10. Myles
MYLES
I’m just closing the door to my room behind me when my phone pings with a text. Letting out a deep sigh, I flip on the lights and toss my bag onto the floor next to my bed.
I’m exhausted after a day of traveling, and as weird as it is, I’m actually glad to be back at school after spending the week at home celebrating Christmas with my family.
Before we got rich, my siblings and I went to a small, semi-rural public school, and we did all the things normal families do, like have dinner together and go to my brother’s sports games or my sister’s dance recitals.
My extracurriculars were a little less exciting, but my parents still made a point to show up with my siblings and support my robotics team competitions.
Then we got rich, and our parents got paranoid, and we moved away from our small town and into a gated community on the outskirts of a major city.
And if that wasn’t enough, the three of us were shipped off to different boarding schools and for the past three years have only really seen each other over major holidays and the summer.
I love my family, and I love my siblings, but they’re loud and chaotic and extroverts, while I’m the opposite, and I definitely need to decompress after a week of family bonding.
Another text comes in while I’m pulling my phone out of my jacket pocket, and a third lands as I check my notifications.
I’m not surprised to see my sister’s name, and I open our text thread as I sink down on the edge of my bed.
Lily : are you back at school yet?
Lily : what does it mean when a boy tells you that they don’t want you to wait for them?
Lily : that’s a green flag right?
Myles : did Thomas tell you that?
Lily : yeah, well, he texted it
Myles : what was the context?
Lily : he said he doesn’t want me to wait for him while he’s in Paris
Myles : he’s going to Paris?
My sister has been a bit boy crazy for the past few years, but she confessed to me while we were home for Christmas break that she has a boyfriend and doesn’t want to tell our parents about him because they forbid all of us from dating until we’re sixteen, and Lily is only fifteen.
In her defense, she’s turning sixteen in eight weeks, and the boy in question is a few months younger than her.
I wouldn’t have been so open to keeping her secret if I thought her crush was taking advantage of her, but this guy doesn’t seem too bad.
A bit of an egotistical asshole, but that’s typical for boys her age and tax bracket.
And I’m really glad she’s coming to me for advice instead of trusting her vapid, trophy-wife-in-training friends, but finding a balance between being her older brother and her friend hasn’t been easy.
I’m not exactly an expert on teen dating, considering I’ve never dated anyone or even been on a date, and unlike most people in my position, I don’t feel the need to change that or feel like I’m missing anything.
At least spending the past week focusing on her issues gave me a break from obsessing about my own, and it was nice to spend time with her like we used to.
Lily : for the summer
Myles : and he said he doesn’t want you to wait for him while he’s gone?
Lily : yeah. what does that mean?
Lily : that’s a good thing right?
Myles : I’m not sure
Lily : what?
Lily : why not?
Myles : if he doesn’t expect you to wait, then it sounds like he’s not planning on waiting either
Lily : wdym
Myles : from a guys perspective, it sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t want to be exclusive when he’s gone, even if you are now
Lily : really???
Myles : yeah
Lily : do you think it could mean something else?
Myles : it’s possible. You could ask him if you’re not sure
Lily : yeah, I’ll ask later. I’m sure it’s nothing
Lily : he just texted, gotta go
Tiredly, I toss my phone onto the bed and strip off my jacket. Outside of his age appropriateness, I’m not a huge fan of this Thomas guy, but I know my sister, and she needs to figure out that he’s bad news on her own. With any luck, that will happen before she falls too hard for him.
With another deep sigh, I stand and stretch my arms over my head. My back pops a few times, and I drop my arms as some of the stiffness fades. A yawn creeps up on me, and I cover my mouth as I let it out. Hopefully this means I’ll actually sleep tonight.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and that feeling of being watched settles over me for the first time in two weeks.
I glance at my window and at the curtains I closed before I left for the break, but my gaze lands on the chess set on my dresser.
One of the pawns has been moved.
“What the fuck?” I cross the room with long strides and stare at the chessboard.
