After mine and Jensen’s performance, I suddenly made friends. Well, that might be a big word for now, but Chloe came over to introduce herself, dragging a timid girl called Rachel behind her and they both took a seat beside me. Now I’m following them into the cafeteria, my stomach empty and clinging to my spine.
Twenty-four hours without food is not the best way to speed up my recovery.
The mouthwatering smells hit me as we enter the busy room. A blend of grilled chicken, baked bread, and the addictive bitterness of freshly brewed coffee. Not the brown water they served at the hospital. No, this is a rich, gorgeous scent of properly ground high-quality beans.
Yet another vertiginous ceiling, but no stone walls. This space looks modern save for the imposing windows overlooking the forest. It’s clinically clean. Sterile like the hospital. White tiles on the floor, different-sized tables, chairs, even lounging areas with tall bookcases.
Chloe pushes her shoulder-length hair behind her ears as she impatiently steps from one foot to the other when we beeline for the plate station, then move along the buffet-style arrangement. There’s something for everyone here. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, meat, fish, salads…
“That’s a regret waiting to happen,” Rachel warns, scrunching her nose as she pushes my hand away from the tuna salad. “I had it last week and ended up curled around the toilet all night.”
I doubt they’re serving the same batch they did last week, but I mutter, “I don’t need that”, moving further along toward a table with six kinds of pasta calling my name.
I feel eyes trailing my every move while I add coffee and a heavenly-smelling slice of apple pie to my tray, but whenever I peek over my shoulder, no one’s watching.
Still, the feeling lingers as I shadow the girls toward a table at the far end, tucked by the huge windows overlooking the forest. There are a few people there, including Jensen.
“This one you know,” Chloe says. “Freshman, acting, his dad plays drums for Broken Anthem.” She shoots him a cute smile before pointing out a girl with a head of long, tiny braids. “That’s Amari, military brat. Modern dance, sophomore. And this…” She grins at the guy with his arm casually thrown over Amari’s shoulders. “This is her boyfriend, Levi. Just a brat.”
Levi cocks an eyebrow, moving his eyes from Chloe to me. “Senior, film production,” he adds. “Chloe here loves giving me shit. Pay no attention.”
“What are little sisters for?”
“Blackmailing, mostly,” Levi shoots back.
I slide into my seat, pointing a finger at myself. “Hailey, freshman, acting.”
“So we heard,” Levi muses. “You’ve made quite the entrance.”
“Have I?”
He nods. “Arriving a week late, battered, bruised, and kicking everyone’s ass in your first class. News travels fast here. “What’s with the sling and all the bruises?”
“Oh, um… car accident. Dislocated shoulder.”
“Damn, that’s bad,” Levi says, leaning against the back of his chair. “What happened? Your fault or…?”
“My fault. At least that’s what I gathered. My dad’s a cop. He said either the tire blew, or a deer jumped onto the road.”
“You can’t remember?” Amari asks, sipping her coffee.
“No. I can’t remember the last two years.”
“No way!” Chloe exclaims loud enough to turn heads five tables away. “So like, amnesia, right?”
I nod, poking my pasta. “Hopefully it’s not all lost. My doctor says I might get my memories back, but I had a meltdown at the hospital and my dad sent me here to…” I air quote, “…heal in a neutral environment.”
“Dad’s a cop, huh?” Jensen smirks, wagging his eyebrows. “Maybe you were drunk driving and he’s covering it up.”
Levi’s gaze roams the bruises covering my arms and chest. “She wasn’t driving.”
“Yes, I was.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes. Dad gave me an extensive lecture about how it’s better to hit the animal than swerve.”
“That’s barbaric.” Amari scrunches her nose. “Deer were here long before us. We’re in their territory.”
Levi drapes one hand over her chair, grazing the tips of his fingers down her shoulder, his narrowed eyes meeting mine.
“Unless the car was an import, there’s no way you were driving.” He leans across, pushing my necklace aside before touching a yellowy-green bruise running diagonally from my right shoulder, across my chest, and disappearing under my summer dress. “This is from the seatbelt. If you were behind the wheel, it’d be on the other side.”
I swallow hard, ghosting my fingers along the bruise. Levi’s right… it’s on the wrong side. Everyone’s staring at me, waiting with bated breath, but I can feel someone else’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my skull.
Ignoring it, I jab at the black hole in my head, throwing questions at it.
If I wasn’t driving, then who was?
Why didn’t Dad tell me there was someone else in the car?
Why did he lie?
Disappointment burns my stomach like acid. He never lies…
Never.
Until, apparently, now.
I swallow the lump in my throat, wondering who was behind the wheel and what happened to them.
Question marks multiply like bacteria in a petri dish. My pulse quickens, a relentless drumbeat thumping in my ears. The silence and accumulated stares are making my skin crawl.
