Page 101 of The Dollhouse

Classes were just as boring as I remembered them, and the day passed slowly. I did have one class with Willow that wasn’t a large lecture hall and was instead more of a classroom-type setting, so I ended up skipping that one, mostly because there would be no way she wouldn’t notice me in a smaller room like that.

Or maybe I was giving her too much credit. Who knew?

By the time I was done with classes for the day, it was already three in the afternoon. I decided to make a loop around Hillcrest first and walk to my parents’ house before heading back to Roman and Carter. There was no way in hell my sister would ever choose to walk, so I knew I didn’t have to worry about running into her on the sidewalks.

The houses were just as large and imposing as I remembered, and when I finally reached my parents’ property, my feet skipped to a stop, and I arched my head back, staring at the house sitting just behind a fancy metal gate. Nowhere near as tall or as large as the one that had surrounded the Scott property, but damn close. The rich needed their privacy, you know. How else would they get away with doing half the shit they did on a daily basis?

They weren’t saints. No one here was. And the worst thing was, their money guaranteed their freedom to continue doing whatever it was they did.

As I stared at my parents’ house, I wondered how the Oakes were doing, what they thought of Bryan’s disappearance. If they waited for him to come back, or if they’d written him off as a runaway. I might see them at a few of these events, so I had to be prepared, lest they try to talk to me and ask about their son. The son who was never going to come home again, because he was deader than a doornail.

And you know what? I still didn’t feel bad about it.

When I got back to the house, I told Roman and Carter my plan. It was only the first step, but we all had to start somewhere. We’d be going to the Dolores’ party, and I’d be seeing my sister just before it, when the last class of the day let out. Willow better prepare herself, because she had no idea what shitstorm was headed her way.

I had a break in between classes, right around lunch, and every day I followed my sister wherever she went. Some days she got food and ate outside on a bench, watching videos on her phone, but one day she met a certain cute boy for food in the student union, a boy I’d seen in the pictures Markus had taken.

He looked young, and judging from the fact he was in some of her pictures from orientation, I’d say he was also a freshman, that this was his first year at Hillcrest University, too.

I didn’t get food, instead choosing a table on the outskirts of the cafeteria, waiting for them to get their food, take a seat, and watch. If this was their first little date, or whatever you’d call this, I definitely needed to see it. He wasn’t in any of her classes, so they must’ve exchanged numbers at orientation or friended each other online. If I had to guess who slid into whose DMs, I’d say it was Willow.

The guy got something from the Chinese place while Willow got a salad. Yeah, a salad, as if that would fill her up. I knew my sister well enough to know she could pack in the food; she was only trying to look dainty in front of him, which meant she definitely liked him.

My teeth ground as I watched them. They were about fifty feet away, so it wasn’t like I could hear them or know what they were talking about. He seemed… not at all like Bryan, which made me wonder just what it was about him my sister liked. She’d always gone for the confident boys, the ones who took charge. This one… this one seemed kind of shy and unsure of himself, if his body language said anything.

I had a thought then that made me grin to myself: maybe Willow thought Bryan abandoned her, that she wasn’t enough for him and he’d just ghosted her. Maybe she was purposefully trying to get with someone else.

Pity. It wouldn’t work, anyway.

When they finished their little lunch date, they gathered their stuff and took it to the trash. I got up, trailing after them as they went to the front doors of the union. Willow spun, a smile on her face as she waved goodbye, and the guy grinned a stupid grin in response. I imagined he said something along the lines ofI’ll see you later, but it didn’t really matter, because after that, Willow was gone, walking out of the doors and into campus.

My eyebrows creased, and I wondered where the heck the guy was going, why he wouldn’t be walking out with her. And then I noticed he didn’t have a backpack, which I thought immediately odd. The guy turned and started walking away from the front doors, and I trailed after him, allowing myself to get closer to him now that Willow was gone.

And he walked somewhere I wasn’t expecting, doing something I also wasn’t expecting. He walked right into the student shop, went behind the counter near the register, and put on a nametag. The guy currently working the register said something to him, and he laughed.

I stood at the precipice of the shop, where it started, where HU clothing hung on racks and further back, extra textbooks sat in bookshelves. My sister was talking to a guy who had a job? Like, a real job, a job a normal person might have? This didn’t make sense to me. I mean, I knew people had to work the shops and at the eateries on campus, but for my sister to like someone like that just didn’t make sense.

It was so unlike Willow. So unlike the Willow I knew.

I checked my phone, glancing at the time. I had a little bit until I had to start walking to get to my next class, so I decided to mosey around the shop and act like I was interested in buying things. I wasn’t; God no, you couldn’t pay me to wear anything with HU’s logo and crest on it, but still. It was the easiest way to break the ice between me and mystery man. If I got close to him, I’d be able to see his first name, at least.Willow hadn’t tagged him online, maybe trying to seem not so eager.

My feet drew me deeper into the store, and I walked through the rows of books, pretending to look for something. I stood before the math books, a pensive look on my face. I heard footsteps, someone approaching me, and I hoped to God it was the mystery guy. I could only pretend to look for something for so long.

“Hey there. Can I help you find anything?” A male’s voice, a male’s voice that sounded pretty kind, all things considered.

I drew my eyes away from the books and landed it on the one who’d come to me. As luck would have it, it was mystery guy, and with a flick of my eyes to his nametag, I saw his name was Wyatt. He had reddish hair, cut short and combed back a bit, a little on the nerdy side. His eyes were a bright green, and his smile was perfect and warm.

Okay, he was even cuter up close. He reminded me of Lake, in a way. He so wasn’t the kind of guy my sister normally went for though, which confused me.

“Oh, no, I got it. I think. Thanks.” I sounded awkward and flustered, and that’s because I purposefully tried to be. Maybe he’d think it was cute. Unless he liked the confident girls, which could be possible—Willow was never the meek one.

He laughed softly, sticking his hands in his pockets. “You don’t seem too sure.” His emerald eyes flicked to the bookcase behind me, at the textbooks lining the shelves. “Looking for something specific? Our supply is actually pretty low, but if there’s a book you need and we don’t have it, I could always order it for you—”

I listened to his sales pitch, smiling softly at him. He was less than six feet tall, but still taller than me. I did not come from a family of tall people. When he was finished, I said, “No, that’s okay. I just… I waited until the first week of classes to see if I’d really need the books.” Never mind the fact that the bag on my shoulders currently held some textbooks already, but that was beside the point.

“Yeah, I think a lot of people do, which is why we’re already out of certain books,” Wyatt spoke with a shrug. He talked like he had a lot of experience, so maybe he wasn’t quite a freshman—that, or his coworkers had told him about previous semesters and how things usually went. He chuckled and added, “You sure you got it? You don’t look like you do. It’s why I’m here, you know. To help.”

My lips curled into a smile. “Thank you, I really appreciate it. I’m Zoey, by the way.”

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