Page 61 of Lords of the Campus

I’m reminded of something. “The campus police want a statement from you tomorrow,” I tell her. “Well, later today,” I add, checking the time on my phone. “You should get some rest.”

“Do you mind if I stay here?” Lyric asks. “I paid Annie to babysit Eli, but she was only supposed to be there until one.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Archer says smoothly, reaching for his phone. “We’ll go get Eli and bring him here so he’s with us.”

Lyric nods, looking more out of it again. “I’m going to close my eyes,” she says, lying back against the pillows. The drugs will probably make her forget everything that she told us tonight, but they won’t make us forget.

Just before she starts to drift off, she looks up at me. “I tried to write you,” she says softly. “All of you. I wrote you a dozen letters, but when I asked your parents to send them to you, they refused. I wanted to talk to you, but no one would tell me where you were sent. No one would let me speak to you.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. She did everything she could, but we blamed her anyway. Fuck. We were the villains in this story, after all. “Don’t worry about it anymore. It’s all over and done.”

“Can you ever forgive me?” she asks, voice soft.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” I tell her, staring off into the distance as a lump rises in my throat. “There’s nothing at all that you need to be forgiven for. It’s our fault and I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, Songbird.”

But when I look back down at her, she’s passed out again. I know that there’s a long road ahead of us, but it’s up to us to take the first steps now. I don’t even know if Lyric can ever forgive us for all the shit we did to her.

But I’m determined to try. I’m determined to do whatever it takes to earn her forgiveness.

35

ZANE

Lyric is finally asleep, breathing even and calm, a stark contrast to the turmoil she’s endured tonight. We sit quietly in Archer’s room, moonlight filtering through the blinds. The air is thick with tension, the three of us not ready to admit to how badly we fucked up.

Archer finally breaks the silence, his voice low. “We got it all fucking wrong,” he says, regret in his words.

Levi nods, his eyes haunted by the weight of Lyric’s confession. “Yeah. Everything we thought we knew was twisted up. We were ready to blame anyone but ourselves and Lyric is the one who got caught up in our bullshit.”

I stare at Lyric’s sleeping form, the guilt gnawing at me. “God, we’ve been such assholes.”

Archer runs a hand through his hair, frustration coming out as he stands up, pacing the length of the room. “We never gave her a chance to explain and now we’ve ruined her life.”

“And put her through hell,” Levi adds, a rasp in his voice. “We have to fix this, Archer. Make things right.”

I take a deep breath. “Yeah, we do. We owe her that much, at least. We’re going to fix everything we did. All the bullshit, all the torment, it’s all gone now.”

“We’re going to step up and be there for Eli now, too,” Archer says, determination crossing his features. “We’re dropping the custody battle shit. And we’ll undo the damage we did to her reputation.”

Levi’s eyes meet mine and I see the same resolve mirrored in them. “We’ll make it right. For Lyric and our son.”

As Lyric sleeps, unaware of our newfound resolve, I feel a glimmer of hope. We’ve got a long way to go, but for the first time in a while, it feels like we’re on the right path.

The three of us make a plan for how to fix everything, starting with making sure that Cameron pays for what he did to Lyric. Archer makes a strategic phone call to the family lawyer, and Mr. Bryce promises to take care of things, no questions asked.

While Archer is on the phone, Levi and I head to Lyric’s apartment to pick up Eli, giving Annie a generous bonus for helping us out with an emergency.

We bring Eli back to the frat house and he snuggles up with Lyric right away, falling back asleep immediately. Relief washes over me as I watch him sleep, grateful that he’s too little to understand everything that’s been going on. At least it’s one less thing to worry about.

My chest aches, a knot growing inside. We fucked up so badly. We promised to never hurt Eli and we broke that when we threatened to take custody away from Lyric. I can’t believe we were so wrong about everything. I couldn’t see past my own hurt to see that the person I should have been angry with was myself.

All that bullshit we put her through, all the pain, the bullying and torment, it isn’t right. We have to do whatever we can to fix this.

Levi elects to stay behind and watch over Eli and Lyric while Archer and I head out to remove all the flyers that were posted around campus, the ones that labeled Lyric as the “Alpha Lambda Slut.” As we walk across campus, tearing down the malicious posters, I can’t help but notice the stares from passing students, eyeing us with a mix of curiosity and judgment. It's like they're more interested in our actions than the trash we're removing.

Archer yanks another flyer off a bulletin board, crumpling it in his fist. “We should’ve done this a long time ago.”

I nod, my jaw clenched tight. “We could have destroyed her future and we didn’t even give a shit. Have we become the people everyone thought we were?”

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