2. Haven
Chapter 2
Haven
They say you can never go home again.
My home was a green eyed boy I met in the woods behind my trailer park, when I was escaping a life no five year old girl should have to suffer through.
Our dark, twisted little games took us away from our awful realities.
We made each other laugh.
Made each other cry.
Made each other bleed.
And the older we got, the harder it was to keep pretending that it was only a game. Until we both had to accept it wasn’t.
It’s been three years since I’ve been home. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door.
Whatever it is, it’s definitely not a welcome party.
Unless he’s forgotten about me and, dear God, I hope he has.
So then why am I praying he hasn’t?
I tug at the fraying sleeve of my beige cardigan as I trot up the front steps of Agony Hollow College.
With fall only four weeks away, the early morning sunlight hitting my back is barely warming me at all, but it’s more than bright enough to penetrate deep into the thickly carpeted foyer of the sprawling Victorian-era building.
I’ve driven past this place several times over the past couple weeks. Every time I’d store a mental snapshot. But it didn’t prepare me for walking through the front door.
I still don’t feel like I belong, but I don’t feel like an intruder, either.
I have a right to be here, and a text on my cellphone to prove it.
Doesn’t mean I’m not nervous. I’m all prickly under my clothes, a sure sign I’m going to sweat any second.
I’d love to take off my cardigan, but in my rush to make it on time to my first class, I forgot to put on a bra.
Is this what a meth addict feels like when they’re strung out?
The past few days have been absolute hell, and I look the part.
Hair brushed with my fingers. No makeup. No freaking bra.
And to top it off, I grabbed one of my most obviously dilapidated pieces of clothing to fix myself. When I glance down and see my jeans still have a ketchup stain on them, I nearly turn around and walk right back out.
But then I’d be a loser, and everything I’d have done up to now would be for nothing. Everything I’d gone through? Meaningless.
Hell to the fucking no.
The receptionist behind the large, curved help desk gives me a double take when she sees me coming. I rip my hands out of my mousy brown, shoulder-length tangles where I’d been trying to coax it into something resembling a hairstyle, and give her a bright smile.
I must look psychotic, because she stiffens up like I’m holding an assault rifle, not a brand new pink notepad with a bunch of random letters embossed in gold on the front cover. I thought it was some kind of acronym when I bought it. It starts with STFU, which I know is code for shut the fuck up, but the rest is gibberish.
Just a coincidence then.
It was literally the last one in the only stationery-cum-bookstore in town. That’s what happens when you leave all your college shopping for the week after classes begin.
Someone’s running a vacuum over the carpet a couple of feet away. A pair of faculty members coming down stairs I assume lead up to the first floor of the renovated manor.
Surprisingly quiet, but I guess everyone’s already on their way to class.
“Hi!” I slap my notepad down on the counter, blowing a chunk of hair out of my face, trying to look breezy. “So, I’m supposed to start classes here? I’m guessing there’s a schedule or something I need to collect?”
I overcompensate sometimes.
The middle-aged receptionist purses her lips, and to her credit, only looks mildly alarmed at my presence. “We sent out orientation packets over a month ago, sweetie. Did yours not arrive?” she asks, raising her voice over the sound of the vacuum cleaner.
I freeze, my brain scrambling furiously. “I was overseas!” I yell, at the exact moment the janitor turns off the machine.
My voice rings through the roomy foyer.
I clear my throat. “I only just got back. Guess I must have missed it.” My voice goes quieter and quieter as I realize everyone else in the vicinity has gone silent. Even the two teachers have stopped to stare at me.
God. You’d swear I was leading a marching band through a library.
“Name?”
“Haven Lee.” My nose tickles. Scrunching it up doesn’t help, so I rub it with the back of my thumb as the receptionist types away on her computer. I use the motion to scan around me, hoping I won’t spot someone I recognize.
I shift my weight, run a hand through my hair, and rifle the corner of my notepad as the woman types and types and?—
“I got the text for my first class,” I blurt out. “I’m signed up for your digital class notifications thingy?”
The receptionist does that thing where she looks at me over the top of her glasses, then looks down at her computer and taps away again. “That would be the one for Professor Rooke’s class? The one that began yesterday?”
I lick my lips and desperately wish I’d put my chapstick in my pocket. “Yeah, see, my phone died, so I only got it today. Like…now.”
“Ah.” That single word carries so much hidden meaning.
I try not to dwell on the thought that it’s my first week of college and I’ve already fucked up so badly that the lady at the help desk is judging me for every poor life choice I’ve made up to this point.
But wallowing is right up there with overcompensation on the short list of Things Haven Lee is Good at.
Don’t forget fucking up. I’m excellent at that, too.
Clack, clack, clack goes the receptionist’s keyboard.
“Is there a problem?” When she doesn’t answer straight away, my stomach feels like it’s filling with cement. Thank God I didn’t take off my cardigan. Not just because of the no-bra situation, but now I can hide the pit stains forming as I try not to freak the fuck out.
