Chapter 5 #2
My phone buzzes. The vibration loud in the quiet car. I jump.
Margot: I love you. No matter what. We'll figure this out.
I close my eyes.
Type back: Love you too.
Then I grab my bag and head inside.
I find an empty study room on the second floor—one of the small ones with a single desk and a door that locks—and lock myself in.
I'm not ready to face people yet. Not ready to pretend everything's fine.
I pull out my diary. The one I've been writing in since Margot first adopted me.
I open to a blank page and start writing. My hand moves almost automatically. Pen scratching across paper. The only sound in the small room.
Not the assignment. Not the story I'm supposed to be working on.
Just... thoughts.
Atlas stood outside my door today. I don't know how long he was there before I opened it. He was dressed like he'd just come from work—shirt rolled up, tie loose. He looks older than twenty-nine. More tired. Like he's carrying something heavy.
He said "Neither did we" when I told him I didn't ask for this. Like I'm some burden they got stuck with. Maybe I am.
I pause. Chew the end of my pen. The plastic is already marked with teeth indents. A nervous habit I can't break.
Zero said something at the wedding about things changing fast in this family. I don't know what he meant, but it feels like a warning. He's the most dangerous one. I can tell. The way he looks at me—like he's trying to figure out where to cut.
Bane hates me. That's fine. I hate me too.
I stop. My hand freezes mid-word. The pen hovers over the page.
Cross out the last line.
Try again.
Bane hates me because I'm an outsider. Because I don't belong. He's not wrong.
My pen hovers over the page.
They're all attractive. Like, objectively. Atlas has that whole commanding, silver-fox thing even though he's only twenty-nine. Zero's got the dangerous, bad-boy energy that probably gets him anything he wants. And Bane—
I stop writing.
Stare at the words. Read them once. Twice. Feel heat creep up my neck.
What the fuck am I doing?
I should scratch it out. Cross it out until it's unreadable. Should tear out the page. Burn it. Pretend I never wrote it.
But.
It's my diary. My private thoughts. No one's going to read this. No one's going to know.
And it's true. They are attractive. That's just a fact. An observation. Nothing more.
Doesn't mean anything. Can't mean anything. Won't let it mean anything.
I keep writing.
Bane looks like his father. Same bone structure. Same easy confidence. He's probably used to getting what he wants. Probably never had to fight for anything in his life.
I don't know why I'm writing about them. I don't know why I care.
I just want to survive this.
I check my phone. The screen lights up. Bright. Harsh. 7:50.
Time to go.
Creative Writing II meets in a cramped classroom on the third floor. Room 304. The number is half-peeled off the door. Inside, the air smells like old coffee and dry-erase markers and the recycled air of a building that never quite gets enough ventilation.
There are twelve of us. Mostly older students—people in their thirties and forties who are back in school after life got in the way. A couple of kids my age who look just as lost as I feel.
Professor Montley is late, as always. I take my usual seat in the back corner—farthest from the door, closest to the window, where I can see everyone but no one looks at me—and pull out my diary again.
Class is a blur.
We're supposed to be workshopping a short story someone wrote about a woman leaving her husband. It's good. Well-written. Emotionally resonant.
I can't focus on it. The words blur together. I hear people talking—commenting, critiquing, praising—but it's all white noise. Static.
My mind keeps drifting back to the house. To Atlas standing in the hallway. To Zero's smirk at the wedding. To Bane's cold dismissal.
To the fact that I have to go back there tonight.
I open my diary to a fresh page and keep writing while the discussion continues around me.
Atlas thinks I'm being difficult. Maybe I am. Maybe I don't know how to be anything else.
I don't fit here. I don't fit anywhere.
"Max?" Professor Montley's voice pulls me back. "What did you think of the ending?"
I blink.
Everyone's looking at me.
I close my diary quickly, like I've been caught doing something wrong.
"I—uh—I thought it was strong," I manage. "The ambiguity works. Leaves the reader wanting more."
Professor Montley nods. "Good. Anyone else?"
The conversation moves on.
I slouch lower in my seat and don't open my diary again.
Class ends at ten. Professor Montley dismisses us with a reminder about next week's assignment. I don't catch what it is. I'll check the syllabus later.
I'm one of the first ones out, shouldering my bag and heading for the stairs before anyone can try to talk to me.
I sit in Margot's car for ten minutes before I start the engine.
The campus is quiet. he parking lot is half-empty now.
Most of the classes have let out. Most people have gone home to their real lives.
Their real families. Most of the buildings are dark.
Windows black. Doors locked. Just a few lights still burning on the upper floors where janitors work or professors stay late grading or students pull all-nighters.
A few students drift across the parking lot, heading to their own cars.
I don't want to go back.
I don't want to face Atlas. His disappointment.
His frustration. His cold assessment that I'm not trying hard enough.
That I'm being difficult. That I'm the problem.
Or Margot's worried eyes. Her concern that I can't fix.
Her love that I don't deserve. Her hope that I'll somehow become the person she thinks I can be. Or Bane's cold stare.
But I don't have anywhere else to go. No friends to crash with. No apartment to return to. No escape. Just the Graves estate and the room that isn't mine and the family that doesn't want me.
I start the car.
And drive back to the house that isn't mine.