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The confession made me sick to my stomach. Here I was trying to convince D… Mr. D… that I wasn’t crazy, but hearing the words made me sound pretty damn insane.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I knew the type of man you were. And that if you felt my life was in danger, you wouldn’t leave me. You would either stay with me—which is what I had originally thought would happen—or at the very least care about me. I would get on your radar more than just as a student.”
“And the police? Why call them all the times before if there was never a stalker?”
I shrugged. “Attention.” I swallowed back the shakiness in my throat. “When my mind began to spin, and I felt like the walls were closing in, I would call them to distract me.”
“And being late to school? Was your story about closing the doors obsessively made up as well?”
“That’s true,” I said. “I do it when I feel like I’m losing control. It’s my way to try to keep my inner demons away.” I licked my dry lips, wishing for a glass of water. “But it’s what made me start falling for you. Every time I would go into the office to get a note, I would see you. I would watch you. And I knew… we were soulmates.”
“Don’t fucking say that,” he bit, slamming his palm on the desk. He quickly looked over my shoulder to see if he was too loud and if any of the faculty had heard him. “Do you realize what you did? I risked my career for you. I went against everything that was right to be wrong for you. For you! Do you understand that? Do you get that you fucked with my life?”
“That wasn’t my intent. I never wanted to get you into any trouble.”
“No? What was your plan then? To make me fall in love with you so we could live happily ever after?”
“Would that have been so bad?” I asked softly.
“You are fucking insane,” he said, pure venom shooting from his eyes. “I want you out of my office immediately. I also want you to stay the fuck away from me. Do. We. Understand?”
“Please don’t say this. I understand you’re angry. I get that—”
“Angry can’t even begin to describe what I feel.”
“We had something… You can’t deny that.”
“What we had was some twisted schoolgirl obsession. You need help, Corrine, but I’m done offering it.”
“Please—”
“Go back to L.A. and finish out the school year. I could push for you to be committed again, and maybe I should. But I’m giving you the opportunity to leave. Leave.” He pointed at the door. “I mean it. Don’t you dare stalk me, come near me, or even think of me again.”
I stood up, tears no longer being held back, and walked to the door. Did I really expect for him to not react the way he was?
I looked over my shoulder and said, “I fell in love with you. And it wasn’t the madness that did. It was my genuine and clear-thinking heart.”
Without saying another word, I exited his office… and closed the door.
16
Corrine
Was it possible to feel betrayed when you were the one guilty of betraying?
Why would my mother tell the principal of my new school about my past? It was my dirty, dirty secret, and she knew it. Hell, she had hired some fancy PR company to try to bury the info so deep that the media would never discover the fact that I went away to “mental rehab” as my mother put it. She wanted it swept under the rug more than I did.
So why in the world would she out me to someone she didn’t know?
I hadn’t anticipated that at all, or I would have never given D all the tools I had in order to try to reach her.
I wanted to choke on my own spit.
I wanted to collapse against the lockers and never walk again.
I wanted to—
“Corrine!” I heard called from behind me. I quickly swiped the tears away from my eyes and saw Kevin running down the hall toward me. “Wait up.”
He was the last person I wanted to speak to right now, and frankly, I feared I would vomit or have a nervous breakdown right in front of the Spanish class door. I needed air. I needed to get out of this school as fast as possible.
“Corrine,” Kevin said a little winded. “I’ve been looking for you all day. I’ve also been texting and calling all weekend. What the fuck is going on?”
I glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to us—which they weren’t of course because beautiful people focused on other beautiful people only—but I wanted to be sure I wasn’t part of a scene, and Kevin had a loud voice.
