Journey
Home.
The smell of the glossy wax on the black-and-white-checkered floor brought me back to the one place I had considered home above all else. The scent of the dining hall that lingered to the front doors, past the headmaster’s office, filled my senses, and my stomach growled from hardly eating over the last few weeks. Wasn’t it funny how a smell could take you back to a memory, as if you traveled back in time to relive it? The scent and warmth of this old, dusty building propelled me to last May, when I felt untouchable and hopeful for the first time in my entire life. But now, home felt more like a burden. There were secrets here and memories that tarnished the good. St. Mary’s didn’t feel like home to me any longer.
I glanced over my shoulder as the wooden doors slammed behind me, shutting out the rest of the world—shutting out him. I knew Cade was looking at me. I could feel him from a mile away. I had always been able to feel him. I saw him when he came to the orphanage, too, and I almost opened the window to tell him to leave, but I didn’t.
Fear began to creep up my chest, replacing the cold I felt in my bones from winter with a burning heat of anger and confusion, which were the two most dominant things I’d been feeling since I was closed in a padded room at The Psychiatric Covenant Hospital. It was a hospital that allowed demented people to be in charge of patients who had no business being evaluated for a psych test. That place was so corrupt, and in exchange, it corrupted me, too.
“Journey?” I swallowed the memories and allowed them to scatter like the melted snow droplets from my boots over the floor. “Is that you?”
Headmaster Ellison rushed out the door and breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw it was me. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “Oh, good. I’m getting an alarm for that door as soon as the SMC approves it.”
The SMC—St. Mary’s Committee—held the power of this school in their hands. Every decision was run through them, and I briefly wondered what they thought of allowing me to come back here after finding me with my wrists slit in the courtyard last May. Surely everyone at this school was apprehensive with me walking the halls again, since they all thought I’d tried to kill myself instead of being viciously attacked like I’d said.
The headmaster turned around and waved me into his office, and I followed after him reluctantly, my wet boots squeaking over the floor. As soon as he sat down at his desk, I stood against the back wall and crossed my arms over my chest. “Gonna give the code for the new alarm to the Rebels? You know how they like to sneak out occasionally.”
Headmaster Ellison’s brows crowded as he eyed me cautiously. I knew what he was thinking. What happened to you? I was being snarky and completely unlike myself. Even admitting that I knew the Rebels—Cade, Isaiah, Brantley, and Shiner—and their rule-breaking tendencies was out of the norm for me. But Headmaster Ellison and I both knew that things had changed between us. Although, standing here looking at him as he rested his elbows on his cluttered desk, I knew that just because he and I were aware of the psych hospital and its underground “business” that landed many people in jail, not much had changed from the previous school year when it came to him. He was still as overworked as before, likely too deep into everything else in his life to really care much about the Rebels and what they did in their spare time—unless, of course, it had to do with a student being kidnapped and taken to the same place I had been kept for the last eight months.
“Let’s talk, Journey.”
I blinked, unmoving against the wall. “About what?”
Headmaster Ellison removed his elbows from his desk and clasped his hands together, eyeing me with something that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I swallowed a gulp and pushed back on the girl that I was before everything had happened. “You. I want to talk about you.”
I shrugged. “There isn’t much to talk about.” That’s a complete and utter lie. Headmaster Ellison had already made up his mind about me from the second he saw my wrists cut—just like everyone else at this school.
His eyebrow raised. “Journey–”
A knock on the door sounded, and our conversation was cut short. Headmaster Ellison straightened in his seat and smoothed out his wrinkled tie. “Come in.”
The door slowly swung open, and a head popped in. “Is this a good time? I gathered all my things.”
I know that voice.
Gemma Richardson—or should I say, Ellison—walked into the headmaster’s office, and I immediately scanned her from head to toe. Gemma and I had an unspoken bond that she probably wasn’t even aware of, but I was. When two people shared the same kind of trauma, it automatically linked you, regardless of if you acted upon it. It felt like I knew her, and I’d never even spoken to her. Maybe it was the fact that I was so close to her twin brother, Tobias, who I hadn’t seen in several weeks, but there was something about Gemma that I felt connected to. And with the way she was staring at me, like she could read everything going on inside my head, I think she felt it, too.
Gemma eventually cleared her throat, and we broke our eye contact. I still stayed leaning against the far wall, right beside an overly full bookshelf, if there was even such a thing. Gemma was wearing dark jeans and had on a black hoodie that made her green eyes even more vibrant than I remembered from that stark-white room I found her in several weeks ago.
“Oh, great.” Headmaster Ellison stood up and rounded the desk, showcasing his gentle smile that I’d seen a time or two in the past. “Do you want the key to your new room?”
I glanced at their exchange. “New room?”
Gemma peered over her shoulder, encasing the same exact smile that her father shared. “Yes, I’m moving down the hall so you can have your old room back.”
My heart thumped hard as blood rushed to my fingertips. “No!” I shot away from the wall and felt my legs wobble.
The headmaster and Gemma shared a questionable look as a set of keys lingered in between them. They jingled as the headmaster’s fingers tightened. “No?”
Gemma turned all the way around, giving me her full attention. “We thought you may be more comfortable in your old room with Sloane. Is that not the case?”
I felt the blooming of anxiety but tried to keep my face as even as possible. I was proud of the way my words flowed with ease out my mouth. “I would like to have my own room, if that is possible.” I shifted my gaze to the headmaster, and I knew he was trying to figure me out, just like those doctors—who I was certain had cheated on their MCATs—did at the psychiatric hospital. Were they even real doctors? They couldn’t have been.
“Are you sure?” Gemma asked quietly. There was a sweetness surrounding her, and it was really no surprise that Isaiah had fallen for her. She was pretty and had a softness to her. She was completely opposite of her brother, Tobias—at least the version I knew of him.
“I’m sure,” I answered.
“Can I ask why?” The headmaster raised his chin, waiting for my answer. I didn’t blame him for being so curious. Last we saw each other, I’d had blood all over me and was in and out of consciousness. For all I knew, he was placing me with Sloane because he thought I was going to fall into old habits. After all, everyone at St. Mary’s assumed I had tried to kill myself. What else should he have thought? I didn’t blame him or anyone else for their assumptions. I knew he came from a place of concern.