"You need to come home now.”
After Traven came back spitfire mad, I put two and two together. Especially when I went to her apartment, and like an idiot, I knocked on the door, only for Jenna to be on the other side. When I asked her where Harloe was, she snubbed her nose up at me and said she’d gone out on a date.
For all of two seconds, I’d been pissed. Hella pissed. My vision tinged with red, and I felt like my head was about to pop off. Traven wouldn’t tell us what went on, but I knew something had. Knowing that he’d taken Harloe out, even after being warned off, I was going to wring his neck when I went back to the house.
Instead of saying anything to her, I dismissed her outright and made my way out of their apartment complex. The silence on her end is starting to get to me. Even though I know she doesn’t owe me shit because of the way I treated her, I couldn’t help but need more of her attention, more of her presence. Just more of her, period. It was like a disease burrowing under my skin. I just needed her.
Before seeing her again, I didn’t know how much. But the longer we’re forced on the same campus, and in at least one class together, the more the need blooms inside me. So, like the stalker she claimed I was at the beginning of school, I actually am beginning tonight.
Getting Easton to take Jenna out was akin to pulling a diseased tooth. Those two have never been in that type of relationship, and I can understand that he didn’t want to mix things up. But we’re brothers, and I needed a favor, so he relented quickly after he realized it was important.
The guys? Just like always, they have my back through anything. That's what being a Golden Crew means—no matter what, you're there.
I just bet they didn't think they'd be helping me break the law.
Treading softly through the hallway, I'm on edge and ready for anything that could come my way. Getting to the girls’ door, I slipped the key I had made into the locking mechanism.
When people say that money can buy everything, they're not lying. All it took was a couple hundred bucks, and I was able to get a duplicate of Harloe's key. Going into the housing office, I didn't know what to expect. But it seems that my family name reaches even the occupants of that office. All it took was me flashing a smile and doing a little bit of flirting, and I walked out with what I came for.
Slipping inside the dark apartment, I softly close the door behind me. Peering through the moonlit room, I allow my eyes to adjust before making my way toward the bedroom on the left. I'm not proud of my actions, but I know from experience in Cassandra's apartment that one bedroom is on the left and the other is on the right. Carefully making my way across the room, I make sure my steps are light and almost nonexistent to the ear. I'd hate to get caught snooping. Even if it is for a good cause, I would never be able to live that down.
Reaching forward, I grasp the cool metal of the doorknob and turn. I push the door open, and I know instantly this isn’t Harloe's room. Everything about this room screams bold, rebellious, and derives from an eccentric nature that just is not Harloe. My girl ... Did I really just think of Harloe as my girl?
Shaking that thought out of my head, I close what has to be Jenna's door. Twisting around, I take the time to gaze around the room. I can see a little bit of Harloe everywhere. In the small throw pillows on the couch, they look so homey and soft with little tendrils hanging around the edges. A lamp sits on a side table, matching the pillows that are on the sofa. The tendrils aren’t as long, but still just as decorative.
This apartment definitely belongs to females. But I find I don't mind this aesthetically pleasing appearance of its homey nature. A sense of welcome practically exudes from the walls, making me feel like I belong, even though I know I don't.
Pushing those thoughts to the side, I make my way around the couch and hesitantly approach Harloe's bedroom door. The hardwood floor creaks under my weight. My breathing is husky and rough, and I have to take a deep breath to try to calm myself down. I'm not usually a nervous Nancy, and going through Harloe's things somehow feels wrong. But with her silence, I’m almost to the point of desperation where there is no going back. The need to figure out what's going on with her, and why she's back in Golden Oaks, is too much of a temptation to resist.
Quickly making my way into her room, I softly close the door behind me. Chancing it, I turn on the flashlight app on my cell phone. For several minutes, the only thing I do is shine my light over the various surfaces of her room. I take in the muted beige color of her walls, the way her bed is pushed flat against the wall and is still unmade from when she got out of her bed earlier.
A tight feeling spreads in my chest, making it almost uncomfortable to breathe. She has a small weathered bedside table with a mismatched lamp sitting in the middle. Her coffee mug rings the surface, leading me to believe she still likes drinking warm lemon honey tea before she goes to bed. In the past, that was always her thing.
She would say that lemon honey tea would make everything better, no matter what was happening in the world. I was prone to believe her words. She never lied to me before, and I didn't think that she would start. For so many years, I've been angry at her for what she did with my brother. But according to her, she never did anything with him, and that's why I need to know why she left.
Why didn't she fight me and stand her ground, knowing she didn't betray us. Before that night, I never would've even guessed she could do something like that to me.
Yes, what I did with Cassandra was terrible. I'm not even going to deny that because that's trying to justify my actions when at the time, I didn't need justification. Everything I have done has been to try and heal myself.
Now, don't come at me with your pitchforks.
I know I could've gone about the whole Harloe and Owen situation differently. I could have been more mature about it, rather than trying to make her jealous by having Cassandra there and completely obliterating her heart.
But the fact of the matter is, when my senses are heightened and I'm angry or confused or sad or happy, I'm not going to make the correct decision. My decision-making skills should not even be in question when I'm in such an emotional state.
And finding out that the girl I was going to spend the rest of my life with slept with my brother? Needless to say, there was no thought process to the way things went down.
And with the way her room looks right now, it's nice to see that not all things change, unlike what she said to me the first of the school year. People can change, but then again, many of the mannerisms stay the same. She's just as predictable as she was in high school.
As I look over the items in her room, my cell phone buzzes in my hand. Flipping it over, I see a text from Easton telling me that Jenna is about to come home. Motherfucker. Should have known that he wouldn't be able to keep her occupied for longer than a half hour. Usually, she makes him come here, so I can't really complain. I just need to get my shit together and get out.
Just as I'm about to send a text message to Easton, letting him know that I'm through with their apartment, my eyes catch on something glimmering in the moonlight that hangs from the bedpost. My features pinch in confusion, and I can't stop myself from backtracking to see what it is.
Reaching forward, a hiss whizzes from between my lips. She kept it after all this time? Picking up the necklace, I don't necessarily know how to articulate the level of emotions that burn in the back of my throat. I got this necklace for Harloe on her fifteenth birthday. I can remember the day I bought it. How I knew, even though it was old and kind of an antique, that Harloe would love it.