Page 2 of The Vengeance You Crave
The second someone pushes the back door open casting a bright glow across the parking lot, my eyes snap toward it, praying that it's time for her to leave.
When it's not her, but a guy taking some trash out, my teeth grind in frustration.
I need her. I need my fucking fix.
I've never been addicted to anything—okay, maybe the game—but this is different. This incessant need for her, the excitement about seeing her wide, fearful eyes when I finally catch up with her. Fuck. It makes me feel more alive than I have in weeks and I fucking love it.
I've lost everything else, but this, this right now, is mine and only mine.
I have the control when I reveal myself. I have the control with what I do and what I say for when that happens. No one can take this away from me.
2
Peyton
Ichew on my nail as I sit in the parking lot watching the other students around me head toward the buildings ready for their first classes of the day. But I'm frozen. My stomach is in a tight knot with fear racing through my veins.
I'm a mess. Everything is a fucking mess and nothing makes sense other than wanting to hide. But that's not who I am. I'm stronger than that. Mom raised me to face my demons and to tackle them head-on, not to run like others… like her.
I lower my hand when I have no nail left to bite. It's a habit I thought I cracked in high school, but with everything that's happened in the past couple of months, they're as red and sore as they've ever been.
However, this could be the worst decision I've ever made in my life.
I know that Aunt Fee is right, that I can't just turn my back on everything I've achieved so far, but starting here, at MKU where I know he is. It already feels like a disaster waiting to happen.
As I stare at the smiling students as they catch up with their friends after the holiday break, the dread only gets heavier in my stomach.
I think back to Christmas Eve at The Locker Room and the look in Luca's eyes when he realized it was me. I expected the shock the first time he laid eyes on me again, but what I had hoped was that he'd have moved past what happened between us before I left Rosewood all those years ago, but the second his shock morphed into anger I knew it was only wishful thinking.
I blow out a long breath, my fingers wrapping around the steering wheel in front of me.
Maddison Kings University is huge. The chances of me bumping into him are slim. That knowledge is one of the reasons why I allowed Aunt Fee to convince me to fill out the transfer papers.
"You can do this," I tell myself. "Mom would want you to do this."
With my head held high, I climb from my car, dragging my purse with me and throw it over my shoulder.
I studied the campus map before leaving the house this morning so I think I know where both of my classes today are.
The huge, imposing Westerfield Building looms before me as students funnel through the huge double doors at the front. All my classes this semester are here. Seeing as I was starting over, I decided to make my life as easy as possible and choose classes in my comfort zone. English.
Reading and writing have been the only things that have allowed me to get out of my head these past few weeks, and without them, I have no idea how I could have come through it all.
As the majority of the students inside head for the elevator, I go for the stairs. I don't have time to work out so I've got to get exercise in, wherever I can. My job requires me to be in top form because my boss is a pig and I can't risk losing it.
He's already taken a risk by allowing me to start working before I turn twenty-one, the last thing I need to do is piss him off by adding an inch to my waist.
I make quick work of the two flights of stairs and I'm soon approaching room 305 for my morning class. I follow the other students inside and find myself a seat about halfway back.
I scan every face as I climb the stairs. I don't know why I bother, I already know he's not here. I'd feel it if he were. Just like I did that night.
I felt his presence as I worked the room, clearing empty glasses and taking orders, but I refused to turn around and discover who was causing that kind of reaction within me. Nothing good could come from someone paying me as much attention as I knew the man behind me in the shadows was.
When Bry, the bartender, passed me over his order, I almost refused to take it over. But knowing I didn't have a choice if I didn't want to draw attention to myself, I swallowed down my apprehension and turned his way.
I knew that at some point it was likely to happen. I wasn't going to move to his territory and get away without him finding out. But this was the last place I was expecting to discover the ghost from my past.
I applied for the job on a whim, thinking it was probably one of the only places surrounding the university where students might not hang out. How wrong was I because not even a week into my position and there he was. My old best friend, the boy who used to know me better than I knew myself, was sitting there mentally imagining all the ways he could make me leave as fast as I had the last time.
