She grins widely as she recognizes me. “You still have the nerve to be here?” She shakes her head, narrowing her eyes. “You did a number on him.”
My fingers grip into the railing, steadying me. “Are you here to see him?” I choke out.
She pats the top of my head. “He called me, sweetheart. Me. Now run along.”
As disgusted as I was by the physical violence tonight, I feel like I could punch her right now. I force a breath in through my nose. “He called you?”
She nods. “Of course. I knew it wouldn’t last with you. The only one he’ll last with is me. I know how to take care of him.” She saunters away, continuing past me on the stairs, heading to his room.
I am so mad, my entire body is humming with anger. I fly back up the stairs to my room, without even thinking I grab a backpack, stuff my laptop and some clothes inside and storm from the room. I am done with this place. There’s no way I’ll stick around to hear her screaming out Colt’s name again.
I head downstairs to the first floor, intent and stealing the key for the fuck truck. Long past caring if I get caught. Just try and stop me. Who’s going to stop me? Colt? Don’t think so. I’d use every self-defense move he taught me until he was on the ground in a heap.
I fish the spare keys from their hiding spot Colt once showed me in the administration office and head out the back door.
It’s only when I’m thirty minutes down the road and merging onto the highway that I realize this might not have been the best idea. It’s eleven at night and home is an six hour drive. But I don’t care. I can’t spend another night at that school. I pull my phone from my purse and fire up the navigation app on my new phone. I hit the voice command and say my parent’s address. I turn up the radio and promise myself I’ll stop for coffee when I get tired, then I settle in for a long night.
The hum of the highway and blur of passing headlights, coupled with cheesy love songs are the perfect way to spend a miserable evening. I just let the tears come, and alternate crying, signing and chugging coffee.
I pull into the driveway just as my parents are leaving for work. I should have waited until I knew they’d be gone, but I’m so exhausted, all I could think about was my bed. My mom flips out when I walk in, shocked to see me, not to mention I’m sure I look horrid.
“What happened?” She grips my arms, inspecting me. I catch my reflection in the window and see my skin is blotchy from the multiple crying spells and dark shadows are etched under my eyes from lack of sleep.
“It’s a long story, Mom.”
“Come sit down. What are you doing here? Did you drive all night?”
She pulls me over to the table and forces me down into a chair. I should be tired of sitting, but I’m so exhausted it’s actually a relief to be off my feet.
“I couldn’t stay there anymore. I know I should have told you all this before, but I was dating Colt, the head of the school’s son who actually took over daily operations and well…we broke up and I just can’t be there.”
“Alright.” She pats my back. “We’ll talk about this later. Do you want me to stay home with you today?”
“No. Go to work. I just need sleep.”
She nods. “Okay, sweetie.” And presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Do you want breakfast first?”
I shake my head.
“Go get in bed.”
My dad comes down the stairs just then, dressed for work. “What in the –“
“She’s alright. Boy troubles,” my mom supplies.
His eyes get wide. “Oh.”
I’ve always been drama free and relatively sane so I can tell my dad is stunned right now. He glances out the window and sees the truck in our driveway. “Who’s truck is that?”
“I borrowed it from the school,” I say. More like stole it, but they don’t need to know that.
After convincing them I’m fine and they are free to leave, they finally agree. “Okay, get some rest today sweetie, and we’ll talk about this tonight. I’ll bring home chicken parm from Balducci’s.” My mom smiles. It’s my favorite Italian restaurant.
“Kay. Love you guys.” My parents are being cooler about this than I would have guessed.
When they leave, I head upstairs and bury myself under the covers.
Chapter 32
Colt
I’m awoken in the morning to an insistent pounding. At first I think it’s in my head from the multiple shots of Jack I downed until I realize the thumping is coming from my bedroom door.
I pull on a pair of shorts and head to the door. “Yeah?” I croak out, seeing its MJ.
She looks frazzled.
“What happened?” If something’s happened to Taylor, I’ll kill Reis.
“Is Taylor here?” She steps around me, entering the room.
“No.” I rub a hand over my face, trying to wake myself up. It’s too damn early for company. “Wait, what do you mean? She’s not in the dorm?”
“She didn’t sleep there,” MJ confirms taking in the sight of my unmade bed.
“Well she wasn’t here.” Fuck. Did that mean she spent the night with Reis?
MJ answers her cell phone. “Yeah, I checked Colt’s room. She hasn’t been here….Okay.” She clicks off the phone. “Reis is coming down. She’s nowhere.”
A few seconds later, Reis and Logan barge through the still open door. “Her stuff’s gone,” Reis announces.
“What are you talking about?” I look between the three of them. I wince slightly at the sight of Reis. His face is bruised and swollen, and a cut along his cheek has been stitched up.
Reis steps forward. “When we got back from the hospital last night and she wasn’t around, I figured she was with you. Since that’s why she stayed here rather than coming with us.”
She stayed here for me? I never saw her. Oh fuck. Then I remember I invited Samantha over. What if she somehow found out? Samantha didn’t stay here long. She tried to kiss me and something felt incredibly wrong about it. I missed Taylor. I told Samantha she better go after that.
“And some of her clothes and her laptop are missing,” Logan offers.
“Where would she have gone?” Just then I remember showing her where I kept the spare keys to the truck. “Go see if the truck is gone,” I say to Logan. He takes off down the hall in a sprint.
He comes back a few minutes later, out of breath. “It’s gone.”
Christ. She took off in the middle of the night. Her parents lived six hours from here. If something happened to her because of my stupidity, I’d never forgive myself.
“I’ll try calling her again,” MJ says.
We wait while it rings, but it goes to voicemail after the fourth ring. MJ hangs up. “I’ve already left two messages,” she explains.
“Let me know if you hear from her,” I say. They all nod and then turn to head out. “Wait, Reis. Can I talk to you?”
He stops and turns around slowly to face me. Logan lingers in the doorway until Reis nods for him to go ahead.
“So you went to the hospital?” I mumble, looking at the ground, feeling like a real piece of shit.
“Taylor insisted I go last night after looking at my cuts. I got four stiches.”
The cut is right over his cheekbone, the line of stiches black against his skin. “Sorry man. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s alright. We both know I deserved it. I kissed your girl.” He smiles.
“Okay, well we’re even now.” I playfully jab him in the stomach.
He dodges the hit. “Cool. What ended up happening last night? Taylor was going to come find you after I left.”
I rub my hands over my face. “I think I fucked up again.”
