Page 48 of A Duet of Darkness and Dreams

“No problem.” She gets in while I walk around to the driver’s side. Sitting quietly, she watches as I turn the car on and adjust the radio. “Cold?” I ask.

“A little.”

I turn the heat on low then pull out onto the street.

“My apartment is on the outskirts of the campus. Just off Brandy Street,” she says, watching the lights go by.

“Okay.”

We drive in silence for a while, and the whole time I’m thinking of something to say. How to bring up the conversation from earlier. How her skin looks so gorgeous in the street lights. How to apologize for the release party.

“I appreciate you not saying anything to Becks,” she says suddenly. “About me quitting the paper, I mean.”

I take a quick look at her, her shoulders tight up against her ears and her arms hugging her body.

“Will you not tell her?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Not yet. It’s such a happy time for her. I don’t want to be the thunder cloud to her sunny day.”

“But you told me.”

She turns to look out the window again. “Yes.”

“Whydidyou tell me?”

She doesn’t answer and she doesn’t look back. Okay, new tactic, I guess.

“This isn’t because of that guy, is it?”

Her head whips around to look at me so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t break her neck. “What?”

“That guy—” The guy I wanted to punch until his face was mush. “What was his name? At the release party.”

“Simon.”

“Yeah.” I take a left turn toward the college. “What the hell was he even doing there? What a fucking douchebag.”

She utters a dark laugh and fiddles with the tassel on her purse. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“You could tell me.”

Her face seems to crumple, her eyes shining again. “I—” Her chest rises and falls sharply, as if she’s working up the courage to say the words out loud. “He kind of stole my work.”

My knuckles tighten on the steering wheel. “What?” I say a little too loudly. “What do you mean he kind of stole your work?”

“All of my articles, he— He mashed them together.”

Hot anger bubbles up my throat, heating my skin and turning my stomach.

“Remember how I couldn’t find my notebook? He found it and took everything I’d written about the release party and got it published in theChronicle.”

I slam on the brakes, but luckily it’s late out so the roads are empty. Isabella’s hands shoot out to brace herself against the dash as I pull over on the shoulder, unbuckle my seat belt, and wrench open the door.

“Dave!”

There’s a commotion coming from the inside of the car, but all I can focus on is the pounding of blood in my ears and the roaring in my chest, like a caged animal desperate to be set free. I try to focus on the white lines on the side of the road, pacing back and forth as my hands shake. A car door slams, and I hear the sound of footsteps on asphalt approaching.

“Dave, please.”

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