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“You’re other grades are in there too,” she defends. “It’s really quite adorable that you’ve always wanted to be a doctor and now are pre-med. Way to follow your dreams.”
He gives me a look like is she for real, but I just nod and he shakes his head and continues to look through it. I grab a binder and realize it’s the one on Carson. I’m fairly sure I have it memorized by now, but I turn to the financials section and begin going through it again.
I can feel Jake’s eyes on me, I look up and arch a brow is question. He smiles softly, huffing half a laugh. “Just thinking about how all your boys have been underestimating you.”
The smirk graces my face unbidden. I can’t help it as smug pride fills me. “There comes a time when a princess has to become a queen.” I shrug and Shelby and I trade looks.
“Those idiot boys forgot what the most powerful piece on the board is,” she chimes in, making me laugh.
Jake laughs with us, shaking his head again as he starts to flip through the pages again. “I promise not to forget that lesson,” he teases before freezing. He flips back through several pages. “Holy shit, you’re the secret investor.” Jake turns to me with his mouth hanging open. It slowly morphs into a grin as his eyes brighten. “That’s your plan.”
I’m pretty impressed how quick he seems to have worked out my plan considering how proud I am of it. “Guilty.” I smirk. “Like we said, most powerful piece on the board.”
ChapterForty
There wasno chance I was going to be able to watch Brielle go to her date and sit back quietly in the shadows like I’ve done so many times before. Her journal entries have me rattled. They sound nothing like the girl I fell for, or even the girl I found on this campus. There’s a weak, needy, tone through all of the entries we read that I can’t match up with Brielle. At least not the Brielle I know.
Even before today, there were many times where I watched the two of them and thought they looked more like a marionette and its master. Carson pulling strings that I couldn’t even see. Turning Bri into his perfect living doll. I couldn’t bear to witness it all over again as her very own words create the most haunting melodies in my head.
Zaide was right. I pat my pocket and feel the journal there. It was all written right there for me, the truth I so desperately sought but now refuse to believe. She simply chose Carson because he could make her happy even at the expense of losing us.
I’m not ready to let go.
I straighten from where I’m leaning against the wall as I recognize Carson’s car speed down the street. He stops just in front of the dorms and the car idles there for more than a minute before the door finally opens and Brielle hops out. She turns away and immediately starts walking, not looking back until someone calls her name.
No matter what this stupid journal said, I can’t believe I’m looking at a girl so in love with her boyfriend, she’d abandon her friends, the future she planned, even her own family. There’s nothing love sick about the girl that looks relieved when she notes her boyfriend’s car is gone.
Or am I just forcing myself to see what I want to see?
Another guy walks up to her and they stop to chat for a moment before he leads her to the dorm building and opens the door for her. I tap my fingers against my thigh as I try to place where I know him from. I’ve never been as social as the others but I know I’ve seen him around. Isn’t he one of the legacies that lives with Carson?
Ackhurst maybe? I know that asshole has practically made his home up Carson’s. Does he have his friends keeping an eye on her now that he’s gone? Eli assured me that Caron had a flight he would be rushing to make, but that doesn’t mean he left Brielle without someone to keep an eye on her. I want to follow them, to not let my eyes betray me and find some thread that I was right, but the weight of her journal keeps me in place.
I tap my thigh and lean against the building as I debate what I can do. Chances are that she won’t be coming back out any time soon. I don’t know what her plans for the rest of a Sunday could be. If I had to guess though, I’d bet she plans on staying in. What am I even hoping to accomplish if she does come back out?
“How often do you stalk your ex?”
My eyes fly open to find her roommate looking up at me, a smirk playing across her lips.
“She’s not an ex,” I defend, only realizing after that wasn’t the part of her sentence I should have rebuked.
Her grin grows wider. “Sorry. How often do you stalk your almost lover then?”
I groan. “That’s worse.” Something about the little spitfire draws me to her. She’s a good match for Bri. Not as loud as Vanessa but not as soft as Brielle either. She seems just as stubborn and headstrong as both of the other women though. The three of them could really be an unstoppable force if they wanted to. The idea makes the corners of my lips twitch. “I’m just worried about her,” I admit.
Her gaze softens and I know I made the right choice just being honest. Bri and Shelby have gotten even closer than I had assumed at first. I started to realize it the night she came over to call out Zaide. She was fiercely protective over my girl. For that alone, I trust her.
She sighs, running her hand through her long strawberry blonde hair. She looks almost frazzled as she looks around us. “I know you guys are,” she replies. “But you have to trust Brielle.”
Fuck. This again. Trust her for what? Sure as hell not with our hearts. Every time we’ve tried, she’s driven a dagger straight through them and spit on the remains on her way out.
“She’s making that impossible,” I argue back. “She won’t tell us anything except that she wants to leave us in her past, but then turns around and kisses us behind closed doors, all while swearing up and down she chose Carson for very valid reasons even if she won’t tell us what they are, but never looks at him with an ounce of affection in her gaze.” My words come out faster, tripping and stumbling over each other as I get worked up in my frustration. “That isn’t to mention the bruises and random sling she was wearing before Thanksgiving.”
Shelby scrunches up her nose and won’t meet my eyes as she puts her fingers to her temple. “She’s really kissed you guys?” There’s a smirk on her face, but it doesn’t hold the same mischievousness that her one from just moments ago did.
A blush rises up my neck to my cheeks. I huff in frustration. “That’s what you took away from all that?”
She laughs lightly. “Obviously. Brielle has been holding out the goods on me.”
