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I never expected her to be sitting outside enjoying a relaxing fucking cup of coffee, the same way I didn’t anticipate the extra company on my court.
Doe-eyed and with flushed cheeks, she sat there and watched me. Enjoying the morning. Like she hadn’t further widened that holesheput in my heart yesterday. Like my entire world hadn’t shifted, tilting on its axis, while she sat and drank with Rory.
My sister’s not off the hook either. Her presence was not one I wanted around, so I left. The space is for both them and me, mostly me, or I’d more than likely blow up. It wouldn’t be the first or last time I go off on someone.
I widen my stance and kick out my feet. What a mess.
How many times have the hellhounds joked that I’d get an STD? A long time is the correct answer. Up until recently, you could’ve pegged me as fortunate. Who’s laughing now?
A waitress brings over a fresh drink even though I haven’t begun to touch the first. I cheers, clanking the two glasses together at my own misery. Hailey informed me I got something somewhat more permanent than a virus.
Setting the mugs down, I refuse to add to my body’s fatigue.
That doesn’t stop me from projectile vomiting about an hour later. The time I had to be all up in my feels finally getting the best of me.
My head was buried in a toilet that smelled of straight ass and what has to be my intestines. As much puke as I disposed of, there’s no way they’re not outside my body.
That would explain the pinkish-orange color.
I asked the bouncer his opinion, but he didn’t find it funny either. Instead, he forced me to do the walk of shame out of the building with an industrial-size trash can between my legs.
Rude. So…so…rude.
I can’t tell what was more humbling, that not being my first time being thrown out of there or that I was right about losing my guts. Mr. Tough and Stuff saw firsthand what I was talking about after I missed the bucket.
I wipe away the leftover contents with the back of my hand, giving him a lopsided grin. Do I feel better? Not in the slightest. Is he now as miserable as I am because I ruined his shoes? Hundred percent.
“Get outa here, kid. Go home.”
Kid?
My throat clogs at the mention and my insides are swirling, gripping, as they constrict all over again. My stomach is as much my nemesis as the word this guy justhadto use.
Mostly this round is dry heaves, and for that, I’m thankful.
“Go find your bed,” the man says, taking pity on me and handing over a fresh water bottle. He must’ve gone inside while my head was buried in a garbage sack.
I down the entire thing. Bed. What a fantastic idea.
ten
Hailey
ItellmyselfIhave no other choice, that I have to do this. That this isn’t about me—correction, this isn’tforme.
A lead weight pulls at my chest, but I only compensate by pushing harder down on the gas pedal.
Time moves fast and before I know it, it’s like fate has played catch-up.
The closer I come, the more vivid my ideals of what arriving would’ve been like. Picturesque trees line either side of the street as more and more buildings come into focus. Stunning marbled stone structures with grand oversized windows and enough cobblestone to make a geologist jealous.
My foot slams down on the brake before I’m fully aware of what I’ve done. I shift my car into park and step out in the same smooth motion.
It’s this building in particular that has me stopping. The centerpiece of the entire campus. Stone trim runs along the superior walls in the shade of milk. Windows are arched and spacious as they wrap around its entirety.
I suck in a breath as my neck cranes. The chef’s kiss of this architectural masterpiece, the dome, stands proud, its rotunda dead center. Celestial.
My mind would never be cruel enough to allow me to forget the sight. As soon as I saw it on the cover of the brochure in the counselor’s office back in high school, I knew this school was for me.
