There’s safety in numbers.
Maybe the best friend likes to lift weights, never skips leg day and owns creatine supply company? One can only hope and pray.
A knock sounds at my door. “You texted back, you still up?”
“Yeah.” I call. “Sorry, I just…I’m tired, kind of out of it.”
The light under the door creaks through. Maybe if I focus on it hard enough I won’t be so afraid of the dark. I’m afraid if I turn on the lights Jude will see. The dark, while scary, is safer I think, at least for now, at least I can hide in it and he won’t see the fear in my eyes. It’s too exhausting pretending I’m indifferent to his looks, his touch, everything about him. So the lights are staying off. For now.
“Alright, early class tomorrow, think about our date not that asshole Evans.” She sighs. “The TikToks alone tonight about our campus have been brutal, thank your lucky stars people aren’t speculating you were sleeping with him.”
Yeah. Lucky. Mouth dry I suddenly can’t find words. I nod like she can see me. Shit, what if someone finds out?
Worse, what if Jude tells?
Would he be that predictable?
I collapse onto my bed and close my eyes. I hope not, because graduating is the only way I get a job and get out of here, graduating means a piece of paper that says I belong and I’m worth hiring.
Plus, I’d be the first in my family to do so.
It’s important.
The only shitty fact is, he’s well aware that my dream was to be the first person in my family to graduate college and now that he’s here all I can think of are all of the ways he’s going to make it my last.
8
“Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.” — The Count of Monte Cristo
LILAH
Ibarely sleep. How could I?
Every freaking time I close my eyes I hear tires screeching against wet pavement and see headlights barreling toward us so fast my body jerks awake before impact ever comes, scaring the shit out of me. By three in the morning, I give up trying entirely and just stare at the ceiling while rain taps softly against the apartment windows like fingernails.
Watching.
Waiting.
Then I imagine him in prison staring at my picture while doing pushups and shudder.
Is he outside? Dare I even look?
By six I’m exhausted enough to drift off.
By seven Charlie is pounding on my door again, does she ever quit? She saw my mental health last night, it was insane. “Yo, if you miss class after surviving hot professor gate you deserve academic probation.”
A groan escapes. “Please, scream louder by all means, I don’t think the neighbors who hate us from upstairs heard about my torrid love affair.”
“NOPE!” She sings. “Also campus is literally insane right now, somebody made hot professor merch, another TikTok got like six million views overnight, showing pictures of him all over campus looking hot. I had no clue the guy was into Hyrox but it shows man, it shows, no wonder girls were throwing themselves at him, you included, no offense at all.”
“None taken.” At least I could look back and acknowledge he was pretty to look at and enough of a distraction from real life that I honestly should have taken more advantage of it and him now that I’m stuck with jump scares from Jude, huh, kind of has a ring to it. My attentions piqued. “Are they talking about any of the girls at all?”
“What?” She frowns.
“The Dean’s List thing?” She pauses outside my room. “People are selling shirts that say ‘I survived the purge.’”
Damn.
