Page 283 of A University of Betrayal

Another long pause.

The chances of him ever noticing me were small, but just thinking about it made my fragile heart race.

He knew me... had seen me before... And he didn’t know that I was the girl he had exchanged countless messages with, even slept with.

He didn’t know that I was carrying his child.

I had suppressed it, still hadn’t dealt with it. And by now, almost seven weeks had passed since we had slept together. I had hoped that this problem would go away on its own.In vain.

My skin felt clearer than usual, but for the past week I had been feeling nauseous every day, hardly keeping down any of the food I had shoveled into me after sudden hunger pangs. It usually happened after breakfast, so I waited to eat until everyone had left the house and skipped my first seminar.

After throwing up, I usually felt dizzy and slept for two hours straight, as if it had taken me so much energy to throw up all that food. I had also done some research and these symptoms were atypical for the first trimester, rather rare. But at some point, I had stopped researching because it didn’t help me to calm down. Quite the opposite.

It was a shame that I was living with it instead of doing something about it. But I knew what was to blame for my inability to do anything about it.

That inside me was Erik’s child.And something about it fascinated me immensely, made me feel less lonely when I cried myself to sleep every morning.

And whenever I saw my slight, barely visible baby bump in the mirror after showering, my hand would almost automatically rest on it while this warm tingling sensation ran through my body.

But what was I doing by allowing myself to be manipulated by these feelings when I knew full well that I would be a miserable mother? The thought alone overwhelmed me and brought tears to my eyes, despite the Salma.

What did he mean by that? Did the mayor’s family already have such a bad reputation?

Pause.

Erik hadn’t texted anything, but had stayed online.

Now he had surprised me.

And then I had surprised myself.

Pause. As if he had to think.

Ifheknew what kind of troubleIwould get myself into just to get Grace’s bracelet back.

Office Talk

Christopher Tyng

Now I was frantically running around the kitchen trying to calm myself down.

How could I have been so careless? Erik would be looking for me at the Winter Ball in a few days and would want to give me the bracelet.

Neither did I want to go to that stupid ball, nor did I want to be confronted with who Erik was. Just seeing him again would probably break me entirely.

“No,Amber, I cannotjust wear my prom dress. I absolutely can’t!”

Vivienna made herself a salad. Except that by now all the ingredients were flying around the kitchen – thanks to her elemental magic – and I was struggling to make my meal without a lettuce leaf flying into my bowl.

It had always been like this when Vivienna was upset. Things just flew around... and usually hit me when I was there. Even though she was wearing her crystal.

“But we won’t make it to Vancouver before the weekend,” Amber tried for the thousandth time. To no avail.

“I don’t care. I’ll find something. And you two...” She suddenly looked at Bayla and Larissa, who had been following the conversation for ten minutes, grinning. “Stop staring at us like that, you creeps!”

The two of them looked at each other with wide grins, and Vivienna rolled her eyes in annoyance. Then she mixed the salad.

“I’m telling you, if we don’t have anything by the Winter Ball, I’m going to freak out!”

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