Chapter 31 Oren
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
OREN
A year later
Shifting the bag across my shoulder, I headed down the sidewalk toward my first class of the day, arm in arm with the fucking idiot himself.
Simon.
One-legged and full of spite, he’d elected to tell me after my recovery that he could draw. A passion he’d left to collect dust like the easels he’d tossed aside. We’d managed to escape the confines of that base and decided to chase our passions.
When Simon had mentioned returning to school to pursue animation, I decided to follow, my heart needing something to hold onto in the absence of the man I still loved.
Art became a crutch, a way to ease the ache that remained from watching him leave that day in the hospital. It soothed, but never erased him.
Thorne had been an enigma, a unique man born in shadows and formed in the darkness he’d been forced into.
And yet, I’d never met anyone softer… Never met anyone with a more selfless heart than him.
A man who protected everyone around him…
protected others the way he wished someone would have protected him.
He was a broken man who’d torn pieces of his essence to rectify those around him, to lift their burdens.
I missed his smile, the way his eyes ignited with flames at the mention of something he loved.
I missed his laughter, the way it coaxed me in layers of warmth far more comforting than the sun’s rays.
I missed his touch, the way he caressed me as if I was breakable…
as if I was a precious stone worthy of being carried.
I missed his strength… the strength he maintained for himself and those he loved.
He was stronger than anyone else, and I admired that about him.
I missed his ability to read a room, as if he was plotting three steps ahead.
But most of all I missed him. All of him, despite the flaws. All I’d ever seen was a wall of protection—a way to prevent others from discovering what lay between the cracks.
I’d seen between those lines, and that’s who I’d fallen in love with. The Thorne Graves no one else bothered to learn. The Thorne Graves who was silly, kind, selfless, charming, loyal, and endearing.
I’d attempted to leave my bed when no one else had gone after him, disbelief and horror coating me that they’d let him walk out the door.
I’d shouted and screamed, hell, begged someone to take me to him, but it was as if everyone was frozen.
As if they didn’t understand how easy it was for him to shut people out—people who were supposed to fight for him and yet didn’t.
Especially Matt, who’d stared at his disappearing frame, his hands clenched at his sides. I wasn’t sure if it was pride or disappointment brooding across his shoulders, but it didn’t matter. Matt knew he’d fucked up, and I didn’t care if he said he deserved to lose him. He let him leave.
Cutting through my thoughts, Simon’s playfulness filled my mind. “I’ve heard the hottest professors work here. You know. In case you were ready to explore open waters again.”
“I’m here to study, that’s all.” No part of me wished to touch another man. It was repulsive, because it’d be a lie to my soul. “Now you should figure out if you’re exploring open waters or telling Liam how you feel.”
“This conversation was not about me,” he retorted quickly.
“Besides, you can’t sit here and tell me there aren’t various amounts of eye candy here.
Hell, it’s like the water they drink here is different and there’s…
” His words faded. He stopped in his tracks, his palm slamming into my chest. “No fucking way.”
“Ow, what the fuck are you doing?” I swatted his hand away, my gaze drifting upward to where Simon was staring.
Leaning against the pillar, chatting with a professor, his inexcusable height caused my stomach to flip with sinking realization.
Clad in dark dress pants, he crossed his legs over one another with a casual grace, the belt he wore visible, his grey dress shirt tucked beneath his waistband.
The black trench coat he wore only accentuated his frame, the peaks of his biceps decipherable beneath it.
Slicked back, his hair had grown, combed to perfection and sophistication.
But it wasn’t the sight of the locks I’d forced him to cut off, growing back; it was the glasses that sat on the bridge of his nose, finalizing his look.
Thorne. It was Thorne.
Smoothing out my blue cardigan, I glanced down, a grimace forming on my face. Black slacks accentuated my hips, the peek of brown from my shoes aiding another pop of color. My hair was tousled, the blonde wisps curling in the wind as I desperately tried to flatten them behind my ear.
Fuck. I look like shit.
“What is he doing here?” Simon questioned, not out of annoyance but genuine curiosity. “Thorne fucking Graves? At a university? Oren?”
