Page 62 of Wreck Me

9

~Skylar~

Caleb had certainly called it about what had awaited our arrival at Luxe earlier this morning.

There’d been a circus all around me as we’d approached the Science and Technology building. Caleb had wrapped his arm around me in a clear message to back off to the crowds of students who’d been getting too close before he’d done that. He’d walked me all the way through the building toward my class, even though he’d been making himself late to one of his classes that was nowhere near where mine were. He’d deflected all the questions they’d thrown my way and answered some too. While it hadn’t been negative attention and all the Luxe students that had been there last night weren’t supporters of Vicars, any attention to me was bad. I didn’t like the notoriety. It made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like people knowing me. It was part of the reason I was a freaking loner. The other reason being my whole Onyx persona, where allowing people close would have interfered with that or even jeopardized them.

Although that was clearly about to be tested now.

This whole trust thing and agreeing to let Caleb help me, would mean I’d have to allow him in, them in. One step at a time, I figured.

I didn’t like the idea of relying on anybody, because that could quite easily lead to vulnerability.

But after what had happened last night, I needed to do something to control all of that better. I mean, I’d passed out, anything could have happened. I’d basically been at the mercy of Sebastian and Caleb’s kindness last night. Fortunately, they’d actually come through and helped me out. But it could have gone the other way. I could’ve woken up anywhere, for fuck’s sakes.

I’d seen a brief glimpse of Sebastian this morning when he’d swept out into the hallway and drawn the attention of the crowds around us by offering up photos with him for them to post all over their social media. That was usually a strict no-no, according to Caleb. Everything centering around Sebastian’s public persona and what was put out there, including to social media, was controlled to a crazy extent. It had something to do with him falling off the wagon. I didn’t know all the details and when I’d lived here during that time, I hadn’t paid attention to any of that. Their social elite world had been kept far away from me by my parents and I hadn’t had any interest anyway. I’d been fully-immersed in trying to get into the institute too. I’d basically been living here, but I hadn’t really been here in mind or spirit.

Trying to replicate that with coming to Luxe hadn’t exactly worked.

And after last night, it was safe to say it wouldn’t be allowed to going forward.

The boys wanted to pull me into their world, a world that was a lot more than the trust fund brat surface, one they hid from the outside.

And while I wasn’t fool enough to think Caleb was offering to help me out of the goodness of his heart, I’d taken the offer because I was worried about that fucked-up part of me taking me over after last night, and also because it would put me in their space. While I hadn’t wanted that initially, it had become clear that they weren’t going to leave me alone.

So this way it stopped their dangerous pursuit and would hopefully cool them off in the process, while also putting me in a position to discover what they were hiding, what they really wanted from me.

Hopefully, I could determine that before I had to open up too much, or give them too much of my trust.

I knew one thing for sure, though.

No matter what they wanted from me, I wouldn’t allow myself to become their fucking puppet.

I blew out a breath, getting aggravated by the whole thing, and the work I was trying to figure out in front of me.

I took another sip from my extra-large black coffee, something I needed after last night, and then put it down on the round vibrant-orange table, and resumed trying to figure out the mess before me.

All the tables in the on-campus café had vibrant colored table tops. There were even a couple of oversized couches that were a rainbow pattern, basically bringing all the colors together. I sat up at one of the two-seater tables in the far corner, my hood up to help me zone out from the hustle and bustle all around me as the lunch time rush got underway. I had to get this task done before my next class in an hour, before I faced yet another class that tried to prove to me how out of my depth I was with all of this. Even the design studio element had become a problem and tiresome because there were so many restrictions and rules to remember. You couldn’t just create a beautifully aesthetically pleasing house or building that was a work of art, because there were constraints like materials, load-bearing this and that, issues about window placement and how much light needed to filter into each space, a whole load of things.

When I started bringing out my eraser and using that more than my pencil, I gave up and pushed it away. At least for now. I needed a breather.

I pulled my sketchbook out of my bag and I’d just placed it down on the table, when a shadow fell over my immediate area.

I jolted as I looked up to see Sebastian now standing there.

He had his messenger bag slung over his body, a coffee in one hand and a wrapped sandwich in another. He gestured at the chair opposite me. “Mind if I sit?”

A part of me wanted to tell him to go to hell—the self-preservationist part.

But the other? That other was a little bitch and let curiosity and something a whole lot more dangerous take the wheel.

“Sure,” I was telling him then. Dammit.

He smiled and hung his bag off the chair, then put his coffee down and sat, starting to unwrap his sandwich.

“Has anybody bothered you since this morning?”

“No. It’s been fine. Maybe a couple of quick looks and grins here and there, but that’s the extent of it.”

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