Page 36 of Over You
14
Georgia
Professor Humphrey paced the front of the lecture hall with his hands clasped behind his back. His protruding gut led the way.Right. Left. Right.
He stopped at the side of the wooden podium and lifted a clenched fist. “Sin. Redemption. Damnation.” Then he paced again. “Marlow’s work suggests that hell is not a place. Instead, it is a state of being.” His gazed honed in on Tom who sat slouched in the seat beside me. “Mr. Perry, you look as though you may be in hell this very moment. Rough night at the pub, aye?”
Most of the student’s attention shifted to Tom.
He dragged a hand through his coffee-brown hair. “I was busy selling my bloody soul to the devil.”
The class chuckled. A handful of the girls swooned. I thought the statement may be true, thanks to his encounter with Kirby the night before.
Professor Humphrey cleared his throat before continuing with the lecture, but I couldn’t focus. My mind kept drifting back to Spencer. With each thought, my stomach knotted. I may have gone on with my life, but only because I had no choice. Only because I refused to be weak or to be an enabler. I had to treat loving Spencer like my own addiction, which was why I had moved five thousand miles away. I had removed myself from the temptation.
Did I make the right choice, though?
That question had cycled through my head several times a day over the past year. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d think about what we’d had, how good it was before. Even with him using, there were still more good times than bad until the very end. The good memories were the ones that haunted me, and that’s when I had to remind myself of what that addiction did to me.
Living with an addict mademefeel like an addict.
While he obsessed over his next high, I obsessed over him.
When Spencer had promised, time and time again that he’d be sober tomorrow, I’d promised I’d leave if he wasn’t.
By the end of it, I’d lost weight from the stress of everything. I rarely slept. I looked more like an addict than him. While he was the one using, he at least found peace in that evil dust. And my solace had been taken away by drugs.
My life had been ruined by a drug I’d never used.
The squeak of a marker on the whiteboard caught my attention.Absolute powerhad been scribbled across the board. “He was willing to spend eternity in hell for a quarter of a century with absolute power, which is much more than many people today sign over their souls for. Money. Sex. Drugs.” My gaze shifted to the open book on my desk.
“Faustus never repented. But why? He only had to ask for mercy, and yet. . .” Professor Humphrey gave a flourish of his hand. “My question to you, my eager students, is: Could a man lose so much of himself that even when facing death and hell, he couldn’t possibly see his faults?”
Yes. It was. It absolutely was. . .
Class adjourned. Students gathered their books and poured through the large wooden doors while Tom and I lagged behind. “You’re off tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Got any plans?”
Trying to convince myself not to fall for my addict husband while forcing him to sign divorce papers.“Not really.”
The sharp scent of freshly cut grass and churned earth wafted through the air, and I bit at my lip. I wondered if Spencer was still at my house, then chastised myself for the sinking feeling in my chest when I determined he’d probably left. This was not a road I needed to traverse.
“Hey.” Tom stopped and turned to face me, brows pinched together. “Are you all right? You seem off today.”
“I’m fine, just thinking about. . . Faustus.”
“Dork.”
We followedthe pathway to student parking.
“What’s that about?” Tom nodded toward the car park where a group of students formed a semi-circle behind—my car.
I picked up my pace and gasped when I noticed my white Corolla sat on four flat tires. My head dropped on a groan. The back window had been shattered.
A group of girls chattered about the crazy-haired blonde who had tossed a rock through my back windshield.
