Chapter Thirteen
I push through the door, books stacked in one hand and coffee in the other, kicking my shoes off as I go, the door clicking shut behind me.
It’s the smell that hits me first—unfamiliar, masculine, which permeates the air.
It’s intense, dangerous. The whole room’s filled with it; there’s a mild lingering smell of cigars.
It’s heady but confusing. I look around the room to see Darius’s bed still dishevelled, but mine is made, smoothed out, not a crease in sight.
There’s a folded piece of paper on my bed and a small black box.
I tentatively remove the lid to find it containing a velvet bag.
My fingers shake as I reach for the note, unfolding it and taking a breath before reading it.
It’s from Lexi. She’s ended it with me. I flop down on the bed and take the velvet bag, pulling it open, and it’s a coin or a medal maybe?
It’s old. I don’t recognise it. It looks foreign, a cross on one side with random letters surrounding it and a man or woman on the back holding a cross.
It’s heavy, silver in colour but I have no idea what it’s for.
Why would she end things with a note and then leave me a gift?
I’m so confused—who did she get to deliver this?
How did they get in? I can smell them in the room.
I toss the coin onto my desk. I yank the bedclothes off and snatch up my washing, heading down to the basement to do the laundry.
I’m so over this fucking day. I can’t shake the fact that she had someone come into my room.
She broke up with me with a note but left me a stupid fucking carnival token.
I have the coursework I wrote for her for class, but she can go to hell and write her own from now on, and as I storm down the stairs, I realise I’m now going to have to find a new coffee shop to go to. Fuck my life.