Page 7 of Bitter Lies

It wasn’t my intention to lose myself in that bed. It’s just as I lay there, staring at the damn wall, I was overcome with a powerful sense that no matter what I did, I would never see past my mistakes. And if that was my future, why get out of bed at all?

“How do you feel…”

∞∞∞

My first ever lecture as a college freshman just so happens to be Psych 101, and believe me, the irony isn’t lost on me. Maybe for my term paper, I can do a project on me, myself, and I? What better way to learn than via my own psyche?

Finding an out-of-the-way spot where I hope I can remain unnoticed, I’m disgruntled when a guy drops down beside me when there is a sea of fucking empty desks to choose from.

“Hey,” he says with a flirty smile, his dark eyes flashing, except the effort is lost on me because charming guys with cute smiles are the ultimate cons, and what lies beneath is often rotting and fetid.

“Hey,” I say, decidedly lackluster.

“So, psychology. I hope this course is easy. I just need a fucking break from the other shit.”

Smiling weakly, I arrange my pens on my desk, from largest to smallest, soothed by the symmetry because my heart is beating out of my fucking chest.

Somewhere along the way, when I lost who I thought I was, I forgot how to be an average human being, too. So even though he is essentially harmless, I don’t know how to make small talk or any talk at all.

Here’s the thing. What writhes beneath the facade is so ugly and dark, I’m not sure how he or anyone can’t see it, and it’s like a wall I can’t step past. Psych 101 doesn’t matter, and this guy doesn’t matter because nothing does when you’re trapped in the morass.

“How about you?” he asks, breaking me from my reverie.

“I’m hoping to discover why I cut myself at night and cry because nobody loves me,” I say dryly. To be clear…I’ve never cut myself, but it rolls right off the tongue anyway.

He blanches, pulling away with horror, and I stretch my mouth into a smile. That’s right, jerk, you can’t handle my brand of crazy, but he’s saved from responding when Griffin, of all people, drops in the seat on the opposite side of me, giving jerk a mercurial stare.

“Hogan,” he says with a chin dip.

“Hathaway,” Hogan says with a matching manly response.

Griff turns his pretty eyes my way coolly, and I stare back mutely, unsure how to process this new turn of events. Griffin hasn’t willingly sat next to me since we were in junior high, and the effort now stinks of something underhanded, but what can I do? Demand he move?

And since when does he have a class with me? Fuck.

His mouth curves into a devastating smirk, and I turn away, looking toward our professor with blurry eyes until I focus and blink.

Because fuck me, but my new therapist stands at the podium, gazing out over the sea of students only to stop on me briefly before moving on.

Sinking in my seat, I contemplate dropping the damn class and leaving immediately as Griffin chats with Hogan-of-the-unknown-first-name over me, his heated body so close to mine I’m actually warm from the proximity.

Is it even appropriate for this guy to teach here, knowing he could be counseling a student later?

“Okay, everyone, let’s jump in. I’m Doctor Joseph Marks, and I’ll be your professor for the term. Hopefully, you didn’t take this course for an easy A,” he chuckles, “because…”

Although I spend the next fifty minutes writing down notes, it’s by rote because I’m not hearing a damn thing he’s saying, and when everyone closes up, I do, too, slowly.

Hogan takes off with a mumbled goodbye, and I wait, but when Griff doesn’t rise from his seat along with everyone else, I glance his way curiously.

He’s sitting in his chair, with his bag in his hand, staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“To go,” he says impatiently. “This was your only class today, right? I’ll run you home on my way to the gym.”

---