“Also, if you're going to talk shit, maybe pay attention. Having her here is already problem enough. We don’t need you to hurt her feelings and deal with crying and arguing," Titus says, moving past the couches and heading upstairs without another word or giving us a chance to answer.
Titus hates everyone, well, almost everyone, but the one thing he can’t stand is girls crying. He’s been like that for as long as I can remember, though I don’t know why.
“I don’t take Wren for the type that cries,” Nolan says, finally turning to face me, rolling his eyes as he shoves what is supposed to be three or four bites of sushi into his mouth at once.
He’s always hungry, but his workouts make him nearly ravenous.
Nolan’s right; I’ve known Wren a while, thanks to our competitions, and I can’t for the life of me picture her crying.
Titus wouldn’t know that. He might be my friend and has been to a lot of my events when we were younger, but he was never one for crowds, much less for being around Wren.
He was more likely to hide away in the room, or on the off chance he did attend, he was busy dealing with his father and all his shit.
He’s not much of a people person. I mean, he seems to like us well enough, but I’d bet the only reason he dared to venture out today had to do with Julian, and given the way he’s taken to Wren, I doubt that will last long.
Julian seems to be the only one excited about Wren being here, and honestly, I’m not even the least bit surprised. He’s always been one to think with his dick, and as much as I can’t stand her, she isn’t ugly.
Which only makes her more annoying.
Maybe when he fucks her and gets sick of her, we can work together to find a way to get rid of her, though who knows how long that will take.
“I’m going to talk to Dimitri.” I push off the couch and head out the door before Nolan can try to stop me, not that he looks like he will.
I know my brother can’t do anything, but talking to him always makes me feel better. He’s never let me down before.
Of all the people to walk through my door, I hadn’t expected it would be her. Wren isn’t an extremely common name, but I’ve had a few students who shared it, and every time I’d been disappointed when it wasn’t her.
I had to push her emotions aside as I worked and built this life for my brother and me, but I couldn’t bring myself to break the connection, even if I’d never intended to have it. She was always there in the back of my mind, a part of me that was almost comforting even when she was on the edge of losing it like she had been earlier.
I’d read her file, knew she had lost her brother and that she’d been in therapy prior to attending, which is why she hadn’t enrolled last year when my brother did. It’s also why I offered to talk to her if she needed it, though that didn’t seem like it was going to happen.
What I didn’t realize when I read the file a few days ago was that she was the same girl I met, alone on the stairs, crying about that same brother three years ago.
Fuck.
Now I felt like an even bigger asshole.
We’d texted a lot for almost two years after that night, but when I finally got this position and secured my brother a spot in the dorms, away from our father, I had to put this first.
This was our one shot, a place he couldn’t follow us, that gave us our first real chance. They’d taken a risk hiring me, given my background; everyone knew who my father was and what he did.
Thankfully, the dean wanted Gavin, and I’d done pretty well in college. I was far overqualified to teach the humans and offered more than enough help with the rest of them.
I couldn’t chance messing it up, and talking to her was doing just that.
She was a distraction I couldn’t afford, even if it killed me to think of her that way.
I’d felt how sad she was when more and more of her messages to me sat on read, then just delivered.
I had to buy another phone just to avoid the temptation, unable to bring myself to delete or block her number.
I’m weak for her, have been since the moment I laid eyes on her.
I pull the lanyard from around my neck that has my teacher ID, my office key, and the key to my desk. Reaching down to the bottom drawer, I unlock it, fish out my old phone, and power it on.
It lights up, flashing to life before my eyes, and I wait, anxiously tapping my thumb on the side of it as it loads.
387 messages.
