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But I’m changing. Summer’s changing me. The walls are coming down, and I want her to be around to see what’s behind them.
Even if it’s dark and grotesque.
Flipping to a new page, I start to write.
Chapter Forty-Eight
SUMMER
Don’t read it.
The command has been playing over and over in my head for hours.
You don’t need to read it. You’ll only hurt worse after you do.
But even as I help patrons and set up tables for a new display, and call a vendor about issues with a database, my mind is on one thing that won’t leave me alone.
The Seven Siblings.
Today is the day. A new chapter should be going up.
Any. Minute. Now.
The next step in the story. That beautiful fantasy epic that just happens to be written by the man I refuse to hand my heart to.
Unless he already took my heart when I wasn’t looking.
Wouldn’t be out of character.
Shame immediately reddens my cheeks, and I shove my head in the staff room’s refrigerator as if I’m fascinated by Aliyah’s bagged lunch, rather than trying to chill away my embarrassment.
That was a low blow, even to think to myself.
Cole may have done a crime, but he served his time. It’s not truly the issues with the law that concern me, although they don’t help with his case. I’m pissed about the lying. The manipulation. The withholding of information because he decided how I would react to it.
He doesn’t know. And now I don’t know either.
It’s completely possible that if he sat me down, showed some true vulnerability when describing his sordid past, that I would’ve gotten over it. But the fact that he kept it from me only leads me to believe he might not think what he did was so wrong.
That he might do it again.
But then my memories of Cole crowd in, trying to push away the doubtful thoughts. He’s the guy who cradles cats and offers his free bed to a homeless teen and writes such beautiful goddamn words. The conflicting ideas of the man threaten to drive me mad. As does the teasing chapter of his work.
The torment won’t end. The chapter will never disappear. Just the opposite, there will be a new one next week. And the week after that, and the week after that.
Maybe reading more of the story will somehow desensitize me to him.
There’s no real logic in that reasoning, but since I’m weak, I’m already folding.
“Just going to take my lunch break.” I wave at Aliyah as I try to casually stroll past the circulation desk. As if I’m not headed back to my office to do something I shouldn’t.
She nods at me over a patron’s shoulder, not noticing, or at least not reacting to my anxious sweating. Feeling like I’m about to bring up porn on my work computer, I lock my office door with feverish fingers and sit at my desk, hunching over the keyboard.
When I navigate to the website, my heart thuds heavy in my chest when I see the thick words accompanying an unclicked link.
There’s a new chapter.
As I stare at the bold words, a sudden rush of jealousy overwhelms me. For Cole to have uploaded this, he would have needed a computer. Since he’s not using one at our library, then that means he went somewhere else.
