4. Nick
4
NICK
I wasn’t sure why I bothered to come to class anymore.
When I started college, I had above-average grades, my professors liked me, and I was on a fast track to making my parents proud. The day my father started to decline marked the slow kamikaze downfall of my drive to succeed. At least in the engineering path I’d taken.
Over the years, with all the losses and hardships, I let my studies fall to the back burner. They weren’t even a priority at all anymore.
I more or less switched to a concentration in the arts just so I could still be in college. Slacking off wasn’t something I tried to perfect. But as I struggled to know what the fuck to do with the rest of my life, it was a stand-in. Besides, as long as I was enrolled in something, George would assume I was interested in not becoming a bum. As long as I showed up at some classes, my mom wouldn’t have to stress about my not coping with life after my dad’s death.
Opening the email from the engineering department was a mistake I could’ve done without this morning. It was one of those messages with too vague of a subject line to weed it out as important news versus spam.
While I stupidly skimmed the content on my phone in the middle of Art History 101, my mood soured.
No, I didn’t care about an upcoming guest speaker the engineering department had invited here.
And no, I wasn’t interested in meeting with the department’s curriculum advisors about signing up for a new course that would be offered next semester.
Sitting here in a class where half of the students were napping, I didn’t care about much at all.
Just Mom.
All weekend, she’d seemed so distant. I hadn’t stayed in the mansion much, but when I did seek her out, she made excuses, almost as if she were actively avoiding me.
A headache. Feeling tired. Wanting to go for a walk by herself.
I was used to how she acted when she wanted to withdraw, and I was worried she was sinking too fast and deep this time.
This is stupid.
I was wasting my time being in class. I wasn’t invested in the topic. American minimalism was such a boring phase of art, anyway.
Instead of pretending to be a dutiful student, I got up and left early to go see Mom at the Lorsen mansion she called home. It wouldn’t be mine. I wasn’t sure when and where I would ever feel another sense of being home again.
I left campus, ignoring the glaring sunshine the best I could. My sunglasses helped a little, but it was just too damn bright, too hot. I felt exposed on my bike, and it was with relief that I reached the shadows of the cool hall at the mansion twenty minutes later.
Finding Mom on the patio out back, taking shelter under a wide-open umbrella near the pool, I lifted my hand in a wave.
“Nick? What are you doing here so early?” she greeted as she sat up, clearly surprised.
Why are you so surprised that you’re not alone? I hated how everything she said and did seemed so suspicious.
She softened up to smile, but it still didn’t reach her eyes. “Skipping class again?”
Her question was more teasing and observant than scolding.
I shrugged, shoving my hands into my pockets as I gazed at the pool. While this mansion would never feel like home, I was fond of swimming in the Olympic-sized pool, often late at night when I wouldn’t have to see anyone.
Hell, I guess we’re the same like that. Avoiding others did seem easier on my soul sometimes.
“It’s just as well you’re here, though.” She lifted her sunglasses to peer at me as she sat up. Reaching for a package that must have been delivered, she gestured for me to come closer. “Are you going back to campus today?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I just wasn’t interested in Art History today.”
“Then maybe you could run this to George. It came after he left for his lectures this morning, and I think he needs it before going to his office later.”
“Ah.” I accepted the package. “Yeah, I can drop it off.”
“Do you remember which office is his?” she asked. “Those law buildings are just so big.”
I nodded. I would find it. I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t want to talk about George or the building he taught a class or two in. I wanted to check on her .
“Are you?—”
Her phone rang, and she bolted upright to glance at the screen. “Shoot. I need to take this. I’ve been trying to get ahold of this company that can fix my account with the car insurance.” She stood, shaking her head. “I swear, everything is outsourced to a third-party whatever nowadays.”
I watched as she dismissed herself, answering the call and walking away.
She hadn’t even put much enthusiasm or energy into her words. No real annoyance or trouble. Emotionless.
“Goddammit,” I whispered as I ran a hand down my face. She had to be spiraling to act this distant and aloof. After my dad died, she explained that she grieved alone. That she liked her space to do so. She never pushed me away, and she was a strong woman to comfort me after we lost him, but I never forgot how she emphasized her preference for solitude.
But what if this is going too far?
What if she needs help?
What if she’s letting things slide so she can wither into nothing?
I scowled, hating that possibility. She was all I had left. And if her aloofness impacted her marriage with George, where would we end up then? Homeless?
Stuck in limbo was a good place for me right now. But not her.
I took the package, not wanting to bother her when she was still keeping up the farce that she was okay.
Back on campus, I tried my best not to let my dark mood consume me. I’d drop off this stupid package then kill some time at the studio. Diego wouldn’t be there. And I could use the solitude to figure out what to fix on my latest series of paintings. Art wasn’t my calling. It wouldn’t be a stable job, but while it was intriguing me, even a little bit, I’d ride with it.
I regretted not checking with Mom where George’s office was, though. After twenty minutes of walking around and checking all the wrong hallways, nothing looked familiar. I’d seen George at his office before. He was my stepdad, for fuck’s sake, not a stranger. I wasn’t avoiding him completely even though I couldn’t summon the willingness to invest any energy into getting to know him more than I already did.
“Would it kill them to put up a fucking sign or something?” I muttered as I walked past a corner that I had already seen.
No arrows.
No maps.
