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When a trio of chatty guys entered the lecture hall, she’d already tugged a laptop from her bag and set it on top of the desk. After it booted, the screen lit with its wallpaper. Trace had picked out the M. C. Escher design as the background as soon as he’d bought the laptop, saving all the money he’d made mowing lawns between his junior and senior years of high school.
His computer had only been six months old when he’d died.
A year ago, Paige had decided she wouldn’t let his hard-earned mowing money go to waste. She wouldn’t let his dream of Granton die with him. She’d taken over his computer, and now here she sat, ready and willing to take over the rest of his life. In another four years, she planned to graduate with a Bachelors of Business Administration and find a job he would be proud of in the marketing world.
Logging into the processor, she pre-saved a word document and minimized the screen, prepared for an hour of copious note taking. Nothing was going to distract her from her studies. She had a goal to meet, her brother’s dream to realize, and his future to begin.
“Good morning!” A loud voice ripped her attention from the two Escher hands drawing each other on her computer. “This is World Regional Geography. If you’re in the wrong room, there’s the door. If you have no respect for professorial authority, feel free to follow the other lost souls out the exit because I will not accept impudence.”
Paige gulped and glanced surreptitiously behind her, surprised to see hundreds of other students had arrived while she’d been dazing off. They filled nearly every seat.
When no one stood from the sea of blurred bodies to leave, she slowly swiveled back around to face the professor.
Dr. Presni—as her class schedule labeled him—was a short, stout man with an irritable disposition, thick eyebrows, and a bad comb-over. Without introducing himself, he announced he would take roll call today, but after that, attendance was entirely up to the student.
“Marissa Abbott,” he began, starting down his list.
“Here,” the return call echoed from the back of the room.
The scratch of a check mark followed as Presni noted her presence. And so it began all the way through the alphabet. With her Z surname, Paige figured she had a while to wait before he called on her. She relaxed, tuning out, and studied the front of the room. A white board and stark, blank walls stared back. Yeesh, maybe she shouldn’t have sat in the front row. She felt self-conscious. Singled out. She eyed the exit just to her left. It looked so welcoming.
“Rupert Waltrip…Alison Wutke…”
Paige refocused on the teacher’s droning voice—really dry, droning voice. It was going to be hard to concentrate on his lectures with a voice like his, all arid and—
“Logan Xander.”
Logan Xander?
Paige stopped breathing. Icicles crystalized on her brain, freezing her motionless.
That name.
Oh, God. That name.
Why would the professor say that name? Of all the names in the world, why—
“Here.” A voice answered, claiming ownership of that horrendous name. He sat too close behind her and a tad to her right.
She couldn’t help herself. Paige whipped around to look. She had to know.
There he sat.
Three rows back. Two seats over.
Logan Xander.
It had been three years since she’d last seen him. He fixed his dirty-blond hair shorter these days, shaved to a buzz cut. And his face had aged, the planes and angles sharper and more defined. Matured. But there was no way she’d ever forget what he looked like.
He must’ve caught her abrupt reaction to his name, because he glanced her way. Their gazes caught and held, and all the air in the room stalled, leaving her suffocated.
Dying.
A great, crushing tremble clutched her, wracking a painful shudder up her spine. Immediate tears throbbed behind her eyes. She blinked repeatedly, but her retinas remained scorching dry, giving her no relief from the horror she was beholding.
A bewildered frown wove through the center of Logan Xander’s brow as he stared back, obviously not recognizing her.
She clenched her teeth and fisted her hands. She wanted to strike out, physically, verbally, any way possible, to make him remember the way she remembered. How dare he forget her when she would know his face—his name—for the rest of her life!
