “Melly is single.”
I stop. That’s the last fucking thing I thought I’d ever hear.
Rowan adds, “She said she broke up with him on Tuesday, man.”
Percy says, “I heard it myself.”
I turn around and walk back to the table and sit like an asshole.
Stanley starts to smile.
I glare at him until he stops.
“Believe me when I say we got your back, Blue.”
I look at him. “What the fuck else did she say?”
Rowan and Stanley look at each other. Stanley nods, like you tell him, and Rowan does.
“She said, you know her intentions, but she doesn’t know yours.”
I lean forward. My heart is doing a thing. It’s going like an animal in my chest. Pacing in the cage I have it locked in.
“Jesus Christ. Did you guys sit her down and interrogate her?” I ask, running a hand through my hair and readjusting my hat.
Stanley says, “She brought it on herself.”
I give him a look.
He shrugs. “She did.”
Rowan says, “When she left, Stan said I guess we’ll see you around, and she said she highly doubts it.”
I freeze. She said that?
