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As happy as I am that we’ve finished another year, that pang in my chest never settles. It’s been here since I first arrived years ago. A heaviness that refuses to leave.
I love it—college, an exciting journey I never expected to fall in love with—but it hasn’t been the same.
Not without her.
The glow of light bounces off my window but unlike my wonderland, these windows do not dance in a rainbow of color. The glass from these is only a portal to see the world and not one where life grows inside of.
I breathe in and release it with the same deepness.
Some nightmares we survive are not fiction, but a reality we must live through.
I’ve survived plenty.
A pair of cerulean eyes shine with the intensity of silk as he rounds me. Intense but not colorless they beam. “You ready to go?”
I sigh, sinking into him. Iceman.
His upper lip thins out, and it forces his bottom one to jut out that much more. Is he concerned or concentrating? Both?
The touch of his fingers on my neck is featherlike, and my throat dips in a swallowed gasp. His knuckles skim, tracing down my collarbone until they land on my necklace.
Gripping, his hand wraps around my own. Startled, my mouth parts, I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it.
His focus stays there, watching as they key rises and falls with my soft pants.
“Tell me what’s on your mind, Princess?” he asks, pulling his focus back to my face. His mouth droops. “It’s not about the party, is it?”
I force a smile, but he sees right through it. Those lines of concern on his forehead become more evident.
It’s not, I tell him silently. I reassure him because I know that’s what he needs. It’s the end of another year, and it’s hard, the same as it is every time. She should’ve been here with me. With us. That was the plan.
At my encouragement, his mouth lifts back into that loaded, overconfident smirk territory. I already know what he’s about to say because he’s been saying it since we first started college as freshmen.
“You know the offer is still on the table. It’s not too late. The house is big enough.”
I give him the same answer I’ve been giving him for three years. “I like my dorm room.”
He grimaces at the space that’s a cigarette box in comparison to his room back at the house he shares with Eli and Finn.
The emptiness of it now that my boxes are all packed up is not helping to make the space feel any larger. To be fair though, it’s not much different than when it’s loaded with my things during the year. The room is small, but I make it work.
“Come on,” he groans. “You basically live there with us anyway.”
I shoot him a discouraging look right back. I like my room and I like having the added space all to myself. He knows this. I’ve told him the same thing many times before.
Iceman doesn’t always approve of my choices, but he’s learned to respect them. Well, most of the time. No one’s perfect.
When he pouts, and I’m not joking, full on jutting his mouth out, I bark out a laugh. This smile as genuine as my answer.
“No.”
“Come on,” he says, waving our now connected hands between us.
“You already know the conditions,” I say, laughing again because he’s too cute not to when he’s like this. So different from the broody, hostile boy I’d been reintroduced to eons ago.
I’d made those up after he wouldn’t stop nagging, not that they’ve stopped him, but it’s helped…some.
His eyes find the dimples in the drop ceiling, mimicking me when I tell him the same thing I’ve told him thousands of times. “Not until after we graduate or get married.”
