Until Alex - J. Nathan Page 0,23

didn’t get the memo. Our boy Hayden never calls. One night’s all you’re ever gonna get. Hope it was memorable.”

He and the other two burst into laughter. Hayden didn’t. It was like he couldn’t fathom why I stood before him. Like he didn’t know I’d be there. Like he didn’t know me at all.

I glared into his distant eyes, mine narrowing in frustration. “Are you gonna speak?”

The muscles in Hayden’s jaw clenched. His eyes grew darker, colder. “Sorry, darlin’.” The deep voice that came out of his mouth didn’t even sound like his. He averted his gaze, his eyes scanning the flow of human traffic behind me. “I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

I stared up at him, my eyes flaring. Was he freaking serious?

I spun around, hoping his comment was directed at someone behind me. But the only people there were girls who’d slowed to witness the bizarre scene unfolding between us.

I shook my head, both in bewilderment and total disgust. Screw this. I took off without turning back, walking away with as much of my pride as I could muster. I didn’t need that from him. I didn’t need it from anyone. He knew who I was. He was the one who neglected to mention he was still in college. The same college I’d be attending where I didn’t know a single soul.

I’d been honest when I told him I didn’t believe our first meeting had been a mere coincidence. That he’d been placed in my life for a reason. But as I raced away from the humiliating scene, with shaking hands and heated cheeks, I realized I’d never been so wrong about anything in my entire life.

* * *

I entered the sunlit dining hall, needing to grab something to eat before my fourth and final class of the day. Its floor to ceiling windows provided a beautiful panoramic view of the campus. But the view inside is what stopped me in my tracks. Until that moment, I had no idea what being in a room full of strangers felt like. Sure I attended UT with fifty thousand other students. But never once did I feel alone when I had my girls and Preston there.

But now, with only three thousand students, I felt daunted by the unfamiliar faces. The tables already occupied. The friendships previously established.

My head whipped around, trying to locate a vacant table in the corner. A leggy blonde in a pink top and short jean skirt stopped in front of me. “I’ve been dying to meet you all day.”

“Me?” My skeptical eyes widened as she linked her arm with mine and tugged me to a table in the front of the room.

“Yeah, you.” She flashed a huge smile accentuating her perfect white teeth. “You’re all anyone can talk about.”

“What? Why?” Leaving me no other option, I sat down on the seat beside her.

“Well, honey, first off, you’re hot. Second, you drive an amazing car. And third, that scene with Hayden. Did you get him confused with someone else?”

I thought back to our encounter. The distance in his eyes. The hasty way he dismissed me. The way he allowed his friend to talk to me. “Yeah. I definitely thought he was someone else.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALEX

The only thing I wanted to do after my exhausting day was curl up in bed and forget it. Hence my spot under my paisley purple comforter. The one that matched my purple walls still smelling of fresh paint. I knew my aunt wanted to make me feel at home. And I appreciated it.

What I didn’t appreciate was feeling like a rag doll pulled in a million different directions. From the people who wanted to show me to my history class to the questions about UT and why I transferred, I felt suffocated.

I knew I didn’t have to hide my past. But if people knew the truth—knew the real reason I’d come to town with nothing more than my dad’s car and a suitcase—I’d be forced to deal with the pity in their eyes and their empty sympathies when they had no clue how it felt to be me.

A knock on the living room door pulled me from my thoughts. I threw the comforter off my head and listened for my aunt’s footsteps. The infinite silence indicated I was alone.

Ironic.

I dropped my bare feet to the hardwood floor and waited, hoping they’d give up and go away. But the knocking continued.

I glanced down at my wrinkled clothes, the ones I didn’t bother