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I lick my lips. “If this is some cruel joke, I swear—”
Lucas gives me an I-don’t-have-time-for-your-shit look. “It’s not a joke, Aspen. Now, get out of my hair before I change my mind.”
I don’t wait a single second more, afraid that he might just change his mind. Once out of the administration office, I flip the new keycard over in my hands and find the room number etched into the sleek metal.
302. That’s my new room. This moment doesn’t feel real, and even once I’m standing in front of the door, it hasn’t sunk in.
I swallow around the lump in my throat and look down at the keycard. It feels heavier in my hand now. I can’t believe that he’s giving me a new room. At this rate, I don’t care if it’s another closet-sized room that smells like a basement. I’ll take it. I’ll take anything but that sewer-filled room.
Exhaling all the air out of my lungs, I slide the keycard over the reader, and my lips turn up into a smile when I hear the lock disengage.
I hold my breath, grab the door handle, and push it open. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but it wasn’t this nice, clean room. There’s no musty smell, no damaged ceiling. I walk inside, close the door, and peer around the room, noting how clean it is.
My eyes catch on a bag that’s sitting on the bed, which is made with what looks like brand new sheets. I run my hand across the smooth fabric just to see if they’re real. This has to be a dream. Soon enough, I’ll wake up and realize it.
I grab the bags on the bed and open them, inspecting the contents inside. The bag almost falls out of my hands when I discover there are clothes inside the bags. Replacements for everything that got ruined in my old bedroom.
With shaking hands, I place the bag back on the bed and walk into the bathroom that’s connected to the bedroom. It’s clean as well, with all the essentials I could ever need.
“How the hell did this happen?” I whisper to myself, my hand over my mouth.
I walk back out into the bedroom and twirl around in a circle, smiling the entire time like a lovesick teenager before falling backward and landing on the bed.
I’m still grinning from ear to ear when I go through the bag later that evening, putting all my new clothes away. I can’t replace all the things I lost in that room, but I can be happy with what I have now.
When I reach the bottom of the bag, I find a white envelope. Shit! My heartbeat thunders in my ears, and I pull the envelope out. I rip it open with trembling fingers and read the inked words on the card inside.
YOU OWE ME BIG TIME FOR THIS -Q
I’m not sure why I didn’t see it before. Lucas didn’t give me this room because he knew I was coming to ask for it. Quinton did this. Damn him. Now I’m back to being in his debt, and I’m positive I liked it more when he wanted nothing to do with me.
22
QUINTON
I moved the cameras to her new room the first day she moved in. I haven’t seen her face to face in a week, but I spend most of my time in my room watching her in her room. A lot of the time, she isn’t even doing anything besides reading a book, and yet this is the most entertaining thing I can think of.
There is definitely something wrong with me. My obsession with her is both concerning and annoying. I know it, Ren knows it, my father probably knows it too, but none of that is stopping me.
No matter how insane my little fixation with Aspen is, it does do one thing, it distracts me from the grief and anger that’s constantly brewing right below the surface. Anything is better than that.
Though I enjoy simply watching her, the tape Ren let me listen to still weighs on my mind heavily. Anyone could have recorded that one tape, and part of me believes Aspen. Like she pointed out in the shower, she is a shitty liar, and I don’t think she is lying about this. Plus, if the wire was on her, why is there no tape of the incident with Matteo? My father wouldn’t have kept that from me. Would he? He seemed shocked when I told him about it, but, of course, unlike Aspen, he is an excellent liar.
I guess there is only one way to find out.
Using the trackpad on my laptop, I exit out of the video feed from her room and open Skype instead. I haven’t called my father in so long, I have to scroll down to even find his number. The moment I click his name, an uneasy feeling spreads in my gut. I hate I feel this way about my father, but I can’t help resenting him for the things he’s done, and I honestly don’t think this will change.
