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The screen in the center of the room comes to life and the psychology professor starts his lecture, but my mind is far away as I fiddle with the pen in my hand, drumming it on the desk in time with my feet tapping on the floor. Nervous energy swirls inside me, almost like its own entity, fueling my body. For twenty-four hours, I’ve felt the same swill of anxiety, unable to push it away.
A small cough from the row in front of me has me snapping my head up. A girl stares at me, her short blonde hair pushed behind one ear and her perfectly shaped eyebrow raised at me as she purses her lips. Though it’s the fire in her eyes that has my curiosity piquing.
Surely, while me tapping my pen is slightly irritating, it’s not enough for the anger projecting from her pale irises. It’s clear she’s decided she doesn’t like me, and while I don’t know why, I force a smile at her, pushing down my growing annoyance. She doesn’t even know me.
People fucking suck.
But whatever. I’m not here to make friends, so it’s fine by me. I shove the tip of my pen into my mouth, chewing on the plastic lid as I turn away. She mutters under her breath, though I hear little of what she says beyond the word “Dust.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, glaring at her. “Did you just say something?”
Her lips curl into a vicious smirk, and her eyes narrow but humor flashes in the depths before she laughs. “Nothing, Dust. Enjoy your day.”
“Dust?” I echo, but she doesn’t respond and turns back to the lecture, blocking me out.
By the time I’m packing my bag, I’m even more confused, thanks to my brain spending the entirety of the lesson working her words over in my mind, coming to zero conclusions as to what she meant.
Moving from my seat, I reach the end of the row, and the girl is there already, a sickly-sweet grin on her face as I try to get past her.
I’m almost clear, my bag slung over my shoulder, when a foot slides out, tripping me.
I fall into the chairs, my arm slamming against the metal with a heavy thump as I steel myself from the landing. My bag falls to the floor, and my belongings slide across the tile.
Raucous laughter rings around me, bringing a flush to my neck that crawls over my face. Tears spring to my eyes, not from pain but embarrassment.
I made a promise to myself two years ago that never again would I be put on the floor by another’s hands, and here I am, a tangle of limbs as I try to regain composure while gathering my things.
When I’m finally standing again, my hair shielding me from those around me, I drop my gaze to the floor, pushing past them as I make my way down the steps and out into the hall.
Heads snap my way, more laughter following as they watch their phones. Mine buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, bitterness flooding me as I open the text and press play on the video staring back at me.
While my shame plays out on the screen, the sight of me falling over and over again on a loop, another text flashes across my phone from an unknown number.
Unknown: Things like this only happen to people who don’t belong. Make your life easier, Beatrice. Go home.
Locking my phone, I roll my shoulders, forcing my head up and my back to straighten.
My life isn’t a game for Maverick Brady to play with just because he can. I might deserve his anger and hatred, but for the first time in a long time, I’m breathing easier, and I can’t give that up.
I’ll take everything he gives me if I must, but I won’t leave. Not this time.
He doesn’t know I’ve spent too many years living in my own company. No friends and no one to turn to outside of the people who lived in my home.
Being an outcast, or the person people wanted to use as a punching bag? That was my normal for so long. This? The girl in the lecture hall? The video playing out? It’s nothing compared to what I’ve been through.
I walked away from Maverick once before, too afraid to talk to him and make him understand, and in doing that, I resigned myself to a life of loneliness. But I’ve worked too hard and come too far to turn back and return home where the only thing to do is drown in a sea of misery and shame.
Maverick can push all he wants, but I’ll hold on. I’m not going back to the shell of a girl I was. I want to live again and breathe. So Maverick will just have to learn to deal with me being around. It’s a big campus, and he’s a big boy. He can manage.
“I wonder how easy it would be to take this tray upside his head,” Maisie ponders aloud, her gaze lingering on Maverick as he saunters across the cafeteria, paying no attention to his minions who practically bow in his presence.
His hair is kept out of his face with his standard baseball cap, and he wears a black Henley that might as well have been spray painted on his skin.
I got a hint of his adult body yesterday, noting the way his shoulders have broadened, but, my God, I could have never imagined he was rocking those muscles under his sweater. It’s like he’s been sculpted from stone.
And where once his golden skin was bare, it’s now adorned with tattoos working over his arms, and even a hint of some on his chest popping over the neckline of his shirt.
If I thought Maverick was the most attractive person in the world before, it’s nothing compared to him now. I don’t know if God exists, but if she does, then she has favorites, and Maverick Brady is at the top of that list. Even the way he commands the room, with ease and without thought, is magnetic and too compelling.
