Gemma
The doorsto the library opened, and everything seemed brighter. My eyes found him immediately, and my heart fluttered. I’d waited all day for this. The entire day felt like some wicked form of foreplay for us. The fleeting, heated gazes. The subtle touches as I’d pass by in the hallway that hardly anyone would notice unless they were actively looking—like Bain. Isaiah and I decided to be cautious with each other. Even though we both knew what was coming, Isaiah wasn’t all for flaunting me around, and I felt the same. Bain still skulked in the shadows, neither one of us really knowing what his plans entailed, and with his threat about Richard, I was all for being careful. Plus, I liked when Isaiah and I were alone. Our guards were down, as if we were in a safety net.
I knew why he’d used Breanna that one day. I knew why he'd tried to push me away and hurt me. He wanted me to hate him. He wanted everyone to believe that there was nothing between us. I understood, and we’d come to a silent agreement over it. Some things just didn’t need to be said or explained because there were just too many uncertainties.
There had always been uncertainties in my life. For the longest time, all I saw when I looked to the future was Richard. I didn’t know what the future held, but I always knew Richard would be in it, controlling me, giving me just enough to keep me asking for more. He was a heavy presence in my life from such a young age that, up until recently, I couldn’t see past him. Richard Stallard, my presumed uncle, was like a thick wall placed right in front of my eyes, and if he was somehow involved with Isaiah’s father and Bain, I wanted absolutely no part of it. I didn't want to tip any scales, even if I did feel that things had changed within me.
I felt more myself now than ever. I was stronger, but that didn’t mean I was safe. Isaiah was right. I was smart enough to know when to leave. It didn’t make me weak to run; it made me smart. And I’d much rather be smart than stay and risk my life. Because that was what I would be doing if I stayed here, even for Isaiah. I’d be risking my life, because Richard had plans for me, and he knew when to cross his T’s and dot his I’s.
That wasn’t to say I didn’t want to stay, though, or that I forgot about the original plan between Isaiah and me from time to time—like when he and I were in our own little world. I couldn’t ignore the pang in my chest when I thought of leaving him. Before Isaiah became a constant in my life, I was exhilarated by the idea of a fresh new beginning. But now, I was no longer just leaving Richard when I ran away.
I was leaving Isaiah. Sloane. Mercedes. And I was leaving behind a safety that I’d never felt before and a life that I hadn’t seen coming. Like last night, when I was gathered around a bonfire with them. It felt so real and normal. St. Mary’s was more a home to me than Richard’s house ever had been, and it hurt to think of leaving it behind, especially when I was alone and I thought of Isaiah. He made me feel worthy and like I deserved more than I was given.
“Hey, you.” Isaiah sauntered up to the table, and I peeked up at him through my thick eyelashes. The second I caught his gaze, I felt the heat rush to my face, thinking about last night. And just like that, the dread disappeared.
“Hi,” I quickly said before my smile fell as Isaiah dropped a large piece of paper onto the library table and began unrolling it. I watched as his steady hand smoothed it out and realized right away that it was a map. I was pretty sure it was the same map that was hung in the headmaster’s office behind his desk. I would know. Each time I went down there for my weekly phone call with Richard, I would stare at the same place on the map so I wouldn’t have to see Headmaster Ellison’s wary gaze scrutinizing me.
“What's this?” I asked, pushing my journal into my lap. I’d caught Isaiah glancing at it from time to time as if he were curious of its content, but he never asked to see what was inside. Thank God.
“After tomorrow’s lacrosse game”—he glanced away from me at the last second, and my core instantly cooled—“I will be obtaining the last document you’ll need for your runaway package.”
My heart sank to the floor right along with my stomach. I swallowed back the bitter taste of disappointment and nodded my head. Thick tears formed in the backs of my eyes, but I sucked them back down, knowing this was coming. “Oh.” I cleared my throat as my fingers gripped onto the leather backing of my journal. “Okay, so...”
“So you’ll be leaving the following day.”
It only took a second for my eyes to fly to his. I opened my mouth to…protest? I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but I did know that it seemed like my entire body seized up and the room tilted. Sweat started to form on my back. “Right. Leaving.” I nodded, grasping onto the determination in his gaze, hoping it would give me the same strength he seemed to yield.
“You have to go the next morning, okay? After the game tomorrow, I’ll come get you from your room when the halls are clear. I’ll give you what you need and…” His voice trailed off, and he glanced away again. He stared behind me and looked down the aisle with his hands pressed firmly onto the table that separated us. “And then you need to leave.”
Something about the way he tensed made me question him. “Why the next morning? What’s so significant about the next morning?” I had a weekly phone call with Richard tomorrow night because that was when he returned home from his business trip. The headmaster had already informed me of such. I was to go to his office at 6 o’clock sharp, and I’d call Richard to give him an update on my time at St. Mary’s and tell him for the millionth time that I was following the rules and being the good girl that he had raised me to be, and then I’d sit with Headmaster Ellison for a little while and chat like we’d started to do over the last couple of weeks. There was another small gap forming in my chest at the thought of Headmaster Ellison. I was beginning to like him. The unexplainable bond I’d felt with him from day one only seemed to grow stronger with my time here at St. Mary’s. The familiarity of his presence was no longer a slight acknowledgment to me but more of a constant. He felt safe to me, too.
“Gemma.” Isaiah walked over to the side of the table and bent down beside me, resting the back of his legs on his heels. His cool-blue eyes peered up at me beneath his dark lashes, and my heart hurt at the conflict I saw. “Last night, before we went to the bonfire, you asked me if I knew something.”
I nodded gingerly as Isaiah’s head fell down, showing me his dark head of messy hair.
“I do. And I have something planned. Something big is going to happen, and I can’t do it until I know you’re gone and you’re safe.” My throat clogged at the cracking in his voice. I didn’t like seeing him like this. I didn’t like seeing him worried or conflicted or hurt. I didn’t like feeling the insecurity within him. My brows folded, and a tremor of fear coursed through me. Sometimes it surprised me when everything heavy was weighing on us again. It was so easy to lose sight of the mess we were in when he was in front of me. When he and I were alone, touching, looking into each other’s eyes, I lost sight of the main goal: leaving for safety. I would be free for the first time in my entire life, and that seemed so scary at times, because although I would never fully feel alone, I actually would be. I was a twin. It was like having your soul split in two. I could feel Tobias, not physically but emotionally, and I hoped that someday he would find me. But until then, I would be alone, in a world so much bigger than I ever imagined, without anyone. I’d be navigating the world blindly, running for my life with a new name, and I was pretty sure the only thing that I would be thinking about was everything good that I’d left behind.
I felt incredibly attached to Isaiah, and I knew that all the freedom I’d feel with getting away from Richard wouldn’t taste nearly as good because there was now something tying me to this school and this life.
I hated that I felt tethered to someone, and I didn’t want to admit it when I was alone, but it didn’t matter because my thoughts always came out on paper, and the last few times I’d lost myself to sketching, I’d found myself blending the charcoal until I got the perfect almond-shaped eyes that I was aiming for. The memories that I’d pushed away, the violence in my childhood—all of it—always came to me when I sat, mindlessly sketching. But things had shifted recently. I began drawing other things. Like Isaiah. And that was when I realized that I was hiding him, too.
My throat began to throb even thinking about it. So much anger and resentment was buried beneath my thick layers, and a big part of me wanted to tell Isaiah everything. He didn’t know all of it. He didn’t know the real reason I was running, and lately, there was hardly anything holding me back from telling him.