and cracking a raw egg on my neck.
“If you think that'll get me to like you, you've got another thing coming!” I shout as Spencer takes off down the hall with his hands tucked into his pockets. He turns around and grins, still walking backward.
“I'm not trying to get you to like me, Carson. I'm just trying to get you to suck my dick.” He shrugs again, and spins away while I stand there with my face burning.
“You'd only be so lucky,” Ross simpers, sneering at me as he elbows me aside and disappears down the hallway after his master. I bet if Spencer asked him, he'd drop to his knees in a heartbeat.
“Gross.”
I head back to the dorm with the twins as escorts, and settle into my room with a sigh. For months, I resisted putting any sort of personal touch on this place because I just assumed I'd be moving back to the West Coast. Now though … I've got five and a half months until graduation, and then an entire new year to survive.
Better get used to the place.
As I unpack some of my trinkets, I pull out a crystal suncatcher that my mom gave me, fingering the purple and blue jewels with a smile. Apparently, the amethyst and angelite stones help with anxiety, depression, and sadness. Giving it to me for my sixteenth birthday was a sweet gesture—I got nothing for my seventeenth from her—but it just goes to show how little she knows me. I don't struggle so much with anxiety or depression, those are her issues. Me, I have problems with self-worth, self-love, and fitting in.
Still, I stand up and go to hang the suncatcher in the window (despite the fact that there's definitely no sun, bleh) when the fishing line that holds it all together catches on the button of my blazer. One of the tiny crystals on the bottom snaps off and goes bouncing across the old wood floors before falling into a crack.
“Shit.”
I put the rest of the suncatcher safely aside on my bed, and get down on my hands and knees to see if I can't somehow dig it out. But it's way down there, beneath these huge old wood planks that are warped and distorted with age. Giant square-topped iron nails give away the age of the place, and it's quite clear it's been a while since it was sanded or polished.
Biting my lip in thought, I get up and dig around in my stuff until I find a big, metal nail file. This I wedge into the crack and jiggle around, and sure enough, it seems the floorboard's a tad loose. I pick and pry at it, but the nail file breaks long before the board ever comes up. It might be loose, but it's not about to magically pop off and reveal a secret, hidden chamber.
Sitting back on my heels, I try to tell myself it's just one crystal of many, and that it's no big deal. Only … it kind of is to me because my mom gave that suncatcher to me as a gift, and now … she's in rehab and too ashamed of what her life's become to even let me see her.
“I'm getting that damn crystal back,” I grumble, heading downstairs to the janitor's closet. It's supposed to be locked, but there's been a day or two here and there where Eddie the Janitor’s left the giant bolt hanging loose. I pray today's one of those days and give a huge fist pump like a total dork when I see it's open.
As I pass by the community corkboard however, another note catches my attention, and I'm suddenly reminded that there's not only an asshole on this campus who's willing to use a knife to intimidate me, but also knows my real gender.
I snatch the piece of paper from the tack and read it carefully.
Dear Eve,
You should have stayed in California.
Keep your head down and stay quiet.
I don't like nosy bitches.
Love, Adam
Chills shoot through my body as I clutch the piece of paper with its menacing words scrawled in purple ink. Whoever this 'Adam' guy is, his note has severely escalated its aggression.
“Jesus,” I groan, pulling the note against my chest. I go to the janitor's closet anyway, and dig out a crowbar and a hammer. Best case scenario, I get the floorboard up. Worst case scenario … I can use both items as a weapon.
I hurry back up to my room as fast