Then the unlocking of the wing sounded, reminding me I haven’t gotten a lick of sleep.
Usually, I would have jumped out of bed at the sound. I would have—should have—collected my belongings and head to the community bathroom before everyone else. But it was Saturday.
Saturday’s used to be spent in the library with Ollie. Then they used to be spent with Zeke in the group therapy room on the piano. But now I didn’t want to leave my bed as I lie awake, naked, and drained from my short trip to Ollie’s hell.
My eyelids felt like two elephants were sitting on them, and I’d only closed them for, what felt like, a second when a pounding at my door had them snap back open to the clock above.
Nine.
Two hours came and gone in the blink of an eye.
I’d fallen asleep.
I jumped out of bed, threw on my hoodie and sweatpants, and peeked my head through the door. Chaos broke out in the hall. Shouting coursed around me. People scattered as papers littered the floor and painted the walls. White everywhere.
Ethan held a red-faced Bria back from Tyler.
Jerry had a guy in zip-ties faced against the wall.
Liam cowered in the corner as two members of his crew surrounded him.
Jake stomped toward me, eyes glossy, face wet, and chin shaking uncontrollably. “You promised!” he screamed, clutching a paper in his hand. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”
I snatched the paper out of Jake’s hand, and my eyes eagerly scanned over its contents as my heartrate spiked. My handwriting. The papers were covered in my handwriting. Tears blurred my line of vision, dropping from my eyes and landing on the ink, smearing the words together. It only took the first sentence to know exactly what everyone else knew.
The pages from my diary corrupted the hallway, filled their minds, and fueled their aggression toward each other. Everyone’s secrets had been spilled.
“No … ” I breathed, turning my head at the scene around me. People screamed at each other, tears bled out, venom spewed, spit flew as if it all happened in slow motion. Turning, I headed toward my desk. I ransacked my room for the journal I’d spent two months writing in since Dr. Conway gave it to me.
For two months, the journal had been my best friend, kindly accepting every thought I had of everyone, allowing me to share everyone’s deepest secrets so I didn’t have to carry the burden on my own. My brain went haywire as I remembered every secret that passed from my fingers, through the pen, onto the paper. The same papers that someone plastered on display for everyone to see. “This can’t be happening … ”
Gone. My journal was gone.
Empty-handed, I stood in the middle of my room. Tyler appeared beside me, hurt evident in her eyes. “You selfish cow,” her lips mouthed, but I couldn’t hear her, her voice drowned out by the screaming in the hallway and the clouding of my brain. Pushing past her, I needed to get away. I ran past her, shoving between people to find a way out.
To my left, Ollie stood posted-up in his doorway, shoulder resting against the frame. Empty green eyes locked on mine as his expression remained bleak and hollow. His lips parted, and for a second my stupid mind believed he’d pull me into his arms, but instead, his eyes turned away from me.
Curse words swarmed in the air, all directed at me, and I continued forward until their comments faded behind.
In a daze, my hand pushed open the library door, and my feet walked through the same maze I’ve traveled more than a dozen times before until my body curled into a ball in the only spot I could be alone and no one could find me. The same place Ollie created for me.
And it was there I closed my eyes and begged for sleep to take me away from this nightmare.
Chapter Twelve
“Once upon a time, there was a girl with a black heart and a lost soul. She was unpredictable, impulsive, never allowed anyone close enough.”
“Don’t tell me you fell for her.”
“I am … falling, that is. No one tells you about the fall, how once it starts it never stops. But that’s a story for another day, my friend.”
“Go on.”
“They said she wasn’t capable of feeling, but the way she looked at me said otherwise. They said she was better off alone, but her kiss pleaded for me not to leave. They said I was wasting my time, but my heart begged to differ. They said she was the devil … ”
“And what did you say?”
“Even the devil was once an angel.”
A chuckle comes from his throat. “How does the story end?”
“That’s the beauty of it, mate. It doesn’t. Love has no beginning and no ending, much like the fall no one warned me about. Love is unpredictable, impulsive, and doesn’t allow anyone or anything close enough to threaten it, much like the girl I fall every day for. Her black heart was a shield and her lost soul had been searching—protecting herself from predators while wandering the earth for me. Perhaps God gave up on his angel too soon … ”
“You’re questioning God now?”
“All I’m saying is, I would’ve given her an eternity plus a day past crestfallen.”
—Oliver Masters
Ollie.
“Come sit with us,” Bria suggested, batting her lashes over me.
My eyes landed on Mia tucked away in the corner.
How did it come to this, Mia?
She sat at the opposite end of the mess hall—opposite of me—alone and abandoned. Nowadays, she didn’t care about the way her hair looked or the clothes she wore. She drowned herself in that atrocious oversized hoodie that wasn’t here last year—and not mine. It was new, along with this situation we found ourselves in.
“It won’t be awkward anymore now that we bumped Mia from our table,” Bria added.
I blinked my gaze to Bria. Head held high and lips pursed, she looked good, comfortable under her new, unsaid ranking at Dolor.
“Mia’s table,” I reminded her. “It was Mia’s and Zeke’s before any of you bothered to show Zeke an ounce of compassion.” I tilted my head. “Or did you forget?”
A smirk tugged on the corner of her lip before a frown ate it up. Sighing, I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “Looks to me you forgave Blondie fairly quickly.” My head nudged in the direction of the new girl sitting beside Zeke. “Wonder why that is. Rumor says Jude’s john bounced between the two of you and you had no idea.”
“Jealous?” Bria asked, leaning over the table. Her shirt dipped, revealing her tiny bare breasts, B-cups, nipples the size of quarters but the color of pennies. I’d never been a boob-guy, but my knob tightened against my black jeans, and my mouth watered. I ran my palms across the surface of my jeans. Nope, never been a boob-guy, only a Mia-guy, but right now all I could think about was how I could fit one whole breast into my mouth. “What’s the matter, Ollie?”
“Walk away,” I commanded, eyes still fixed on the buffet laid out before of me. It was anyone’s guess what Bria’s intentions were, but here they were, mine for the taking.
Bria laughed and straightened her posture. “My invitation still stands.”
Double. Fucking. Meaning.
Both a giant mistake.
“Did you get lost?” Dr. Butala asked as soon as I entered his office. A white noise machine sat on a small table beside the door, humming low, and I ignored him as I took a seat in the black chair across from his L-shaped desk. Extending my arm off to the side, I waited for him to take my vitals.