Chapter Five
Caroline
Everything tastes like sawdust, including my favorite peanut butter toast.
I huff an agitated breath and cross our small kitchen, dropping it into the trashcan under the sink so Meeko doesn't get ahold of it. He'll have peanut butter spread across the entire apartment. He grumbles at me and flops down in front of the fridge to glare. He's so overdramatic.
I'm not much better.
I've been moping for the last twenty-four hours, missing Jared even though I shouldn't.
I can't seem to get him out of my head. How is it possible that the man who swept me off my feet is the same one who makes my sister's life miserable in class? No matter how many times I try to figure out how Jared and Professor King can possibly be the same man, the answer eludes me. I met Dr. Jekyll, but the whole world keeps trying to convince me that he's Mr. Hyde.
Was he just toying with me? Saying what he thought I wanted to hear to get what he wanted?
My heart keeps screaming no, but I can't figure out how the man I met is the same exacting professor who expects nothing short of perfection from my sister and her classmates.
"Have you heard back on your assignment?" I ask Kennedy when I look up to find her watching me from our small table. There's a gleam in her eye that's way too familiar. She's suspicious.
Apparently, I'm not very good at hiding my feelings.
"Not yet." She takes a bite of her cereal and then chews before speaking again. "I think Professor King is sick."
"Sick?" I stare at her, worried…greedy for any little morsel of news. I'm trying to do the right thing, but it's so hard. Staying away yesterday nearly killed me. If anyone had told me it was possible to miss someone this badly after one day, I never would have believed them.
"First, he was at the Ball," she says, swirling her spoon around in her bowl. "And then yesterday, he offered to write me a recommendation for the Braxton Literary Prize." Her green eyes are wide with a combination of surprise, suspicion, and confusion. "He said he thinks I have a real chance of winning it."
"He did?"
She blinks at me.
"I mean, of course he did. He'd have to be crazy not to see how talented you are," I murmur, striving for calm when I feel anything but. Just thinking about him makes my entire body light up and sing.
"Do you think he means it?" Kennedy asks, her voice soft.
Her worried question breaks my heart a little bit. Kennedy never asks for or wants anything. She's content no matter what she's doing. But she's dreamed about being a writer since she was a little girl. Winning the Braxton Prize would be a huge opportunity for her to get her work in front of the people who can change her life, without our father stepping in to assert his influence. It's so important to her to succeed on her own and not because our father pulled strings. This is her chance to do it, to prove to herself that she has what it takes to make a career out of doing what she loves.
If Jared doesn't follow through and hurts her…
No. There is no way I'm going to let that happen.
"He means it," I tell Kennedy, iron in my voice. If he thinks he's going to dangle this in front of her and then yank it away, he has another thing coming.