Page 92 of Tempest

Ardyn

One week.

An entire week passes by with bare-bones glimpses of Tempest and one second meetings of our eyes in class.

I’d spent those seven days holding on to hope, going so far as to keep my ob-gyn appointment and go on birth control … and for what? To deepen my already unrealistic expectations of a relationship with him? To somehow assume that he’d want to sleep with me again, maybe in a bed this time, maybe with gentle love-making?

Dammit, my therapists would have a field day if they were aware of what I’m doing. I’m avoiding those bi-weekly calls in the same manner I’m avoiding my parents’. Shooting off short texts of, having so much fun! and I’m totally fine have satisfied them so far. It won’t last for much longer, especially if I continue down the delusional road of Tempest likes me.

No, he doesn’t. He never has. I dangled sex in front of him, and he took the bait. Now I’m left to pick up the pieces of my pride, all while looking Clover in the eye and pretending I’ve never seen her brother’s penis.

And here I thought I was doing better.

“Are you ready?” Clover asks behind me.

I tear my gaze off our droplet-splattered window (of course it’s raining on a night like tonight) and turn to face her. She’s dressed in an all-black ensemble with a Hensley shirt, a lace skirt, and leggings capped off with Docs platform boots. She grabs her leather jacket off one of her bed-posts, sliding it on, then pulling her ebony hair out from under.

I look down at my chosen outfit of boyfriend cut jeans, and a V-neck t-shirt knotted off at the waist. “Am I dressed right for this?”

“Meh, you’ll be fine.” Clover tosses me my wool peacoat. The nights are progressively chillier as we approach October. “No one’s at the cottage, and in this weather, only morons are out walking.”

“We’re the morons.”

“Yes, but with umbrellas!” She tosses me one of those, too. “Come on, we need to get moving before it gets worse. But holy shit, I’m so turned on. A thunderstorm is literally perfect for a sèance.”

“Yaaaay,” I murmur but follow with Clover’s duffel bag of goodies like a good little sèance partner.

We reach the bottom floor and push through the doors, stepping into the relentless wind and sideways driven rain. A flash cuts through campus the minute my shoes splash into a deep puddle, outlining the quad in stark white and black.

Clover shrieks with glee, and I’m left honestly wondering if she should’ve joined me in my institutional retreat.

We put our umbrellas together and start running, our legs soaked through within seconds and our path dictated by the sputtering glow of streetlamps and streaks of lightning. Now would’ve been a good time to ask Clover if we could drive. Still, I’d spent the afternoon nervously researching Anderton Cottage. One of the perks of living there was that it was off-road and impossible to get to by vehicle.

We’re the sole morons sprinting through the quad, past the shut-off fountain, and into the woods, trading asphalt for a sodden, muddy trail. This was the way we took on our first night at TFU, when freshmen were trading wishes for their blood, and Professor Morgan was strangely taking part in it.

Professor Morgan and his class requirements draw more questions than answers, but I’m the only one who seems to be confused. Clover’s absolutely in love with his theatrics, so I guess it’s safe to say that I’m the odd one out of how we earn a Titan Falls diploma.

The forest’s thick canopy shelters us from the worst of the rain. Clover turns on her phone’s flashlight and gestures for me to do the same. Soon, our bouncing circles of white light join in the sporadic mapping of our way to the cottage.

Rain should provide a soothing white noise. It always does when I’m lying under the covers and reading a good book. Here, though… I’m not at ease. Any animals living nearby have taken shelter. There aren’t any owls out to cast their mournful calls across the sky. Only the trees left to fight through the night, their gnarled trunks and twisted branches guiding us to our destination like skeletal arms and hands.

“I don’t like this,” I say.

“We’re almost there. Don’t wimp out on me now.”

“It’s too quiet.”

“It’s raining. There are thunderclaps above us. It’s not too quiet.”

“Doesn’t something feel off to you?”

“Other than my socks squelching in my boots? Nope.”

Taking a deep breath and feeling stupid, I let Clover take the lead.

A noise travels through the shadowy gaps of the forest and into my ears. A wailing of some kind. No—a keening. “What’s that?”

“Probably nothing. Or a wolf wondering where his next meal is.”

---