Chapter 33
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
JAMIE
“ D o you know where you’re going, JJ?” Mal peered over at me from his desk as I pulled on my coat, a black envelope burning a hole in the pocket.
“I, umm? The exhibition center is on the other side of the sports area, right?”
Mal chuckled and pushed back from his desk. “Here, take this. It might help.” He winked.
“What is it?” I asked, taking the open booklet from him.
Mal rolled his eyes at me. “It’s a campus map. Didn’t you even look at the package they sent you when you got accepted?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t had time due to getting a last minute acceptance here. Uncle Daire had tried two colleges out of state first, but they refused to take someone under my circumstances at such late notice.
“Uh, I must have missed it, or Aunt Clara kept it as a memento.”
“That explains so much.” Mal grabbed my beanie off my bed and placed it on me before arranging some of my curls around my face. His eyes snagged on something that made him gasp.
“Jamie, what the fuck are those?” He pulled the collar of my coat down. “Hickies? You have fucking hickies on your neck!” Stepping back so he could look me in the eye, Mal glowered as he waited for my response.
I rolled my lips between my teeth while I tried to come up with an explanation. “Well, you get hickies when someone sucks on you skin hard enough to break the blood vessels, and that creates a bruise?—”
Mal held his hand up, looking at me agape. “Christ, Jamie.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I know how you get a hickey, but how do you have one?” He eyed me suspiciously and leaned back against his desk with his feet crossed at the ankles and arms folded over his chest. I could feel his impatience growing with every second that passed.
“Oh, um, you know, just some guy,” I said flippantly and shouldered my bag. “Thanks for the map. I, erm better be going. Don’t wanna be late, do I?”
My hand was on the handle before Mal spoke. “JJ, please wait.” I stepped out into the corridor and spun around. “Look, I’m sorry. That was out of line. I-I’m just worried about you. You’ve got so much going on at the moment.”
I sighed and itched my head under the beanie as perspiration formed underneath it. “I know Mal, but I’m a big boy, okay?” I looked in his sea-glass green eyes, begging him to understand.
Huffing out a breath, he wrapped his arms around me. “I do, JJ. I just worry about you when Ava or I aren’t with you, so I got you this. Please take it.”
I snorted. “I’m walking across the playing fields in broad daylight. I think I’ll be fine.” I released him and squeezed his shoulders. “Thanks for caring, Mal.” I planted a chaste kiss on his cheek, took the pepper spray from his proffered hand, and walked away, waving over my shoulder.
The frigid air slapped me in the face when I stepped out of our building. It felt like I got ice burns on my cheeks. “Shit!” I muttered, pulling my beanie down and my scarf up to cover my nose. It looked like I was wearing a multi-colored ski mask. I cast my eyes over the parking lot and down the sidewalks out of habit at this point. I’d felt eyes on me a lot over the last two months, and while it didn’t feel sinister—like they were gonna jump out and stab me in the back—it made me uncomfortable and jumpy all the same. I had my suspicion that it was Dillon stalking me from the shadows, but as I hadn’t spoken to him since I came all over his face at the beginning of the week, I wouldn’t know for sure unless I caught him. And one thing Dillon was good at was lurking in the shadows.
I could still picture his flushed face covered in my cum, cracked and shattered before me when I left him in that room. I couldn’t forget the way he slammed me up against the door, or the way I lost myself in the electric feel of his hands on me. The way our bodies gravitated to each other was otherworldly and so addictive. I craved him more than my next breath. But every time I think I’ve gotten past our issues, something happens to send me spiraling down that black hole again, and I end up spending the next few days trying to pull myself out of it. Every time leaves more cuts and scars on my heart, and I don’t think I can take it anymore.
As I walked, I noticed posters for the Winter Gala stapled on every available surface. The buzz about it was palpable, but it had nothing on the fashion department’s annual showcase. Levi said the theme for the year was Winter Wonderland and would contain formal and casual outfits. I still couldn’t believe I was doing this, especially since I didn’t know what it entailed. Ava said all I had to do was look pretty and smile, but Levi quickly shut her down. He reminded her that it was far more complicated than that, and that I should ask her about the time she tried to walk freshman year. Safe to say, that conversion ended abruptly.
The wind whipped through the deserted quad as I crossed it, and I debated whether I had time to stop at Bean There, but the reminder of the envelope in my pocket made my mind up for me. I checked my watch and glanced around to make sure no one was looking too closely at me. Feeling confident I wasn’t being followed, I stepped up under the overhang of the library and pulled out the offending item.
My heart pounded in my chest as the cold air burned my lungs, tremors racking down my arms.I know I should have just put it in the box in my closet and ignored it, but it felt thicker than the others I’d received, making alarm bells ring in my head. With one final look around, I slipped my finger under the lip and upended the contents into the palm of my hand. I stared at it, the images not registering in my head.
