that’d been painted of her by literally everyone who had known her in Roseland was the same—that of someone who had gone from loving and open to spiteful and full of hate. She’d gotten into drugs and alcohol, and I had to wonder if any or all of that was due to my dad’s influence.
But had she really been that cruel? Left such lasting marks on her one-time-friend’s psyche that the woman had eventually killed herself?
My stomach turned, and I had an overwhelming impulse to run back to my dorm, pick up the framed photo of my mom that sat on my desk, and stare at it until it gave me some kind of fucking answers. Not that I needed to see it—I knew that photo like the back of my hand, could picture it clearly in my mind’s eye. Her soft brown hair, so close in color to mine. Her hazel eyes, which were warm and thoughtful and just a little bit sad.
The woman in that photo didn’t look like a killer.
Then again, the Princes looked like fucking movie stars, and Jacqueline looked like a perfectly poised society lady.
Looks could be deceiving.
“That’s why Mason hates me. Why he didn’t want me here,” I breathed softly.
“Yeah.” Finn flipped on his blinker before turning onto the Oak Park campus. The grounds were quiet as he pulled into the lot. “It’s fucked up, Tal. The whole thing is fucked. Her death messed him up. He… he was the one who found the body. He was only eight.” He turned off the ignition and looked over at me. “But that still didn’t give us any right to fuck with you.”
I gazed at him, a thousand thoughts bouncing around in my head. Anger. Shock.
Guilt.
But that was fucking stupid.
Even if it was true, and my mom had been that awful to her friend, I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t even known about it. I wasn’t responsible for Mrs. Van Buren’s death or Mason’s pain.
“You’re right. It didn’t.”
I sucked in a deep breath as I finished speaking, suddenly finding it hard to get enough oxygen in the confined space of the car. My fingers scrabbled for the door handle, and I pushed it open, stepping outside into the blessedly cool night air.
Finn didn’t say anything else. He grabbed my bag from the back seat and carried it for me as he walked me back to my dorm. When we stopped in front of Prentice Hall, he looked down at me, his blond hair shining in the dim light.
He opened his mouth like he was about to say something else, then shut it again. One large hand reached up to brush a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering like he couldn’t quite drag himself away. Then he dipped his head and kissed my cheek.
“Get some sleep, Legs. Text me when you want to go back to the hospital, and I’ll drive you.”
His breath was warm on my skin, and with just the slightest of movements, I could’ve turned and claimed his lips in a kiss.
I wanted to.
Wanted to take some pleasure from him just like I had from Elijah, wanted to banish the confusion and pain.
But my mind was too full of roiling thoughts, and I could feel myself getting pulled back into the Princes’ world, into their orbit.
So I just let the heat of his kiss spread across my cheek and linger there as he pulled away. He handed me my backpack and watched me unlock the door before he turned and headed back toward Clarendon Hall.
Inside my little apartment, I headed straight for the bedroom and flipped on the bedside lamp. Now that I was here, I suddenly found myself unable to look at the photo of my mother, as if I was afraid of what it might reveal.
What kind of person had she been?
I changed into a pair of black stretchy pants and a soft, beat-up old t-shirt and brushed my teeth. Then I flicked the light off and crawled into bed, hoping my exhaustion would turn my brain off eventually and let me sleep.
But it didn’t.
A disquieting feeling of unease churned in my stomach, and I shifted from side to side, unable to get comfortable. The more I tried to relax, the worse the feeling became, and finally, I sat bolt upright, flinging the covers off.
Without letting myself dwell on what I was about to do, I pulled open a drawer in my desk and grabbed the maintenance man’s key