“Not at all, Miss Lee. All the Ts were crossed, just had to dot some Is.”
She makes one last decisive stab at a button and then smiles at me. “Welcome to Agony Hollow College. I’ll put together a new orientation packet for you. You can pop by after lunch to collect it.”
We stare silently at each other for a few seconds, then the janitor starts vacuuming again.
“So that’s it?” I yell. “I’m in?”
The receptionist’s smile deepens as she waves me toward the stairs.
I grimace. “Is there like a map or something?”
She frowns, leaning in. “What?”
“A map?” I form a square with my fingers. “So I know where I’m going?”
She waves away my apparently unfounded concerns at getting lost on my first day at a new college. “Room 102. Up the stairs, second door on your right!”
“Awesome, thanks!” I hurry past the janitor, peeking through the massive arches on either side of the foyer to the rooms beyond. One leads to an enormous library, the other to what looks like a cafeteria.
Plenty of time to explore those later. I don’t want to be late to class, and it starts in like a minute.
I swipe my hands over my thighs, blotting away the sweat. This isn’t just first-day-of-college nerves. Or terra incognita nerves. Or, here’s hoping I don’t run into anyone I know, nerves.
This is ‘you’re a lying scumbag’ nerves.
My phone didn’t die. I pawned it, and then had to save up enough money to buy a new one.
That’s how long it took me to save enough money to buy a new crappy phone.
I guess I should be grateful for the forced social media detox I got. Man, did I have a lot of time on my hands. I’ve mastered the art of wallowing. I could start a wallowing cult and be the guru, and bestow upon others my divine gift of?—
The door to room 102 is closed. There’s a sign on it that says “class in session”.
It did not take me more than a minute to rush up these stairs. I mean, I didn’t even pause to admire the paintings, or peek out the landing window at the sprawling campus grounds beyond.
Except, I did, and now I’m late, and I’m sick to my stomach with nerves, and deflated, and defeated, and just…hollow.
It’s like I was just about to cross the finish line, and someone nicked my fender and sent me into a tailspin.
I muster up courage from somewhere and attempt a tentative knock that goes unanswered after several thundering heartbeats.
There’s no more courage left for another knock, let alone trying to open the door.
I should leave.
I can explore the campus until my next class…whenever the hell that is. At least I know I’ll get a text ten minutes beforehand.
As I turn to leave, the door opens behind me. Sound spills into the hall like I took off a pair of noise-canceling headphones.
The professor’s deep, melodic voice.
The tap-tap-tap of students making notes on their laptops.
A cough, someone clearing their throat?—
“Yeah, just fucking hold on. I’m not supposed to be taking calls in class.”
My entire body goes rigid.
I recognize that voice.
I spin on my heel, but the student exiting the lecture hall is already leaving, his chaotic golden-brown hair swaying as he stalks away.
He’s inches taller than me, wearing gray joggers, expensive-looking white sneakers, a branded black college sweater with the sleeves pushed up, and a big, silver ring on the hand hanging loosely at his side.
Did I summon him by repeatedly wishing he wouldn’t be here? Like what happens if you say Candy Man in the mirror a few times?
I’m frozen in place by a rush of panic.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t ? —
He glances over his shoulder.
And then gives me a double take.
He’s already halfway down the hall, but when he recognizes me, he stops walking. Tilts his head. And stalks back toward me.
Shit, shit, shit!
Why won’t my damn feet move? They might as well be planted in fucking concrete.
“Hey, slut!” he calls out. “You lost or something?”
Damn it, Haven, move!
“’Last I checked, your trailer park’s on the other side of the Agony River. That’s fuck far away.”
The anger in his green eyes keeps me pinned like a hand on my throat. And then, because I’m an idiot, and I still can’t move, it is his hand pinning me.
I gasp in shock, but it only takes a second before he’s cut off my air.
“The fuck are you doing back here, huh?” He gives me a shake, banging my head against the wall. “You run out of Riverside dicks to suck?”
Woah. Hang on one fucking minute.
Did he just call me a slut?
A dick-sucking slut?
He grunts, and that’s when I realize I punched him.
When did he get abs?
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” he rasps, and not from pain.
Rage seethes from him like an aura.
“ Slut .” He spits, hitting me on the cheek. I wipe my cheek, mouth gaping in shock, disgust.
His phone rings in his hand, and we both flinch, eye contact snapping away. He looks at his phone. I throw my head to the side, looking for help. Because of all the fucked up things I imagined would happen today, this was no where on the list.
There’s a girl walking in our direction, but she’s so fixated on her phone screen, a unicorn could have trotted past her and she wouldn’t have looked up.
But I guess he sees her too, because suddenly I can breathe again. And then I’m being dragged, the classroom door opening, and I’m half-falling, half-stumbling inside as he shoves a hand in my back.
I swear as the door closes, I hear him say, “Enjoy it while you can. You’re not staying.”
Green-eyed Kai, my best and only friend for all my life, gives me another shove.
It feels like it goes straight through my heart.