“Oh holy shit.” I gasped. My free hand covered my mouth as bile scorched the back of my throat. “What the…” I shook my head and flipped through the images, each one worse than the one before. If Dillon saw these, he’d lose his shit. He’s not out—in any capacity I know of—and this could ruin him. My heart turned to lead and plummeted through my gut, and the backs of my eyes burned with such intensity that the world around me blurred and darkened. I sucked in a sharp breath, wincing at the pain as my legs gave out and I crashed onto the ice-cold cement.
“Who would do this? Why? Why?” A whimper worked its way up my throat as I looked at the photos again. They were taken from different places and nausea rolled through me at the thought of multiple people stalking me around campus. The hair on my neck stood on end, and blood filled my mouth as I chewed the inside of my cheek.
Fifteen photos of me and Dillon. Him chasing me into the building, arm outstretched. Him pinning me against the door in the empty classroom. Him on his knees, staring up at me. Me fucking his face with my head thrown back, mouth parted as I yelled. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” My bottom lip trembled as I shoved them all back in my bag and hauled myself up.
Another wave of nausea hit me, and I retched over the stair rail into the evergreen bushes. “F-f-uck.” I flushed hot and cold as my breaths stuttered in and out of my dry throat. I focused on my breathing, trying to slow my inhalation rate enough so I could actually get some oxygen into my lungs before I passed out.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, letting me know I only had ten minutes till I had to meet Levi at the exhibition center. How long had I been lost in a dazed heap on the ground? Too long, obviously. Today was meant to be a good day, one filled with positivity and fun—not a goddamn pile of shit. The skies seemed to have darkened along with my mood, and the cold feral wind whipped around me. I stuck my hand in my bag, grabbed a bottle of Mountain Dew, and downed a few mouthfuls, hoping the sugar would help calm me.
I closed my eyes and counted to twenty as the sugary goodness worked its way around me, then counted back down to zero and focused on locking the memory away. I put each photo into a black lace box, placed the lid on top, tied it with a silver lace bow, and dropped it in the black cave in my mind. Locking it away from my conscious thoughts helped lift the weight from my shoulders. Compartmentalizing my memories and body’s responses to certain stimuli was the only way I’d managed to survive. Was it healthy? Definitely not. But I couldn’t afford therapy, and I didn’t want one of Uncle Daire’s recommended colleagues doing it for fear of them reporting back to him. It was the best I could do.
The sports fields were frozen under foot, and the crisp crunch of the grass brought a smile to my face. It took me a moment to hear a second set of footsteps behind me. I screamed and reached into the front pocket of my bag, grabbing the pepper spray Mal gave me. I spun on my heel, held the bottle out in front of me, and said, “Don’t touch me, or I’ll spray.”
“Shit, Jamie. I come in peace.” I cracked my eyes open, not realizing I’d closed them, and took in the guy smiling back at me with his hands raised in the air. His dark blond hair was styled in the effortlessly messy just-got-out-of-bed look I could never achieve with my wild curls, and his bright blue eyes sparkled with mirth. But it was his disarming smile that got me to lower the pepper spray and sparked my recognition.
“Oh my god.” I scratched my itchy head as a bout of nervous energy hit. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m just a bit…”
“Jumpy?” he added.
“Yup.” I nodded and put the bottle back in my bag. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t remember your name. I know we’ve met but, yeah. My mind’s blank.”
He snorted. “It’s alright. I’m kinda forgettable.”
“Shut up. You’re not, and you know it.” He smirked back at me and winked. Jesus.
“The name’s Taylor. Taylor Buchanan.” I cocked my head and waited for the words I could almost see on his lips. “I’m on the football team.”
Bingo. “Hell no.” I turned away from him and walked away. I didn’t want to deal with any of those assholes. Really? None?
“Jamie, please wait. Dillon doesn’t even know I’m here,” he huffed and jogged to catch up with me, which took all of zero seconds. “Please?” He reached for me, and I flinched.
I stopped so abruptly he almost crashed into me, making a chuckle slip through my lips. “Fine.”
“Really?”
“Sure, why not? It’s not like I’ve got anywhere important to be.” My words had far more bite than I intended. Taylor looked me up and down with confusion on his face.
“But you don’t play sports, so why would you be here?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m walking in the Winter Wonderland fashion show.” I shrugged. “I’m meant to be there for fittings and shown how to walk, because apparently, it’s not like normal walking… who knew?”
“Ha! Rather you than me.” Taylor licked his lips as a crease formed between his brows. “How about I walk you to the exhibition center and make sure you get there in one piece?”
“Uh, fine. Might as well.” I buried my hands in my pockets as it felt like my fingers might freeze off. I could feel Taylor’s gaze on me as I waited for him to say whatever he came here to tell me.
His breath fogged the air with his weary exhale before he cleared his throat. “I’d like you to just listen to me, Jamie, without interrupting me. Do you think you can do that?”
I shot him an incredulous look. “Don’t see why not,” I grumbled and pulled my shoulders up to my ears as the wind picked up.