“I-I can’t… He doesn’t… I mean—Fuck, I can’t do this,” I muttered, my fingernails digging into the strap across my chest. Every ounce of emotion hurdled itself into my chest, that devotion still unwavering for a man I hadn’t seen in a year. I was still smitten, my heart screaming for him.
Watching him from afar, he raised the mug he held to his lips, taking a small swig—undoubtedly tea based on the style of the ceramic.
Unaware of my prodding gaze, he continued with his discussion, the two speaking with one another as if there were a familiarity there that went beyond the titles of professor and student.
And as if the world wished to spite me, Thorne tipped his head back, a raw and unfiltered laugh tumbling from between his parted lips.
He was laughing while I… I—
Without a second glance at Simon, I trekked the rest of the path to his frame, my nostrils flaring as I stood my ground in front of him. “I guess colleges just hire anyone, don’t they?”
Thorne’s gaze met mine, shock filling his irises. As my question settled, his jaw feathered, his attention returning to the male he was speaking with. “It seems I’ve got something to handle. I’ll catch you around, Sebastian.”
“Sounds good,” the newly-named Sebastian replied, turning on his heel without question to leave the two of us alone.
“What… What are you doing here?”
“I teach Criminal Investigation and Forensics. Seems my time in the ranks proved beneficial for something other than murder.” I scoffed and went to turn away but without a second’s hesitation, Thorne’s fingers curled around my arm, ripping me from the main pathway and into an alcove. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’ve got something to handle?” I repeated, ignoring the information he offered, shoving his hand from mine while trying to brush off the burning it left.
“I’m not the one fucking laughing with some other guy as if…
” I bit the inside of my cheek, shoving those words back, because I wasn’t his even if I desperately wished for that to be different.
“As if what, Oren?” he snapped, shoving me back into the wall. “As if fucking what?”
“As if you leaving didn’t fucking hurt,” I shouted, my shoes scraping against the floor from the angle he pinned me with. “You’re laughing while I… I’ve done nothing but suffer!”
He exhaled, running his free hand down his face. “He’s my fucking colleague, Oren.”
“Oh, a fucking colleague? That’s all, right? You just laugh with everyone now?” I wasn’t sure why seeing him laugh irked me to the point I was grinding my teeth, my gaze refusing to glance from those honeyed hues I still dreamed about.
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do when none of the people I thought cared for me bothered to follow? Bothered to check in? To text? To fucking call? What the fuck else would you like me to do when my best friend, who I’d known for years, turned his back on me for someone he’d known for mere weeks?
” Slamming his palm against the wall beside my head, he lowered himself to meet me.
“You’ve been suffering? Have you ever, for once in your fucking life, thought about anyone but yourself? ”
“You,” I answered. “Only you. You are the only person I’ve ever thought about other than myself.
I-I can’t speak for them, but those nights in the hospital were torturous, because I couldn’t follow you.
I didn’t know if you were alive, if you were hurt, if you were struggling to sleep.
If… If you were happy or sad. I didn’t know if you were breathing, and that’s how I suffered. ”
“I haven’t breathed in a year, Oren.” Shoving himself from the bricks, he shook his head. “Every goddamn person I loved showed me exactly how worthless I was that day. But how convenient for you to be holed up in a hospital, right?”
“I tried to leave… I tried.” A shuddering breath released from my chest. “I never made it far before they forced me to lie down, but I would’ve rather bled on that goddamn floor than remain trapped away from you.”
A scoff of disbelief left him, his anguish recognizable in his words. “How kind of them to care for you that much. I’m happy they at least held the character I figured they would with you, coaxing you back to health and ensuring you were able to thrive once more.”
“The nurses did,” I spat. “Liam and Simon visited, but I was alone for months. They had lives of their own, and Matt… Matt turned on himself. Harboring such hatred for the lies he’d believed and crafted, he didn’t visit.
I think the guilt riddled him useless, but it doesn’t matter.
Hell, it doesn’t even matter that I healed alone.
No one… No one rescued you when you needed someone the most.”
“I don’t need your fucking sympathy,” he seethed, but I could hear it, the minor fracture in his timbre. “I’m glad you’re going to school, Oren. I’m glad you got the fuck out of there. Hopefully, you can find a life beyond those walls that you’ve always dreamed of.”