Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(101)

Trying to throw my words back at me he said, “Didn’t you though? When youdecided to run away from me to go bar-hopping with Devon and get so wasted you couldn’t answer your phone?”

“How did you know I was at a bar with Devon?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” he spoke with ice in his words. “Around 3 am, he started answering your phone to let all of your friends and your boyfriend, who had been calling you all night, know that you were with him!” he shouted. “I had to hear from some other guy that my girlfriend was safe. That HE would take care of you!”

“If Devon answered my phone, then you know that nothing happened with us and that he has a fiancé he loves.”

His surprised face showed me that he did have doubts whether I had done anything with Devon. No matter what he said, he still held my previous reputation against me.

“You are the most frustrating person ever! Don’t you understand? It’s not that I thought you were cheating on me. It’s that YOU WERE MINE! Not his. MINE, EMERSON! But in your time of need, you chose someone else over me.”

I felt like I had been slapped. A slap I deserved, nonetheless. The thing was, I hadn’t chosen anyone. I only went with Devon because I knew he wouldn’t make me talk. He just sat there all night quietly, while I zoned off into my own world and problems. It didn’t really matter if I clarified that for Jaxon anymore though, the damage had already been done.

I turned around and walked away. “Don’t follow me, Jaxon.”

*.*.*.*.*

This semester I had to take a class in preparation for my summer internship. It was all about what to expect and making sure we knew exactly what we were walking into. I learned that I was going to need an insane amount of vaccines. Quinn was going to have to come along for that because otherwise, I might chicken out. We also found out that we needed to fundraise for a significant amount of money; there were a lot of supplies the school offered to resource us with, but currently the program didn’t have enough funds to get everything. Professor Patterson was in charge of the internship. Since I felt relatively comfortable with him by now, I asked to speak with him after class one day.

I told him how I had come into some money lately that I really had no need for, and I wouldn’t mind in helping out the program. He was floored and very appreciative of my offer. He said that he wanted to try some fundraising techniques throughout the rest of the semester first to see if we could raise the money. If we didn’t reach our goal, I could come back and talk to him again about helping out. I hope he didn’t think I was trying to be a brown-noser, because that certainly wasn’t my intention.

Every time my mom had passed a collection jar for a charity, or passed a homeless person on the street, no matter what, she always tossed in money. Once I asked her why she didn’t just save that money for herself, since she could buy herself something nice if she just kept it. She simply replied that she didn’t need anything nice if there were still people out there that needed food or water. Every day she taught humbling moments and how we should appreciate every little thing we were given. I think she was the one who had inspired my future career choice. I was starting to understand why I never knew how well off my parents were. Thus, my discomfort with having the amount of money I had in my bank account. I knew that there were people out there that needed it and I had no idea how to begin to help them.

I asked Professor Patterson what his ideas for fundraising were. When he told me a few of them, I realized that while they would bring in a decent amount of money, but that they would never bring in enough for us to be able to survive in Africa. I suggested we have a Date Auction., one where we find a bunch of guys or girls and we auction them off for dates. I had heard about other colleges doing it before. He loved the notion and brought it up in class the following day. The students instantly became excited about the idea.