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Vivian.
I lowered the phone from my ear as the thoughts came crashing together.
If I left, that meant Vivian would win. This was what she wanted—me, gone. Out of her period blood-red hair. Somehow, she was smart enough to mess up my life by doing so from the inside-out. If I agreed to transfer, she’d succeed.
I couldn’t let her.
I had to hold my ground.
“Mom, I’m sorry, but,” I said slowly, lifting the phone back up to my lips, “you don’t need to worry about me. If something happens between me and Elliot, I can deal with it. On my own. I promise.”
I lowered the phone and hung up. Leaning back against the wall, my mind went blank. There was only one feeling—a cold, slick sensation, like shadows, clouding my thoughts, like the gathering of a storm. Anger. Hatred. Confusion.
Clamping my jaw tight, I lifted my phone back up and searched for Elliot’sInstagram.
I didn’t care so much that my mom didn’t tell me about her affair with my dad, or even the fact that she’d been married to Frank Lancaster. But I couldn’t ignore that the reason Elliot had been bullying me all these years just because…
No. I couldn’t make assumptions.
I’d just have to find out, once and for all.
Hey,I texted.We need to talk.
I waited for a minute. Two. Paced up and down the hall a couple of times before opening his DMs again.Elliot,I wrote.Where are you right now?
Another few minutes. No response.
I couldn’t blame him. Itwaspast three in the morning.
Letting out a long, heavy sigh, I looked back to my room. The music had started up again. Didn’t look like Vivian and her cronies were going to leave any time soon. Even if they were, I wasn’t in the mood for sleep. Icouldn’tgo to sleep—not after finding out that the root of all my years of torture was not because of some fault of my own.
It was my mom’s. She cheated on Elliot’s dad. And now, he probably hated her guts—and mine. No shit.
But these were just theories. I had to get more information from the source of all this angst. I’d go to Powell. I’d find Elliot. And settle this.
Vivian might’ve found a way to get under my skin and practically boot me out of college with nothing more than a stupid video clip and a text to my mom, but even she would have to follow through.
Elliot and I still had scheming to do.
6
Maybe jogging the thirty blocks to Powell alone at four in the morning in full-on rain wasn’t thesmartestthing to do, but hey—I’d just lost my virginity, played a three-hour long game ofSorry!andfound out that my mom used to fuck my high school bully’s dad. All in one night.
I had to cut myself some slack.
By the time I arrived at Powell’s front gates, I’d gotten a couple massive pit-stains and could drink ten gallons of anything, but I’d done it. I’d made it. And I wasn’t going to quit now.
“Elliot, here I come,” I breathed, dragging myself through the front doors of his dorm building like a wet cat, flashing the back of my Freeman ID. The kid behind the desk didn’t even notice the move, or didn’t care. “You fucking douchebag.”
Breezing in past the front desk to the elevator, and up to Elliot’s floor was all a blur, and as I stepped out into the hall, the sound of my own heart beating against my chest blotted out everything else.
My head was blank. My heart was not.
It was raging.
I strode up to Elliot’s door, panting, and rapped my knuckles on the wood. Stepping back, I shoved my hands in my pockets, and waited a few moments before yanking out my phone. Still no response. Radio silence.
Forcing in a deep breath, I knocked again. Hard.