I hate being the center of attention when I’m not prepared. And today, with my imperfections on display, I am definitely not prepared for scrutiny.
My mind races, searching for an explanation. The harder I try to come up with something plausible, the more erratic my breathing. Another panic attack looms nearby, threatening to shit all over my progress.
I haven’t made much but staying calm for a week wasn’t easy.
I dig my nails into the palms of my hands, eyes closed. I can’t panic. Not again. Not twice in one day. I’ll make things worse and risk further damaging my brain.
“Hey.” Chloe rests her small hand on my back, rubbing up and down. “You’re pale, Hailey. Are you feeling okay?”
“Um… I just…” I suck in a sharp breath. “I just… I… I need a second.” I snatch my half-empty coffee cup from the table, rushing across the cafeteria for a refill.
Anything to pull my mind away from the suffocating anxiety. There must be a rational explanation why Dad didn’t mention that I wasn’t driving.
Maybe he didn’t know?
Maybe he’s protecting me because whoever was is dead and Dad didn’t want me to have another meltdown.
Or maybe there’s something bigger going on.
I gulp the rest of the coffee, shoving my cup under the nozzle and poke the touch screen where it says double espresso like the machine has personally offended me and deserves pain.
A loud hiss makes me shudder, but the bittersweet aroma and the sound of coffee dripping into the cup grounds me. It wraps itself around me, soothing my frayed nerves enough that the huge cafeteria stops closing in on me.
Cup in hand, and mind still raging, I turn swiftly, take a purposeful step and collide with a wall.
A startled gasp—mine—rings in the air as the cup slips from my grasp in slow motion, drenching me and what I mistook for a wall.
In a way it is a wall… a wall of muscles hard enough to deflect bullets.
Then, with time seeming to stretch out even further, I tumble, connecting butt-first with the cold floor and jolting my injured shoulder hard enough for tears to sting my eyes.
God, it hurts like a bitch and the hot coffee splattering the front of my dress doesn’t help.
“Shit,” I hiss, biting my lip to ward off the incoming tears.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” a deep, husky, familiar voice snaps from above.
He’s not shouting. He barely snarls the words at me, but the malice behind them cools the temperature to arctic levels. I crane my neck, meeting a pair of cold, dark eyes glaring down. The same eyes that bored into Chloe’s during their scene.
He’s even more overwhelming when he’s this close.
His square, chiseled jaw clamps shut as he takes in the mess I’ve made of his black jeans and black tight-fit, immaculately pressed pullover that probably hides a chest as chiseled as his jaw. There’s even a bit of coffee on his high, black leather boots.
I wonder what his favorite color is.
My eyebrows bundle together. There’s an edge to him. An aura of menace unlike anything I ever came across.
“I’m…” I swallow hard, the initial annoyance that sparked my courage spiraling away like the autumn leaves outside.
A second ago I was ready to snap right back, but now the words dissolve on my tongue. I can’t tell if I’m nervous or awestruck. Probably a bit of both.
Rolling my lips, I scan the skulls, roses, tombstones, and crows inked up his arms, then the writing running vertically from his ear down the side of his neck.
“I’m sorry, I…I didn’t—”
“Didn’t see me?” He spits the sentence out like poison. “That’d be a first.”
Despite my blood heating and cooling on repeat under his hostile stare, a small, stubborn, utterly careless part of me stirs to life again. He could snap me in half without effort, but the longer I drown in the rage swirling in his dark eyes, the less I care.
“Cat got your tongue?” he clips.
The stunned trance eases away, replaced swiftly by annoyance. I cock an eyebrow. “No. Just nothing to add.”
I’m a little proud my voice is as biting as his, even though I’m on the floor while he’s towering above, a bulk of harsh arrogance and bad temper. He reminds me of a guy in my high school who thought he was better than anyone to walk the earth: God’s gift to mankind. He had no reason other than his parents’ deep pockets for feeling superior… unlike this guy.
This guy knows he’s intimidating. That he makes people’s fight or flight response kick into the highest gear. He knows and he’s wringing out every ounce of his superiority, rubbing it my face.
“I’m sure you can think of something to add.” The weight of his glare holds me immobile. “Sincerity would be a good start.”
“You didn’t detect sincerity because it wasn’t there.” I try and fail to match his level of provocation, so for a confidence boost, I add a barely audible asshole at the end.
Despite his nail-biting, toe-curling, hair-raising demeanor, his head tilts slightly, betraying surprise. He catches himself fast, marshaling his body language back into bad temper mode.
“I heard that.”
“Are you sure?” I gather myself off the floor, quite a feat with only one usable arm and most of my body sore. “I don’t mind repeating it.”
