Page 25 of All Hallows' Haunt
I sighed, resting my head on my arms as I slumped on the desk. I saved his number that night and kept it since. I couldn’t bring myself to call. I couldn’t bring myself to text. It was just lust, and surely enough, he didn’t push the connection further. No social media follows or requests. Not even another chance encounter while at Hallow’s Haunt the rest of October.
Fuck, did he get fired?
I couldn’t stop thinking about him, no matter how hard I willed him from my mind. His touch was branded on me. Even when I would meet guys, there was never a spark or connection greater than Everett. No one compared to him, even if I knew just surface pieces.
Is Flora still happy now that he’s away?
I pushed up from the desk and scooped my phone and keys into my pocket. There were a couple boxes that needed to be unpacked, but the quiet room started to feel a little too lonely. Aimee and Vera were still with their parents, moving into their dorm. Those lucky assholes were able to room together. I left the room, locking the door behind me and starting to maneuver around students and parents lugging in things from their cars. The hallway was noisy; the fluorescent lighting buzzed and grated on my nerves.
I needed air.
I pushed open the heavy metal exit door that led to a stairwell. It was loud in here, too. Every step echoed, and every slam of a floor door vibrated the space. I hurried over each step, moving away from the second floor, and it was chaos.
My hands hit the lever and a cool breeze pushed through the crack. It was bright outside, but an overcast sky lessened the sun’s glare. I took a deep breath and let the heavy door swing behind. My hands twisted into my hoodie pocket, and I started walking around campus.
The entire night played back in pieces, from the moment he first approached us to the moment I broke his heart.
I’m so sorry, Ev.
Would he ever forgive me? That was the biggest question. I’d never know though. I looked at his number practically daily. Tortured myself with hearing him answer the phone. I played the conversation in my head a thousand different ways.
“I love you,”he said in one.
“You used me,”he said in another.
“I got over you,”he would say cruelly.
“I’m with someone,”he said in the worst version.
I didn’t know why I let those imaginations cycle. It was the nightmare version of he loves me not with flower petals. One night changed so much for me, and I was so fucking scared of that possibility.
My shoes scuffed against the pavement, and I looked out to the commons when the sidewalk wrapping the building came to an end. A large cement bench sat in the middle of a perfectly dead lawn. It was circular, and in the middle, it was fashioned to be a planter. Yet, in this planter lived the saddest, deadest brush I’d ever seen.
Oh, the setting for my dismay and self-loathing, how perfect.
The grass crunched under my feet as I walked to the bench of fucking sorrow. It was cold to the touch, and the texture was gritty and rough. I rested against its back, watching the motionless sky that was one big cloud.
It could have been so different. I opened my phone again, tapping the glass and pulling up his contact.
My finger hovered over the phone symbol.
The fear of rejection prickled down my neck.
I tapped the glass.
It rang.
*Click*
Everett
This campus was miserable.The bright side was that it served as the first step toward a promising future, not only for me, but for Flora and Mom. I finished unpacking early, considering there wasn’t much to bring, and made my way around the campus. The dorms were in one quarter, and the main classes were part of the other half. Facilities occupied the last quarter and intrigued me the most. I spent a decent hour walking around the library. It was huge, bigger than the public library of my small town.
I walked up and down the stairs, exploring the three levels, even the sections that didn’t interest me. At one point, I fulfilled a life’s dream of jumping on a rolling ladder and gliding across the shelves. Sienna would’ve loved that.
Fuck, here we go.
There wasn’t a single moment or experience that I encountered where I didn’t think about her. Want her. Wonder where in the fuck she was and what the hell she was doing.
