Tiny fractures start to crack inside of me, spreading out until I’m nothing but a shattered mosaic.
Swallowing, I pivot on the spot until I’m facing Xavier and find him watching me, head cocked and those fucking glasses still on his face.
There is a flicker of something—satisfaction, pride, glee—before the mask drops back into place and he returns his attention to his computer. Did he…
Did Xavier do this? Did he get rid of my nightmare? Did he kill Tray?
Does it matter?
A relief like I have never known flows through my nervous system, making me feel light and fluffy and like I could run a marathon. I thought I’d felt free when I managed to move into the dorm, to put miles and miles between me and the group home and everything that represented for me.
But Tray’s shadow still haunted me this entire time. The worry and fear that he would randomly show up in my life and ruin everything I was working toward was at the very back of my mind.
Tears burn the back of my eyes as I try to swallow while the significance starts to really hit me.
He will never touch me again. Never speak to me again. Never demand that I spread my legs for his own fuckups again. He’ll never watch from the corner of a room as another man pounds into my body as I disassociate. He’ll never tell me he loves me while I ache between my thighs.
Tray is gone.
And now I can live my life.
Chapter 15
Emery
I hate today.
Today can go fuck itself already.
Like, seriously.
Not only did I wake up way too early, with my DHDX bracelet back on my goddamn wrist after I’d taken it off again, I also had the urge to sketch but couldn’t find my sketchbooks or mygraphite set anywhere. It was like they justnopedout of my life. I left my room looking like a tornado had spontaneously formed in it, leaving clothes and crap everywhere.
And I also haven’t been able to find Teddy anywhere. Blue and Apollo are on my bed, but the last time I had Teddy with me was at the apartment. With my sketchbooks and graphite. Which means whoever packed my bags and delivered them to my dorm didn’t pack everything.
Xavier is going to be my first point of interrogation. Those things are mine, and I want them back. They don’t get to take my shit. Just because I’m done with the four of them doesn’t mean I’m letting go of anything they gave me. It’s mine. They can’t have it back. I want my Teddy back even more than the art supplies. Even if I have to go back to the apartment to get them myself.
Knowing that, when I return to the dorm this afternoon, I will have a mess of a room waiting for me is adding to my irritation. Also, the low-grade throbbing behind my left eye is not fantastic. And now that I use a fucking laptop for all my note-taking, I don’t even have a notebook I can doodle in while I wait for Derek’s class to start.
The fact that I’ll be seeing that buttface in just over five minutes is also affecting my mood, I’m sure.
I don’t want to see him. It’s bad enough that every morning this week, I have left my room to find Xavier either on our couch, watching the morning news with Oakley, or sitting at our table, working with those stupid glasses he apparently needs. Which is so fucking weird for so many reasons.
Whatever.
It’s fine. Everything is fine. There is only, like, ten more weeks of classes or some shit, which means twenty more classes with Derek and ten more with Hudson, and then I literally never have to see them again.
In fact, after I clean my room this afternoon, I’m going to check my classes for next semester and see who is teaching them. If any of them are, I’ll move things around or pick other classes.
Yes.
I just have to get through this basic, minimal contact, and then I never have to see them in a scheduled setting ever again.
The door to the lecture room opens, and my attention drags to watching other students finally start to arrive. I may have power-walked here and arrived a tiny bit earlier than I’d expected, due to the anger burning in my veins.
Noise begins to fill the room, and I’ve already made the promise to myself that if any of my concussion symptoms start to show up, I’m going to dip out. The classes are all recorded, so it’s not like I’ll miss anything. But I prefer the in-person type of teaching; for some reason, it makes the information stick in my brain better.
Technically, I’m still supposed to be resting today, but honestly, if I stay lying in bed for even one more day, I think I might go insane. I have never been this inactive in my life. Besides, I’ll be sitting here, barely moving, anyway. Not to mention the pain meds that both Oakley and Xavier watched—forced—me to take this morning.
