Towards the end of class, another wave of electricity walks up my arm and I turn, scanning the faces of the students, trying to pick out someone I don’t recognize.
There.
Is that guy wearing an earpiece?
Wait. There are two of them.
“Class dismissed,” drones the professor and everyone stands, blocking my view of the two men with curly little wires trailing down their necks.
I crane my neck to pin them down, but one of my classmates stops in front of me, a backpack slung over one of his shoulders. “Hey, uh…Scout, right?”
“Yes,” I say absently, still scanning the milling crowd of students.
“My name is Paul. I’ve been sitting behind you all semester.” I force myself to focus on the young man and nod, as if I recognize him, but unfortunately I don’t. Everything but the subject matter tends to fade away during a lecture. Usually, anyway. “I just wanted to say, I really liked your kinematics presentation last week.”
“Oh.” I give him a genuine smile. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He shifts on his feet. “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”
My immediate reaction is to say no. I’ve been asked out before, but I’ve always declined, reasoning that boys were too big of a distraction while in school. With Whitney working so hard to help pay my tuition, I owed it to my sister to be one hundred percent focused. That reasoning never occurred to me while I was with Easton. I’m pretty sure that makes me a hypocrite, doesn’t it? Maybe I should say yes to this guy.
No. I am going to say yes!
Rebellion roars to life inside of me, crackling in my fingertips.
I’ve just been dropped off like a sack of potatoes while the man I love moves on. Without so much as a goodbye kiss. Well I can move on, too. Perhaps there is nothing I really find attractive about my classmate, but the world isn’t going to end if we have a friendly cup of coffee. And maybe it’ll help me once again feel like I’m in control of my own destiny. My own decisions. There might be a significant part of me saying yes out of anger at Easton, but so be it. I’m heartbroken and pissed and craving a distraction from the bleakness surrounding me.
“Sure.” I pick up my books. “Coffee sounds good.”
Paul does a double-take. “Really?”
Already nerves are running a hamster wheel in my stomach, but I ignore them. “Yes.”
We walk out of the class and into the hallway, weaving through groups of students. Once again, I have the sensation of being watched, but I keep my eyes forward. Paul holds the door for me and we walk out into the quad, crossing a green field littered with more students. A bell tolls somewhere in the distance and the breeze makes me shiver, the urge to look over my shoulder strong. I focus on what Paul is saying, though. Something about our upcoming thermodynamics exam. And we eventually reach the small campus coffee shop and go inside.
We take a table in back and Paul leaves to order coffee at the register.
The lack of sound in the place makes me shift uncomfortably. I glance down at my arm and find every hair standing up. Casually as possible, I peruse the customers sitting at tables and over in the lounge area. Is it me or are there a lot of men here by themselves? One of them catches my eye and quickly looks away. What is going on?
No sooner has Paul returned with our coffees is there a loud crash.
The sound of the entrance door slamming off the wall.
And my breath begins to race. I wonder if I’m dreaming. Because there he is. There’s Easton, striding into the coffee shop in his long overcoat with eyes on fire. They cement me in place, my nails digging into the soft booth on either side of my thighs. He looks god-awful. Has he been trying to pull his hair out by the roots? The closer he gets to the table, the more I notice his eyes are like red marble, bloodshot and…angry. Livid, actually. Violent.
Betrayed.
Betrayed?
How dare he? How dare he have been so close this whole time, while I suffered? While he could have made everything better simply by appearing. How dare he leave me?
As he weaves through the tables, students elbow each other and whisper his name in awe, recognizing my gangster on sight.
No, he’s not my gangster anymore, is he?
I don’t notice the lit cigar between Easton’s fingers until he drops it into Paul’s cup of coffee, putting out the flame with a hiss. Then he leans down into my classmate’s face and bares his teeth like a wolf. “Run, motherfucker.”
“Yes, Mr. Brawn,” Paul squeaks, grabbing his backpack and sprinting for his life.
Easton watches my classmate haul ass toward the door. “Great choice, cutie.”