My brain must be having another processing delay. I have no words, no reply. Today has been too much.
Shoving myself up, I stand, arms filled with the folder and my water bottle. “Okay.”
“Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?” Thayne’s concern floats through the air between us, but I need to get out of here.
“No, I’m fine. I just want to get back to my dorm.” I start backing toward the door. “Thanks for…this.” I gesture awkwardly between us.
He nods. “If you need anything, anything at all, please reach out. The number in my email signature is my personal cell number. Call anytime. My offer extends to discussing woodworking and your woodworking teachers. I’ll do my best to discuss anything you need help with.”
I nod a final time and make my escape, fleeing out of the building like my life depends on it.
Chapter 25
Emery
I burst through the dorm room door and dash straight into my room, dumping the folder and bottle on my desk, then proceed to ruin the tidying I did before my meeting with Thayne.
I need my fucking sketchpad right now. Or any paper. A fucking pen would be fine too. All my bags are dumped on mybed, and drawers are left gaping in my search that I already know is going to come up empty.
And just like this morning, it’s not fucking here. It’s nowhere.
Maybe my things are at the apartment, but my gut is telling me that when Derek searches it, he won’t find them there.
There is a tearing pain in my chest as I ping-pong my gaze around the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creamy white book of paper. Or the flat tin of graphite.
Instead, I spot the journal Hudson sent me, with its cute little fucking pens.
That will have to do.
I practically dive at my bedside table to get to it, and once I have it in my hands, I look around my room for a space to sit and come up empty. My desk, chair, and bed are impossibly covered. Almost worse than this morning.
The only other places to sit in the dorm are in Oakley’s room—which, no—and the table and couch with the fucking cameras. The options are all shit. I glance down at the book in my hands and make my way out to the main space, looking directly at the camera that stares straight at the couch.
Then the camera that is over the table but isn’t aimed directly at the table.
Table, it is.
My feet move so quickly, I stumble, only just catching myself on the corner of the table with my non-braced hand. Sliding into the seat, I slam the book down and open it perhaps a little too roughly. The folded note from Hudson slips out, and I shove it to the side to get to the first page.
This book belongs to
I quickly write my name on the line and flick to the next page. I didn’t notice before, but there is a spot to write the date in at the top of each page, so I do that. And then I hover my pen over the first line and draw a blank.
How the fuck do you start a journal entry? Diary entry? Whatever the fuck this book is.
Dear Diaryis too sickly innocent. That’s for someone who has never wandered down the dark alleyways that life has to offer.
I scan the table like it’s the inside of my brain, trying to search for a way to start, when my gaze lands on the note from Hudson.
My gaze jerks back down to the paper, and my pen slides over to the second page and starts writing.
Dear Hudson,
Why? Why the fuck did you all sign those papers? Why the hell are you still hanging around in my life? We are over. WE ARE OVER. I don’t want any of you here. I want to be left alone. This thing that was between us, I don’t want it anymore. You all ruined it. Ruined me.
I’ve spent my entire life being forced to let the adults in my life make the decisions for me. But I’m an adult now and I’m in charge of me. I get to decide what’s best for me, and I’ve decided that you four aren’t it.
It hurts just thinking about you all. My entire being feels like it has been ripped in half. I hate you. All four of you. You showed me what it’s like to have something real, something solid and safe, and then you went and smashed it into pieces.