“I’ve known Dillon since we met on the first day of freshman year. He’s always been singularly focused on his studies and football. It was like nothing in the world existed to him.” The whimsical note to his voice pulled at something inside me I didn’t quite understand. “He was strong and brave but closed off and hostile to everyone. On the field, he was a power house. But off it, he grunted rather than talked to people, you know? Until I got sacked really badly one game and got knocked out. He helped me, kept me talking so I’d stay conscious. Apparently, I kept blacking out.”
“I get it, alright? He’s wonderful and the sun shines out of his ass.”
Taylor snorted. “You said you’d listen.”
“I did. Sorry,” I said, suitably chastised.
“Anyway, he didn’t make friends. I think he tolerated most of us. I know his dad constantly gives him shit. He speaks to Coach, and then tears Dillon a new one. But I’d never seen him act like he had no feelings until the night you popped up. He looked like he’d seen a ghost and was terrified. I now understand why, and that’s what I really wanted to tell you. When you left, it fucked him up?—”
“That wasn’t my fault,” I growled.
“Hey, I know, okay? And so does he now. But the point is, what he shared with you—he’s never had with anyone. He might have been with girls, but that was because he was terrified that if people found out he was into you, that his dad would fuck him up worse than yours did.”
“Excuse me? What did you just say? What the hell did my dad do?”
“He didn’t tell you?” I shook my head, furrowing my brows as trepidation crawled over my skin. “Just…you didn’t hear this from me, k? A few days after you left, your dad showed up at Dillon’s house, demanding to know where you were. Since Dillon couldn’t tell him, your dad beat the shit out of him, breaking his arm and putting him in the hospital.”
The world spun around me, and I swayed on my feet. “No.”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Fuck!” Tears fell from my eyes unbidden as the image of a beaten fifteen-year-old Dillon filtered through my mind.
“And when you turned up, the hurt and devastation he felt toward you morphed into anger. Plus, he was terrified about losing his spot on the team. He thought—stupidly, I might add—that the best way to solve his problem was to scare you into leaving.”
“It’s not that simple,” I whispered as the wind basted us with ice cold air.
Taylor glanced at me with sadness swimming in his eyes. “But it is, Jamie. Dillon told the team he’d been bullying you, so you sicced your dad on him. The lie he told blew out of proportion. He only suggested knocking into you, trashing your books, or sending you to the wrong building so you’d be late for class.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks as guilt threatened to devastate me. “But?—”
“All the nasty shit that’s happened was orchestrated by Stevens and fucking Chad. They hate Dillon, because he has what they want. They might be assholes, but Stevens isn’t stupid—despite how he pretends to be—and he figured out Dillon’s secret. He thought targeting you would break Dillon and get him to fuck up, thus getting him off the team.”
“But thats… thats…” I couldn’t find words for what I was hearing. “Barbaric.”
“It is. Dillon beat the shit out of Chad for what happened on Halloween and sent incriminating evidence to the dean. One more fuck up, and Chad will get kicked out.”
I stopped and looked Taylor right in the eyes. I needed to see if he lied. “Have you been part of any of the fucked up things they’ve done?”
He shook his head but kept his eyes trained on me. “No. The things they’ve done made me sick. Plus, Dillon…”
I rocked back on my feet as the realization hit me. Stabbing pains pierced my chest, and I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat. “Oh my god! Does he know you’re in love with him?”
Taylors eyes glistened as tears filled them. “No, and he never will. You’re here, and he loves you , Jamie. These last six weeks have just about killed him. I’ve never seen him suffer like this before.” He placed his hand on my lower arm. “Just give him another chance. He’s willing to do anything to win you back. Anything, Jamie. You ask, and he’ll do it.”
My heart squeezed in my chest, stealing the breath from my lungs as tears pricked my eyes. “I just need time. I lost my mom two years ago. When Dillon said he was the reason for all this madness, it was as much of a gut wrench as my mom’s death. It’s all too raw, y’know? So yeah. I need time.”
“I do. I got you, okay? I’ll talk to Dillon.”
“No, I’ve got it.” I licked my lips. “I will.” Taylor nodded, gave me a small smile, then walked away, leaving me standing outside the exhibition center.
I couldn’t work out what part of that little talk broke my brain more—that Dillon wasn’t, in fact, the manipulative unfeeling monster I’d made him out to be, or that his best friend was in love with him and Dillon had no idea. The truth was, Dillon was just a terrified broken boy who came from a cold loveless home, and had a dad who forced him to suppress all his emotions. That Dillon didn’t have any social skills or the ability to read people’s intentions made sense. My heart broke in a whole new way for him. For the experiences he’d denied himself out of fear and how he forced himself to conform.
Mal thought I might be demi, but I knew I wasn’t. It was just my heart belonged to one person; always had, always would. We were as inevitable as the sunrise and as sure as the changing tides. But the way Dil explained his prom night makes me think he might actually be demi but not know it. Our friendship grew over five years before we kissed, and he was only then starting to acknowledge there was something more than friendship between us.
I cast a final look at Taylor’s back vanishing across the field and sighed. One more thing to tuck away and think about later. I had a meeting with a frenzied pixie I couldn’t be late for.