“You know Mia’s schedule now?” I raised a brow. “What do you know her schedule for?” Maddie looked away again, a sign she was thinking of a lie, and I was already over this. “This is your last warning. Stay away.”
I passed her for the second time with long strides straight for the door, slamming it behind me. “All good, mate.” I held up my hands, and Jinx shook his head.
I must have fallen asleep in my dorm, because the next thing I knew, there was a knock on my door, waking me and bringing me to my feet. “I told you to stay away,” I groaned while opening the door.
Then I was face to face with my love—Mia.
Her eyes went wide, and she took a step back.
“Dammit, Mia. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t show up for dinner, I was worried,”—she raised a brow— “Maybe I should come back another time?”
“No, no, no,” my arm snaked around her waist, and I pulled her into me, “Don’t go.” I inhaled her, and her scent instantly brought me back from whatever nightmare I got sucked into.
Before I had a chance to close the door, an ear-piercing scream rang through the wing.
I peeked my head through the door, and a girl ran from the bathroom near the end of the corridor.
“What’s going on?” Mia asked, turning to see outside the door.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure,” I turned my attention back to Mia, “Stay here. Don’t leave this room.”
She nodded, and I took off down the hall.
The girl shook on the floor against the wall as she stifled her cries with her hands.
“What happened?” I asked as people formed a circle around us.
The girl pointed her thumb back toward the bathroom, unable to speak anything coherent. I pushed open the bathroom door, and I froze.
Hanging from the ceiling with a makeshift noose around the neck was Chad. Face blue, eyes wide open, and feet dangling. My stomach rolled, and I took a step back when someone caught my balance. I snapped my head around to see Scott standing behind me with his hand on my shoulder.
I fisted his shirt. “Where were you?” I screamed and threw him against the wall. His eyes darted back and forth between Chad and me. “You’re supposed to be watching them! Where the hell were you? How could you let this happen?”
“Calm down. I was—
“You were what?” I shoved him into the wall again as tears pricked my eyes. “This place is filled with people ready to take their own lives. You’re supposed to be looking out for them!”
Scott shoved his palms into my chest. “I can’t be everywhere at all times! Now calm the fuck down, I have to call this in.”
He put his palms up before reaching for the radio on his belt, and I ran my nervous hands through my hair as Mia’s voice sounded through the cracked door. “Ollie?”
“No, Mia,” I struggled to say, choking on emotion and took long strides to stop her. “You can’t come in here.” Slipping through the door, I blocked anyone from entering. I flew my hands over my face and dragged them back through my hair. Fighting. Battling. Struggling. A constant brawl raged inside me. The image of what was on the other side of the door seared into my mind. I curled my arm over my face, and Mia enveloped me immediately. Her warm hand slipped up the front of my shirt and to my chest as she held me close. My heart slammed against her hand, and I dropped my head over her shoulder.
“I can’t handle it,” I whispered as the sickness stirred inside me and a burn punctured my eyes. “It’s too much.”
“Let’s go back to your room,” she whispered.
I moved my head side to side against her. “Not until the police get here.”
She never asked questions, only stood with me, trying to comfort me the only way she knew how, and it was more than enough. When I’d reached the point of finally being able to breathe normally, I pulled the hood over my head and locked eyes on her. She’d always been that one person to quiet the turmoil seething in my heart when the surroundings got to be too much.
She was my center. My home.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’re a thief in the night,
robbing my gaze,
swiping my hand,
stripping my breath,
cheating the odds,
stealing my heart,
and I don’t mind.”
—Oliver Masters
mia.
IT TOOK A LITTLE OVER TWO WEEKS to find our rhythm after the death of Chad, a boy I’d never known personally. Ollie hadn’t known him well either, but he explained the impact of Chad’s death on him. He’d said seeing Chad hit him like an atomic bomb of one hundred grieving people. Even Chad himself, feeling the emotions of his last moments closing in on him, and Ollie’s heart unable to contain it. I didn’t fully understand it myself, but the look in his eyes was that of a million broken hearts. The single moment had utterly drained him, and for a week Ollie ran on empty. It had been heart-wrenching to witness, how someone else’s pain could physically affect him in the way it did.
It was a cold mid-November afternoon, and I sat in Conway’s office wrapped in Ollie’s oversized hoodie. His familiar scent fought against the bitter winter and Conway’s unwanted opinion.
“You are capable of so much more than to skip out on college,” Dr. Conway said through a shake of her head, and spun in her chair to face her desk. My teeth sunk into the plastic end of the hoodie string and I rolled my eyes. “You’re a genius. And you’re throwing it all away. Why?”
“I don’t have to explain myself,” I mumbled, annoyed with the conversation. My head was overflowing with current events—the prankster, Bruce, Ollie, Ethan—leaving no room to think about the future. At one point, I was sure I’d been destined to help victims of sexual assault, but the prankster had taken that away from me the second he revealed my journal and showed everyone I couldn’t be trusted. Maybe I was never cut out for it.
Empathy had never been my strong suit, so perhaps he did me a favor.
Conway narrowed her eyes, reading my body language because she couldn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth. “Do me a favor, Mia. Take a walk around campus tomorrow. By yourself. Fresh air and no distraction. Give your future an hour of your time to think this through before you make drastic decisions. It deserves that much, okay?”
The string fell from my mouth. “Okay.”
Sales trick one-oh-one: leave the question ending in “okay,” “alright,” or “sounds good,” and nine times out of ten your audience would reply with a positive response, automatically agreeing to whatever they said without thinking it through. A trick of the mind.
She got me.
Fuck.
I quickly came to terms with it and stood from the couch.
“See you next week,” Conway said through a knowing smile as I headed for the door. “Oh, and Mia?” Resting my palm over the door frame, I turned to face her. “I still cook for Thanksgiving. I’ll bring leftovers, and we can have a mini Thanksgiving during our session Thanksgiving Day, sound good?”
“Sounds good.”
Shit. She got me again.
I chuckled to myself. “You’re good, Dr. Conway,” I called out while walking away.