Now he looks downright amused, but not in a friendly kind of way. More like a lion enjoying the struggle of its prey. Like my days are counted and he’s plotting how he can make them as miserable as possible.
He reaches out to help me up, his huge biceps straining against the tight pullover.
I swat his hand away.
No matter how painful gathering myself off the floor is, my pride won’t survive accepting his help.
I’ll be damned if I let him get ahead.
“I can manage.”
Bending my knees, I bring both feet under my butt, careful not to flash the cafeteria my white panties. A triumphant smile stretches my lips once I’m at my full five-foot three, eye level with his chest.
He’s got a foot on me if not more, and I suddenly feel tiny. The lion and prey metaphor seems ridiculously apt.
My smile slips when I realize the cafeteria is deathly silent and this time, as I survey the room, the peculiar sensation I’ve had of being watched is valid.
Everyone’s staring, their attention idling between me and the moody guy.
Brute. That’s what I’ll call him because no way I’ll ask for his name.
Too bad he doesn’t share the sentiment.
“Your name?”
It’s supposed to be a question but sounds like an order.
My insides riot as I raise my chin higher, using my acting skills and body language to seem bored as I roll my eyes at him. “You won’t need it.”
A muscle tics in his jaw. His eyes grow even darker, downright scary, and the air thickens with impending doom.
Slowly, he looks me over from the tip of my blonde head down to my sneakers, then back up. Inch by inch. The calculated heat of his gaze flushes my cheeks and neck as if he’s holding a steady match to my skin.
I’m painfully aware that my bruises and scars are on display; that he has a clear view of the fading, vertical scratches I carved down my neck; that the flimsy little dress doesn’t hide enough. Instinctively, I swing my long ponytail to the front, masking what I can. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Using my healthy arm, I partially cover the bright scar in the crook of my shoulder and the yellowing seatbelt bruise.
“Hailey,” I blurt out, caving under the need to pull his attention away from my imperfect body.
“Next time, watch where you’re fucking going, Hailey,” he hisses, my name peeling off his tongue like an insult. “It’d be a shame if something happened to you.”
I swallow hard, my skin no longer warm, but ice-cold. I bet I’m white as curdled milk. The veiled threat has the fine hairs on my neck standing on end. He rakes one hand through his short, dark hair, leaning in closer, the tangy scent of his cologne assaulting my nose.
“Now… apologize, and off you go.”
An incredulous scoff breaks free before I can stop it.
Inside, I’m shaking like Bambi taking his first steps. Chills slither along my arms and prickle my scalp but fear fails to suppress my recklessness and my unfiltered words spill out.
“Excuse me? You were the one standing too close. You should apologize to me. It takes two to collide, you know?”
He grinds his teeth, something dark flitting across his face. “Don’t hold your breath.”
Startled, I take an involuntary step back. It doesn’t immediately occur to me why, but a second later, I notice his hands balled into fists at his side.
The cafeteria blurs as my pulse whooshes in my ears, drowning out everything else. His threat scared me, but his tight fists kick my fight or flight response up to eleven.
Relying solely on instinct, I flee, rushing for the exit as if he’s following suit about to… I don’t know what. I’m not even sure why I’m running.
The reaction could be both—an involuntary reflex to a lost memory, or a reaction to the sudden daunting thought that, while bickering with the Brute, I forgot the more pressing issue: who was driving that damned car?
With every thud of my heart, the momentary thrill recedes and the ominous sense of impending doom returns. Stumbling into my dorm room, I slam the door, barricading myself against the world. Only temporarily because, yet again, I have fifteen minutes to get dressed and haul ass across campus into the theater before my next three-hour lesson.
I want to grab my phone and call Dad, but first things first. Ignoring the pain, I whip my dress off, tossing it in the hamper. Again, no time to borrow an iron and press my crumpled clothes, so I snatch another dress from the wardrobe.
Are all my dresses these days cute little spaghetti-strapped things? It’s cold outside. What was Dad thinking packing for me like I was off to Hawaii?
Dressed and with twelve minutes left, I grab my phone. Finding Dad’s number in my contact list—which isn’t hard given he’s the only number there—I pause.
What if this call is a bad idea?
I pace the room, my anxiety mounting. Each step feels like I’m marching to an execution. A part of me screams for answers, the other worries what those answers might be. This is the first time my dad ever lied to me.
He must have a reason.
Either he’s afraid the truth will send me over the same way hearing about Mom did, or there’s something I’m not seeing. Something I might get back once my memories return.
If—a tiny voice in my head adds, making me stomp my foot. There’s no if. They’ll come back. I just need to let my brain heal… and that means no abrupt revelations.
Closing my eyes, I let out a shaky breath, dropping the phone into my bag before rushing out.
