Twisted Love (Twisted, #1)(81)

Helpless. Unmoored. Unable to breathe.

“Your birthday’s coming up. We should celebrate.” Bridget switched topics. “How about a spa day? You love massages, and it’ll be on me.”

I shook my head.

“Or maybe something simple like a movie night?” Stella suggested. “PJs, junk food, junk movies.”

“Movies so bad they’re almost good,” Jules added.

“Okay.” I didn’t feel like celebrating, but I also didn’t feel like arguing, and they would bug me until I agreed to something. “I’m going to take a nap.”

I didn’t wait for them to answer before I pushed my chair back and went upstairs to my room. I locked the door and climbed into bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I’d stopped having so many nightmares after I regained my memories, but it was now my waking hours that I dreaded.

I lay in the dark, listening to the rain outside and watching the shadows dance across my ceiling. The past two months had both flown by and dragged on, with each day bleeding into the next in an endless sludge of numbness. Yet I woke up every morning, surprised I’d survived another day. Between Michael’s and Alex’s betrayals, I had depleted my capacity to cry.

I hadn’t shed a single tear since I returned from Philadelphia.

My phone pinged with a new email notification on the nightstand. I ignored it. It was probably a stupid ten percent off coupon for something I didn’t need.

Then again, it wasn’t like I could sleep, and the sound lingered in the silence.

I sighed and grabbed my cell, opening the new email with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on their way to Death Row. It was the orientation package for the WYP fellowship, complete with a calendar of classes and activities for the year, a list of housing suggestions, and a mini travel guide to New York City.

I was graduating and moving to Manhattan in May. It’d been my dream since I was thirteen, but I couldn’t summon a flicker of excitement at the prospect. New York was too close to D.C. for comfort, and to be honest, I hadn’t picked up my camera in weeks. I even canceled my engagement shoot with Elliott and his fiancée because I didn’t think I could do them justice. He’d been disappointed, but I’d steered them toward another photographer who could help. My clients deserved better than what I could give them because at this point, I had zero inspiration or motivation to shoot.

I was entering the world’s most prestigious fellowship in two-and-a-half months, and my creative well was drier than the Kalahari Desert. One more beautiful thing in my life, ruined.

Out of nowhere, fury blasted through me, shocking me out of my stupor.

This should’ve been the best, most exciting time of my life. It was my senior year, and my dream program had accepted me. Instead of celebrating, I was moping like a…well, a heartbroken teenager. And even though that was half correct, I was sick of it. Sick of letting men who didn’t give two shits about me have this hold over me. Sick of being the object of pitying looks and worried whispers.

Maybe I was that person in the past, but not anymore.

Anger and indignation rushed through my veins, compelling me to get out of bed and rifle through my drawers until I found what I was looking for. I put it on, covered it up with a hoodie and jeans, and shoved my feet into boots. I walked down the stairs and found my friends huddled in the living room. Rhys stood in the corner, stone-faced and watchful.

“Do you want a ride somewhere?” Bridget asked when she saw my outfit. “It’s pouring outside.”

“No, I have an umbrella.”

“Where are you going?” Stella asked. “I’ll go—”

“It’s okay. I have something I need to do—alone.”

A small frown took over her face. “I don’t think—”

“I mean it.” I took a deep breath. “I appreciate all you guys have done, I really do, but I need to do this for me. I won’t hurt myself or do anything crazy. I just need you to trust me.”

There was a long silence before Jules finally broke it. “Of course we trust you,” she said softly. “You’re our best friend.”

“But if you need us, we’re here.” Bridget’s warm, sympathetic gaze caused a messy knot of emotion to form in my throat. “You don’t have to do anything alone if you don’t want to.”

“Just send a text, call, carrier pigeon, whatever,” Stella added. “My Instagram inbox gets crazy sometimes, but that works too.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and huffed out a small laugh. “Thank you. I’ll be back soon. Promise.”

I grabbed the umbrella by the front door, feeling the heat of my friends’ worried gazes on my back, and stepped out into the storm. My boots squeaked on the wet sidewalks as I walked toward a campus building I’d never visited in all my years at Thayer. One, because I was lazy, and two, because I was afraid…of a certain room, anyway.

I swiped my student ID at the front desk and consulted the map before winding my way to the back. It was a rainy Sunday in March, so there weren’t many people here. The New Year’s Resolution people, the ones who’d vowed to exercise more in the new year, had given up by now, and the gym rats were apparently taking the day off.

I pushed open the door to the pool room, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw that it too, was empty. It was a gorgeous space, with pale tile floors and a giant skylight over the pool.