Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
The calls don’t stop.
Two days pass. I can’t figure out how to block the number, so I turn my phone off.
I feel sick.
I should tell Jane. Should tell Duncan. But the words stick in my throat. Whatever’s going on, I can’t involve them. For fuck’s sake, Duncan is a shifter, too.
“You smell sick,” he tells me on the second day. We’re standing outside the library, trying to decide if we want to go to dinner or back to his room, and suddenly, I snap.
Instead of explaining the mysterious calls, I say, “How come you didn’t tell me about fated mates?”
This stops him in his tracks. “Oh.” When he looks at me, I’ve already started shaking. I hate confrontation. But if he’s almost certainly going to leave me for someone else, I deserve to know.
He’s gone pale. I feel a sick sort of satisfaction.
“What do you mean?” His voice is strangled.
“Why didn’t you tell me it’s guaranteed you’re gonna leave me for someone else?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest. Like that will stop me from rattling to pieces right here in front of the library.
Duncan shakes his head, wide-eyed. He looks like he wants to reach out and reassure me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stands rooted to the spot, breathing heavily. “That’s not guaranteed. Lots of people don’t leave their partners even if they do find their true mate.”
“I can’t go through that again,” I tell him. I can’t stop shaking. The ground beneath my feet disappears. I feel like I could float away. “I can’t spend the next however many months or years worrying about that.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Duncan says softly, finally taking a step toward me, but it’s too late. Panic has seeped into my bones. “I promise," he says, and I want to believe him, but I can’t. Marcus’s engagement announcement flashes behind my eyes, and I swallow down bile.
I’ve never initiated a breakup before. My throat aches. I don’t want to say the words.
So I don’t. I just turn and walk away.
“Dominic!” he shouts after me. My name is scratchy, like he’s in pain when he says it.
I don’t turn back.
My phone rings. I’m miserable and drunk, so I answer it, slurring out, “Hello?”
“Merman,” hisses a voice on the other end. The same one from the other night. Deep, gravelly, like a cheap cartoon villain’s.
Instead of hanging up, I drop my phone on the floor, then madly scramble for it. I hear his voice through the receiver, far away from my ear.
“Do you know what you’re worth?” the voice continues. “Do you know what people would do for you?”
I’m fucking terrified. I can’t seem to slide the call away, so I do the next best thing and turn my phone all the way off.
Somehow, this person knows who I am. Has my phone number, even. This is bad. Really bad. And there’s nobody I can tell. If I call Jane, she’s going to ask what’s wrong, and I’m going to have to tell her that I’m an idiot all over again. And I will. Soon. I just… really need to be alone right now.
Do you know what you’re worth?
I know the answer to that. Nothing. I’ve always been a fuck-up. I’m not a good student. I’m not career-oriented. I can’t even keep a boyfriend. The one thing I am is hot, but that’s only in the human world. Among the fae at Halea, I’m a four out of ten at best.
I’m worth more as a pile of scales than I am as a person.
A part of me hoped that being fae would be easier than being human. That maybe I’d fit in better, that all my misshapen pieces would find a home.
Instead, everything is so much worse.
I fail Elarion’s midterm.
I’m not surprised. My magic is unrestrained on a good day.
My cup of water explodes. The flame that is supposed to sit politely in the palm of my hand consumes my entire torso and toasts the chair I’m sitting in.
The squeaky toy that I summon slaps three people in the face on its way over to me.
My performance is so bad that even Jordan looks at me with concern instead of his usual mean laughter.
When Elarion beckons me after class, I’m already mentally configuring the best way to pack my stuff. He’s going to tell me to leave. Going to tell me that bringing me here was a mistake.
I’ll visit Mom when I go home, I tell myself, trudging slowly to meet him, arms wrapped around my chest. She’ll be glad to see me. It’s been a while. I’ll get her some lilies, or maybe violets. Or roses?
Elarion wears his hair in a high ponytail that compliments his crimson sweater, his angular face. When he turns to me, he wears an expression of exasperation, eyebrows drawn together above his peridot eyes. Slender hands move to his hips. “What the hell happened today?”
I don’t have anything to say for myself, so I say nothing. My eyes burn. If I look at him, he’s going to see tears brimming, and that’s—
I can’t deal with that.
He sighs. When I glance up, his expression has softened.
I’m going to cry or puke. The thought of him witnessing either makes me want to melt into the floor.
“I have makeup sessions available next Monday,” he sighs. “I’m going to mark down that you had the flu today, and I am very graciously allowing you a retake.”
A retake. Holy shit. “Thank you,” I say, and mean it.
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You aren’t my best student, but I know you’re capable of more than this. I’m professionally obligated to ask: Are you alright?”
I wince. “I will be.” I’m not so sure that’s true, but I can’t ask for help without risking expulsion, and I’m not ready for that.
Pinching the bridge of his nose with manicured fingers, he says, “If you need to talk to someone, please stop by the resource center. They’ll have someone available.”
“OK,” I say, glancing to the door, praying he’ll let me leave soon.
He follows my gaze. His shoulders go slack.
“I do think you’ve very much improved from the beginning of the year.
Whatever’s going on, it’s not worth losing your good standing at Halea.
” Turning on his heel, he begins gathering his things.
“Sometimes in life, we have to take care of ourselves and our futures even when we really don’t want to.
If you can’t do it for yourself now, do it for your future self.