Pompous, self-righteous legal freaks.
Rubbing my hand over my face as a tension headache lurked closer to the surface, I groaned and pivoted to head down another corridor.
But I didn’t finish turning.
Someone crashed into me.
A wet someone.
A short, curvy brunette bounced back as her soggy books and notes flew out all over the floor.
“Watch where you’re going.”
“Watch where you’re going.”
I blinked, stunned that we’d said the same thing at the same time.
I’d muttered it darkly, peeved.
She’d scolded it haughtily.
I narrowed my eyes, in no goddamn mood for some hoity-toity law student to try to bitch about my being in her way.
“If you looked where the hell you were going, this wouldn’t have happened,” I added as she dropped to the floor to gather her things.
She hurried to collect her stuff. “If you weren’t covering your face as you spun wildly?—”
“I didn’t spin wildly ,” I protested, pissed now.
Who the hell did she think she was, telling me this was my fault? If these lawyers could put a damn map up, I wouldn’t have been lost at all.
Even though she kept her head down, her long, wet hair draping low and shielding most of her face, I caught how she opened and closed her mouth. An annoyed exhale left those plump lips instead.
It wouldn’t have killed me to help her pick up her things, but I didn’t have the patience for her kind. Self-important and in a rush, like her agenda was all that mattered in the world. I had no room to talk about punctuality. I lived with the belief of better late than never .
This girl, though… I knew exactly what she was like. From her snippy tone and her aggrieved sigh, she acted like I was such a problem in her life.
It reminded me of Tiffany.
All these fucking lawyers were like that. Holier than thou.
“Excuse me,” this student said. While she didn’t snap at me with a derisive tone, there was no missing how impatient she was. With a shove of her hand at my leg, I looked down and realized I’d stepped onto one of her papers that had flown out.
“No. I won’t excuse you. You’re not the only person who’s hurrying somewhere around here. I don’t have to bow and scurry out of your way like you’re some proper princess.”
“ Princess ? As if.” She lifted her head to scowl at me. “And you weren’t hurrying. You’re just loitering and wandering around.”
“That doesn’t give you any reason to bitch at me for being in your way.”
“I’m not b—” She huffed, struggling to get all her things that I wasn’t standing on. “You are in my way, though.”
“You’re in mine, too.” I wasn’t moving my foot off this paper if she begged me. This was petty of me. I knew it was, but I couldn’t stop. Something about her pushed me to be combative right back. I had no clue who she was, but her attitude was the trigger I didn’t need. I was angry at the world, and she’d be the one to know it.
“I just…” With another huff, she tugged at the last paper, ripping it as she pried it from under my foot.
I glared at her as she stood, daring her to knock into me with the narrow space available in this old hallway.
She didn’t, not even making eye contact with me as she rose. That was how stuck in her little world she was, acting like I wasn’t even a human, a person, anything.
I didn’t need her to acknowledge me, but the fact that she wouldn’t as she ran off didn’t sit right with me.
Just who the hell do you think you are?
More than anything, I wondered what the hell her problem was to be hurrying like that. Something almost like terror had lit up her light-brown eyes, as if getting to class late would be a death knell.
And why the fuck is she soaking wet?
I furrowed my brow, glancing at the windows and seeing the same sunshine that had blinded me all morning. It wasn’t raining.
I followed her, lured to see why she was so pushy to get away. Why she was so…
Fuck it. I had no clue why I followed. Intrigue could spring up like that. The littlest thing could perk me into curiosity, and it was a better alternative than staying in the darkness that was my norm.
She ran ahead, but not so quickly that I’d lose her.
Around corners and further into the building, she went.
And I followed.
All the way to a lecture hall. She darted inside, but with the double doors still open, I hung back in the hallway and watched as she slipped inside.
“Sabrina,” George said from the lectern at the front. “Glad you could make it.”
Aha. There he is. And his office is back that way. This place was familiar now.
“Sorry, sir,” she replied.
George paused, looking up as she took her seat. “I didn’t realize rain was forecast today.”
Sabrina dropped into a seat, frantic to set up her things as her cheeks turned pinker. “It wasn’t, sir.”
George pursed his lips. “Interesting.”
“Not really, sir.” She flashed him a quick smile as she scrambled to be an obedient law student. “I apologize for the interruption.” With her pen poised over a notebook, she winced and then squeezed the excess water from the pages. No matter how ridiculous she looked, and likely felt, still dripping onto the floor, she was ready to get to business.
“Apology accepted, Sabrina.” George acknowledged her with a mere nod. “Just see that your tardiness doesn’t become a habit.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, not mocking him but serious.
Sabrina?
I let my gaze wander over the rest of the occupants in the room.
I spotted Tiffany straightaway.
She sat there two rows behind Sabrina.
Glaring. Seething. Staring at the drenched late arrival with so much loathing that I instantly placed her.
Huh.
This had to be the competition my stepsister was so worried about.
George smiled back at Sabrina, then resumed lecturing. It looked like he didn’t mind Sabrina showing up late, even though he was a stickler for punctuality.
Whatever.
I turned away, dismissing Sabrina and how she’d collided with me in the hallway.
Just like my calculating stepsister, she was nothing more than another cut-throat bitch, super-focused on her studies.
What-the-fuck-ever.
I lacked direction in my life, but I wasn’t going to invite someone like her to get in my way ever again.