The Secret Girl (Adamson All-Boys Academy #1) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,75

I have my tutoring session with Church, but he doesn't show up at the library, so I entertain myself by digging through the old yearbooks and trying to get a feel for the deep history at the academy. In one of them, I find some scribbled notes about secret tunnels beneath the school.

Huh.

Not sure if I believe the note or not. In any case, you couldn’t pay me to go looking for them. I hate closed, dark spaces.

I leave about thirty minutes later, Mr. Dave glaring daggers at me as I go. When I get back to the dormitory, I settle in my room with a book called Broken Wings, curled up in my bed until darkness takes over the sky outside my window.

I always try to time my showers around midnight, late enough that there's usually nobody in the bathroom, but early enough that I'm not a zombie in the morning.

This time, I take back all the extra soaps and shampoos I stole before. Sorta feel like an asshole now as I put them back on the shelves and sigh. I did take them to California with me, but Monica never gave me the chance to offer them up. My heart clenches painfully, and I sigh, putting my forehead against one of the shelves.

I miss my best friend more than I do my boyfriend. Is that messed up? No. No, that actually makes sense. Cody was just there, handsome, familiar, easy.

Pushing off the wall, I head into one of the personal stalls, changing out of my clothes and undoing my bindings, letting the white bandage curl on the floor by my feet.

The shower water is hot and feels so damn good, running over my skin and taking away my worries and fears along with it as it swirls down the drain. The marble bathroom is so lush and cozy, and without the laughter of boys in here, it feels private and comfortable.

I use my favorite shampoo, the lilac-rosemary one that I like so much, that I've also come to discover is Church’s scent of choice. It's not like there are a ton of options on the shelves as far as scent goes, but it's interesting that we've both settled on the same one.

As I turn off the shower, I hear a rattling sound, like someone's trying to get into my room. What the hell?

“This room's occupied!” I call out, wrapping a towel around myself and padding over to my phone. If I text my dad right now and tell him I'm nervous, he'll chain me to the bed in the guestroom. So while I'm not going to overreact, I'm prepared.

Whoever's on the other side of the door stops, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

But a moment later, the door comes flying open as Church kicks it in, his faux smile gone, his cruel, cold face locked on mine as he lifts up his phone toward me.

“I told you to leave the Jenica thing alone,” he says, stalking toward me as I back up into the shower area, my back to the white subway tiles, still warm from the water. “You'll wish you'd listened to me when every guy in the school has a picture of your micropenis.”

“Please, don't,” I whisper, pulling the towel tighter around myself. I'm so scared right now I'm fucking shaking. “You don't understand what you're doing.”

“My warnings are promises, dickface.” Church reaches out and snatches the towel, ripping it back with so much force that even though I try to hold onto it, it flies off, whipping between us and putting up a temporary shield.

As it flutters to the ground beside me, and Church's phone flash goes off, I see his amber eyes widen in shock.

There's this still, quiet moment between us, the only sound the drip-drip-drip of the shower head.

“What the … what …?” Church backpedals so hard and fast that he ends up tripping over my shower caddy, landing on his ass on the marble floor, eyes so wide they look liable to fall right out of his face. “You … you … you're …” He doesn't look like such a psychopath now, more like a confused teenage boy.

Slowly, I reach down and pick up my towel, my lips pursed tight, and I carefully curl it around my body while he sits on the ground and gapes at me.

“Please delete that photo,” I whisper, but my voice is hard and fierce.

He doesn't move though, just sits there and gapes at me while