Whatever you’re struggling with will pass.
I can’t say the same for the consequences. ”
He dismisses me with a scowl.
In the hallway, I have the terrible misfortune of sighting Duncan. His expression is grim. There’s a book clutched to his chest, but I’m too far away to make out the title.
I wonder if he sniffed my shirt last night and feel a pang.
Before he can spot me, I turn the other way and flee.
In Prophecy and Prediction, I see only blood. Professor Almara is delighted.
Jane calls me twelve times. Duncan calls me four. He leaves voicemails. I don’t listen to them.
I don’t go to dinner.
It’s not because I’m afraid to see Duncan, I tell myself. I’m just amped up. I don’t need food. I need to go for a run, write a paper, and then pass out.
Elarion’s right. It’s gonna be fine.
It’s not fine, because I can’t regulate my emotions at all. Every time I stop running, I start thinking, so I just don’t stop until my legs shake and my lungs are screeching and my heart feels like it’s going to explode inside my rib cage.
It’s only eight p.m., and I am going to go insane.
I call Aleo. “Wanna lift?”
“Uhhh…” Something shuffles in the background. “I have a party to go to.”
“Yeah, great,” I tell him, slightly out of breath. I’ve been out of breath all day, it feels like. “No worries.”
“Are you OK? I haven’t seen you all day.”
A nest of vipers has taken up residence inside my stomach. “Oh, yeah,” I say, and the vipers writhe. “Just been busy.”
“Yeah, the thing is, you don’t sound OK.”
I am several mental illnesses in a burlap sack that someone has drawn a smiley face onto. I have no idea how he hasn’t noticed this yet, or what he expects from me.
Instead of trying to convince him that I’m fine, I hang up.
Duncan calls me again.
The thing is, I really want to answer. I want to tell him to forget about everything and ask if he’ll take me back.
Then I remember Marcus’s engagement announcement and steel myself. A lie is a lie, even by omission.
Duncan’s name vanishes from the screen.
My feet carry me to the cliffs. I can’t feel my legs anymore. Can barely see in the darkness.
Something terrible is about to happen, I think, stepping right up to the ledge. Pebbles skitter over the side. The sound is lost to the crashing tides.
If I were drunk, I’d go right over again.
Mom’s disapproving face pops into my head, so I take a step back, wrapping my arms around myself. In a t-shirt and gym shorts, I’m not dressed for the weather. The wind has taken an icy turn.
A part of me knows I’m overreacting. Parents die.
Classes are failed. Partners cheat and lie.
People recover from worse all the time. But I can’t calm down.
Can’t stop freaking out. I want to punch a wall, and break a window, and jump off this damn cliff, and let the waves and rocks beat me into a pulp, but I can’t.
Because Elarion’s right. This will pass, and I can’t live the rest of my life if I give into temptation now.
When I get back to my room, Aleo is gone, but his laptop is still blaring music. There are books and papers scattered all over his mattress.
As much as I hate to face reality, I have assignments due tomorrow. I sigh. Sit at my desk. Pluck a notebook from my backpack.
All of Duncan’s notes fall onto the floor. Dozens of scraps of paper, all neatly folded.
I consider leaving them there until Aleo yells at me to clean them up or throw them away. But I don’t want to do that. Instead, I gather the slips of paper slowly, cradling them in the palm of my hand. Then I pile them onto the desk and do something I’ve never done before.
I open them.
Why was I so afraid? It’s exactly what I expected: neat, cramped handwriting and quick, simple answers to questions I half-remember.
A few must be recent. When I read them, my heart clenches.
That color looks nice on you, but it would look better off you, and I missed you last night, and I hope you’re feeling better today, and Meet me tonight?
I hate having boundaries. I hate being lonely. It’s been three long days away from Duncan. Underneath all the pain, there’s a longing that refuses to fade.
Why the fuck do werewolves have to have fated mates? I can’t live with that knowledge hanging over my head. One day someone else will come along and I won’t be good enough anymore, and everything we built together will come crashing down, cards where I thought there was steel.
And maybe that’s a little optimistic. Who’s to say how long our relationship would have actually lasted. But I’ve already gotten attached, started getting comfy, started to feel like I finally found someone I could belong to, and now it’s all gone because of stupid werewolf magic.
The sight of Duncan’s handwriting makes me feel sick.
He wrote all these notes to help me, even when he didn’t have to, even when I didn’t want anything to do with him.
And as much as I want to call him a creep, I also have to admit that it makes me feel seen, cared about in a way that I haven’t been in a long time.
Jane helped me as much as she realistically could, but Duncan risked humiliation, even academic discipline, just to spare me from embarrassment.
Nor can I discount the fact that he risked his life to follow me off the cliff. That alone makes my entire chest ache. Shifting in public, fighting a stormy sea, then dealing with me when I slashed his throat while we were drowning.
And he never told a soul my secret.
I think of the voice on the phone, and shiver. Unless… Maybe he did? But that doesn’t make sense. He likes me. Furthermore, he’s rich. He doesn’t need the money he can get by selling me out.
But what if he does?
No, I tell myself firmly. There’s zero evidence of that. Just a lot of instances of a guy going up to bat for me when I gave him no reason to.
I should call him. Maybe he can explain. Even if we don’t get back together, maybe we’ll be on better terms.
But whenever I look at my phone, all I feel is that terrible, lonely ache.
I reach for the tequila.