AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pain and a terrible hollowness at the memories spread through me, eating away what was left.God, I miss Summer.Facing that was something I needed to do alone. I could lean on Jaxon later, but I had to process the emotions surrounding my return to an area not too far from where my life had imploded so many times.
Palm fronds stirred overhead from the warm breeze. My feet grew roots as I wrestled with my shifting emotions. I flattened my hand against my stomach. I wasn’t the same mean girl I had been after my mom had killed my sister, Summer. My behavior had defined me back then, though I shouldn’t have let it. But I hadn’t known how to deal with everything, so I’d lashed out.
I hadn’t realized that I was the one everyone feared. Nor had I realized how hard a tumble would be from my precarious position, back then or even a few weeks ago. Not until I was lying on my back with the wind knocked out of me as my life played out on the TV.
One slow blink, and I shook myself out of my pity party, grabbed the oversized bag that held my purse, favorite art supplies, and the dreaded shoebox full of letters, and looped it over my shoulder. Car door slammed and locked, I pointed myself in the direction of the administration building where I was to meet someone who would take me to my new dorm room.
I slipped my keys into my shorts pocket and followed the sidewalk to the front door. An older woman sat behind the desk, chatting on the phone. She smiled and held up a finger, indicating that she would be a minute. I nodded in response then let my gaze bounce around the well-lit room. Light spilled in through oversized windows and bounced off the glossy wood and coffee tables in the ample seating beyond the reception desk. A door to the left and on the opposite wall must lead to advisor offices, but I would deal with that later, as I already had my schedule.
The click from the receiver returning to its base snapped my focus back to the woman in front of me.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m Winter Patten, a new student.”
“Are you transferring?” She turned to face her monitor in the middle of her question and typed my name into the computer.
“Yes. I had a semester at a community college in Los Angeles.”
Jaxon had been ready to leave home and go away to college. I had struggled with it, and Brooke and James had suggested a semester living at home and going nearby.
“Ah, yes. I’ve got your welcome packet right here.” After another couple of clicks on her computer, she thumbed through a few manila envelopes until she came across one with my name scrawled across the top in black ink. “Let me just call Vanessa. She’ll show you to your dorm.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m familiar with the campus.”
“Are you sure, dear?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.” I plastered a smile on that I didn’t quite feel.
It must have worked, because she pulled out a map printed on a piece of white copy paper and, with a highlighter, drew the path I would need to take to get to my new living quarters.
“Your new roommate’s name is in there as well. If you need anything”—she circled a number on the bottom right of the paper—“just call me. Welcome to Thane University, Winter.”
“Thank you.” I forced a smile then took the information from her outstretched hand.
A quick stop at my car and I pulled the huge suitcases out. Brooke had shoved my pillow, sheets, and blankets into a vacuum storage bag to maximize space so I didn’t have to bring in a ton of stuff. As it was, I only had the one bag over my shoulder and two pieces of luggage on wheels.
It was a bit cumbersome, but I managed to maneuver both onto the sidewalk and to the place I would call home for the next semester. When I got to room 306 and opened the door, I stopped.
My roommate sat on her bed and look back at me.
My jaw dropped. “Piper?” Despite how much she’d changed, I still recognized her.
A wide smile stretched across Piper’s face. She’d been beautiful when I knew her—we were best friends. Well, she was Summer’s friend first, which meant she was mine too. Everything had changed, except for how stunning she looked when she smiled. I wondered if Piper was still the same.
She and I had been cut from a similar cloth back in the day. We’d both toed the line of “cut a bitch” if anyone crossed us. Her for reasons I wasn’t all too familiar with. I remember her crying once about her parents fighting, so I guessed her aggression had come from her family.
It figured. My family had molded me into something I didn’t like. As had my grandparents, who’d reluctantly taken me in for a few months, all the while telling me how unwanted I was. Nothing but a financial burden.
On a downward spiral, I had been dumped at child services when my grandparents had had enough of me. The sense of abandonment was overwhelming. Then the Childress family intervened and took me in. They taught me what a family should be like. They showed me love. Something that I’d only had with my sister, and we had been so young, those memories hadn’t been able to sustain me or stop the darkness from spilling from me and onto others.
“Winter Patten.” Piper crossed her arms and leaned a hip against her lofted bed. “I couldn’t believe it when housing emailed me my new roommate’s name.” Her eyes flashed with emotion before she blinked the tears away.
I saw the pity before she managed to hide it. I hated it, but it was also the reason I was enrolled as a student at Thane. The essay, originally written for the therapist Brooke and James had set me up with and I’d seen on the regular, would have evoked an ocean’s worth of god-awful emotion.
“Surprise.” I forced a smile that I knew wouldn’t reach my eyes. I, too, would have known about her had I cared enough to read the details in my packet past the room number. I waved to the bare mattress opposite hers. “I’m gonna unpack, but do you want to grab coffee? I’ve got a killer headache from lack of caffeine.”
“Sure.” Piper pointed to the suitcases, her long, shiny hair spilling over her shoulder. “I’ll help. Give me the one with your clothes, and I can put them away.”
