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“Yeah?” I said without glancing up. I slipped the highlighter free to mark the line I wanted to quote.
I was expecting one of my roommate’s voices to answer, so when a feminine one asked, “Too busy for company?” my head zipped up so fast I was surprised I didn’t give myself whiplash.
“Hey,” I said in shock as I blinked Oaklynn into focus, where she remained poised at the entrance. “What’re you doing here?”
She motioned to the mustard yellow suit jacket and matching pencil skirt she was wearing over a cream-colored blouse before she lifted a flash drive in her hand. “I just finished my mock news report with Alec. He said he had a backdrop and all his equipment here, plus I knew where he lived so…it seemed like the best place to meet.”
“Ah.” When she kicked the black high heels she’d been wearing off into my room and then followed them inside, stepping toward my bed, my gaze dropped to her legs and then back up again. “How’d it go?”
“Great,” she answered with a smile as she found a cleared spot on the mattress near my feet to sit. Lifting the flash drive, she added, “I talked about the missing girl flyers posted around campus and why the administration hadn’t done anything to address them.”
My eyebrows rose. “You actually asked them?”
“Of course. They said campus police investigated it and discovered that Hailey Junges—the girl—actually emailed all her professors saying she wouldn’t be back, so I guess she just dropped out and left without telling her roommate.”
“Really?” I exhaled in relief. “Thank God.” I’d been worried about her, to be honest. I’d started to think she’d met the same fate as Thalia.
“Yep,” Oaklynn went on cheerfully. “Then Alec edited the segment and everything right in front of me, and man…he wasn’t lying about his skills. That boy is talented.”
I nodded, murmuring, “Yeah, he is,” as she curled her feet around to tuck them under her and placed her hands in her lap.
“So…” she said when I didn’t contribute anything else to the conversation. “This looks fun.” She glanced at the thick textbooks surrounding me.
“Thrilling,” I agreed dryly before rubbing my forehead. “I’m writing a paper for one of my psych classes.”
Her gaze lifted back to my face. “What’s the paper about?”
I scratched my jaw when she scooted close to rest a hand on my bent knee. “We were supposed to address a psychological theory and then expound on it until we basically came up with a new one. And I chose the broken window theory.”
Oaklynn picked up a book and moved it out of her way so she could inch closer. “I haven’t heard of that before. What’s the broken window theory?”
“Well…” I blew out a breath. “It’s the idea that buildings with broken windows encourage more crime and civil disorder in that neighborhood, like loitering, vandalism, and breaking and entering. And I was building on that by exploring the idea that this might also be the case with humans, not just…buildings.”
“So, like… if someone has a black eye, it’s easier for the next person to come along and disrespect them?” Oaklynn guessed with a slight squint.
“Exactly,” I said, pointing my highlighter at her. “I was just reading about this performance artist named Abramovic from the 1970s, who did an experiment where she agreed to stand still, doing nothing amid a crowd of people for six hours straight. And in that time, they could do whatever they wanted. She had a table of over seventy objects set up, calling them objects of pleasure and destruction.”
Oaklynn grimaced, already guessing where the story was headed. “Do I even want to know what they did to her?”
I shrugged. “At first, it was fine. They would just reposition her arms, wrap her in string, and pour water on her. But then someone touched her—you know—inappropriately. And from that point on, it was likegame on. Someone cut her neck and drank her blood. They tore some clothes off her, put her on a table, and stabbed a knife into the wood between her legs. Someone wroteENDon her forehead. And a loaded gun was put in her hand and held against the cut on her neck.”
“Lord.” Lifting her hands to stop me, Oaklynn shook her head. “I don’t think I want to hear anymore. Did they kill her?”
“No,” I reassured. “But someone had to intervene and settle them down. It’s still freaky to me, though, how putting normal, everyday people in a certain kind of environment can totally change them into…”
“Monsters,” Oaklynn murmured, finishing the sentiment for me with a shudder. Rubbing her arms as if chilled, she shook her head. “I cannot comprehend why you want to examine the darker side of the human psyche for a freaking living. I’d have nightmares for life.”
“Honestly,” I murmured with a shrug. “I think I did it because I wanted the nightmares to stop.”
Lips parting in surprise, Oaklynn shoved more books out of her way and scooted right up to my side. “And did they?” she asked as she reached out to run her knuckles gently along my beard.
“Mostly,” I told her, closing my eyes briefly and turning my face in toward her hand. “Learning to understand what you fear most and giving it a name is the biggest factor in diminishing its power.” Then, I winced. “I mean, I still get them every now and again. But I know how to handle ’em better now.”
“It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?” she guessed with a cringe. “What you saw.”
I nodded. “It was the worst thing I’d ever lived through.”
And yet I was growing worried that having her hate me might rank right up there with it.