I know all the pieces were lined up before I left, the same as they’ve always been, but right now, one of the white pawns has been pushed forward two spaces.
Instinctively, I look around the room.
Nothing looks like it’s out of place, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
Slowly, I return my gaze to the chess set. Did the cleaners move it? Maybe one of them knocked some of the pieces over and they put the pawn in the wrong place when they put them back?
But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone put all the pieces back to the starting position except for one?
I go to move the piece back but stop.
The move is a legal one, and I can think of a half dozen chess combinations that start with that opening. It feels like it was moved on purpose, like there’s a message behind it.
More of that awareness prickles the back of my neck.
Only the house and school staff have access to our dorm rooms, but school officials are supposed to leave a notice of access, which is just a document saying they were in our room unsupervised, out in plain sight when they do.
They don’t have to tell us why, but there are very few circumstances where they can just come and go in our private rooms without any sort of documentation or permission.
I glance around my room again. I don’t see a notice anywhere, and I’m pretty sure that if school officials were in here fucking around with my stuff, there would be more evidence than a single chess piece out of place.
Was it him? Was he in my room and he’s the one who moved the chess piece?
That thought should scare the crap out of me, but mixed in with the initial burst of fear is something I’m not so sure I want to acknowledge. Something that feels an awful lot like excitement.
Slowly, I drop my hand and step away from my dresser so I can do a more thorough look around my room to see if anything is out of place or missing.
It’s been almost two weeks since I literally invited my stalker to play hide and seek with me in the woods, and I’ve spent most of that time pretending it didn’t happen.
Not because I’m ashamed or I’ve been torturing myself about being reckless and obsessing about why it happened and what it means about me or anything like that.
Nope, I’ve been ignoring it because I get hard every time I think about it, and it’s getting more and more difficult to remember all the reasons I shouldn’t do it again.
I might not have a lot of experience when it comes to sex, and none when it comes to sex with men, but that’s more of a skill issue on my part than anything else.
I’ve always been a weird loner who prefers talking to my online friends over trying to make new real-life ones, and spending most of my free time on my computer instead of going out and doing social things is just normal for me.
I don’t put any effort into how I dress, and I really don’t give a crap about how I look or if I live up to whatever physical standards are considered desirable to the masses.
I’m also the type who actively avoids anything that’s trendy for no reason other than it’s trendy.
I don’t talk to people, don’t go out, and I hate crowds and small talk.
I also have wicked resting bitch face, a short temper when it comes to stupidity, and I’ve been told I’m unapproachable since I was in grade school.
I’m pretty much the most undatable person out there, and I’ve done my best to stay away from everyone at this school, including not putting any effort into finding people to hook up with.
My friends like to make fun of me because both Echo and Cipher have very active dating lives.
Echo is the self-proclaimed queen of situationships, and Cipher is on so many hookup and dating apps it seems like he’s always going out on dates or meeting up with a new fuck buddy every time we talk.
That’s awesome for them, but it’s not what I want.
And that’s the crux of the problem. The things I want are things no one is supposed to want, and if they do, they’re never supposed to admit it.
My fantasies are other people’s nightmares, and the things that get me hot are things that usually make people’s libidos dry up and their balls turtle back up into their bodies.
I’ve never been able to tell anyone what I truly want, and I never thought I’d ever get the chance to actually explore any of it.
All that changed two weeks ago, and now that I’ve had a taste of what I’ve spent so many hours thinking about and trying not to want, I’m hooked. And I don’t just want more. I want it all.
But I’m not sure my stalker feels the same, and I’ve been trying to convince myself that’s a good thing. I had no idea what to expect after that…incident in the woods, but complete radio silence wasn’t it.
I don’t even know if he was still watching me before the break, or if he moved on to someone else or whatever it is stalkers do when they get bored.
I could still feel his presence, but I have no idea if that was just wishful thinking on my part because I didn’t see any evidence that he’s been around since that night.