as I pounded down the stairs. It was annoying that he was the youngest, and yet had a history of being right about pretty much everything. He saw more than I ever wanted anyone to see.
Besides, I figured my world was already ash and embers, that there wasn’t anything left to burn.
I hated being wrong.
Ollie
I was even more rattled than normal.
Trying to concentrate in class made me so tense I was sure my shoulders were never going to unlock. Not only had the kiss with Huck made me feel ready to crawl out of my skin, but the change in Mercer’s behavior and the fact she was once again impossible to contact would cause me to grind my teeth to dust. The only time I saw her or spoke to her lately was in passing when I showed for my shifts at her store. She seemed even more distracted than she was previously, and she wouldn’t listen to my concerns about her alarming actions. She refused to listen to my warning about her problematic relationship; she even got mean and snippy and reminded me how clueless I was about love and relationships.
I wasn’t sleeping well on top of it all. I tried to force myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour after studying every night, but all I did was toss and turn, ears straining for the sound of the front door creaking open and the old floorboards squeaking to indicate Huck was home from the bar. Some nights, I caught myself holding my breath as the hours crept by into the early morning. The later he came home, the more graphic my imagination turned. Half the time, I envisioned him hooking up with any of the gorgeous girls on campus who made no secret about chasing him. The other half, I remembered his too-pretty face covered in blood like it had been the night of the accident, and I imagined all the terrible things that could befall him on his way home. Sleep remained elusive until I knew he was back under the same roof and that he was relatively safe.
Tonight was no different. I’d given up pretending to sleep a little over an hour ago and was lying in bed reading through an Introduction to Programming book I borrowed from Vernon. Since I was still in my first few years of college and mostly worried about staying alive and remaining one step ahead of Sawyer, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what I wanted to be when I grew up and was finally free. However, now that I was using everything my mother left me for my education, I needed to figure things out. I didn’t want to let her down. I wasn’t going to waste limited time and resources. Plus, the technical words and phrases in the book were far from exciting and helped make my eyes droopy when nothing else did the trick.
Vernon had asked if I had any interest in computers after he roped me into playing some online game with him the last time we’d been home alone together. While I didn’t really have any curiosity about the actual guts and mechanisms of computers, when I started to think about all the ways Sawyer had spied on me through digital means, I realized cybersecurity intrigued me. I never wanted any other young girl to feel violated the way I had been.
Stifling a yawn, I glanced over at my phone to look at the time. It was closing in on three in the morning, which was the time Huck usually came home. He always made it back before it was time to go for his regular morning run with Harlen. I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that my anxiety about his whereabouts was tied directly to a steadily growing jealousy when I thought about who might be keeping him out so late at night. I’d kissed him so I could have the upper hand. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It was supposed to be part of a bigger picture, but I couldn’t deny that I’d been feeling some kind of way ever since I’d gotten a taste of him.
One quick kiss with Huck impacted me more than the entirely unremarkable sex I’d stumbled through before. It felt better. It lingered longer. It was a memory I would do my best to hold onto, instead of one I actively worked to forget. He kissed me the same way he treated