Page 77 of Drown Like Heaven
“Dr. Killshaw, do you have a second? My group had a question about the experiment summary.”
He stopped what he was doing, looked up at her. Anticipation made my heartbeat pound hard in my ears.
“Sure. What’s your question?” he said to her.
Embarrassment stung on my cheek like he’d slapped me.
Pure disbelief wrapped around my throat like a vise, stealing my air and making me dizzy. I wanted to do something rash, like slam my textbook on the desk, or scream, or hit him.
But I couldn’t do any of those things.
It wasn’tacceptablefor me to publicly explode on my professor when he ignored me.
Even if it felt like he was purposefully trying to make me think I was insane.
Am I making all of this up?
Am I truly losing it?
I shoved every single one of my feelings down, deep inside of me, locking them up tight in a box where they’d stay to rot. I walked out of the classroom, focusing on making my steps even, focusing on breathing through the knife in my chest. I sealed my mouth shut tight, pressed my lips together, angry sobs making a lump swell in my throat.
The thought that I might be imagining everything somehow hurt more than believing he was willfully ignoring me just to be cruel. Because at least in this scenario, he was being cruelto me. If I was wrong though, and he was beingnothingto me, if I was riding this emotional roller coaster by myself, convincing myself of things that weren’t true, letting him shred my confidence for no reason…
My mood was a black stormcloud, thunder and lightning and endless downpour.
I couldn’t bring myself out of it.
So I decided to find the one person who could match it, choosing my own further self-destruction over anything else.
Me :Are you busy?
Mason :Where are you?
Me :Come find me
Mason :I will. And then I’m installing a tracker on your phone
I walked across campus in long, angry strides, feeling almost sick to my stomach. This was the wrong decision, meeting up with Mason now. I was aware of that. I just didn’t care.
At least Iknewhe wanted to hurt me. At least the pain he inflicted on me was visible.
Thankfully, there was a bus stop at the edge of campus along the route that would bring me closest to the beach. I leaned against the metal sign pole, arms crossed, until the bus pulled up a few minutes later. The door whooshed open and I climbed on, taking a window seat in an empty row.
By the time we arrived at the stop I needed to get off at, my mood hadn’t improved one bit. It’d worsened.
I stepped off the bus, then walked down the sidewalk-less shoulder of the road until the gravel pull-off came into my sight. Mason’s car wasn’t there yet, but I trusted it would be soon. He knew where I was, even though it’d been almost two weeks since we’d seen each other.
The sky was getting dark, like it was about to rain.Good. I hope it does.
I jogged across the street, making my way around the rope fence blocking the cliffs, then carefully climbing down the rocks in my boots until I reached the beach. The tide was higher thanusual, water swooping high up the sand, leaving behind wisps of seafoam like embroidery.
My hair whipped around my face, the wind funneling wildly against the cliffside as it blew off the tumultuous sea. I lifted my eyes to the sky, watching the storm brewing, clouds colliding and darkening, rolling over each other like the waves below them. I stomped across the beach, then laid flat on my back on my favorite large rock.
This was where I was sitting when I first saw him.
This was where I was sitting when he found me the second time.
And now he would find me here again.
