Page 8 of Our Shattered Pieces
I went to side-step him, but he matched my move. “C’mon, Molly,” he whispered darkly. “It’s one class.” He stepped closer into my space. “And you know I can make itsogood for you, babe.”
Holding his gaze was hard.
Very fucking hard.
But Lorcan taught me at a young age not to show weakness when surrounded by bullies. He taught me how to defend myself and how to stand up for the meek. I wasn’t necessarily Joan of Arc, but I wasn’t completely weak either. Shame was my only handicap right now, but I could deal with that.
I could deal withhim.
“Get out of my way, Hackett,” I said. “I’m not interested, and even if I were, I still wouldn’t skip class.”
His eyes ran over my face, and it was almost as if he were thinking out loud when he said, “I can’t believe Harris let you get away. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
“Move,” I snapped, not caring about his opinion of me and Ethan or his opinion on my looks.
He threw his hands up in surrender and chuckled a bit. “Fine. Okay.”
The second he stepped to the side, I walked past him, prepared to put the entire encounter out of my mind, when he called out to me. Not wanting to cause a scene, I turned around. “What?”
“Maybe next time, yeah?”
I turned around and ignored his laughs trailing behind me. With only minutes to spare, I made it to my class, and it didn’t even bother me that I was stuck sitting in the back row. I seriously doubted I’d be learning anything this morning anyway.
Along with Ethan, Calvin Hackett and Sawyer Baker were the two other guys on campus that I’ve been trying to avoid. Where Ethan had brown hair and light brown eyes and Calvin had light brown hair with hazel eyes, Sawyer had blonde hair with bright blue eyes. And looking at all of them together, they looked like your typical All-American youth. Good-looking, fit, and smart, they looked like the perfect guys you took home to meet your parents.
But they weren’t.
They were far from it.
Ethan, especially.
And while I’d been fooled for a long time, my eyes were wide open now. And I saw life in a completely different light these days.
Since breaking up with Ethan, I’ve only seen Calvin once-just now-and Sawyer a couple of times, but only in passing. The first time, he’d been pulling into the student parking lot while I’d been heading to lunch with Gina. The second time, he’d been coming out of the library stacks with a gorgeous blonde, and when he had winked at me, I had turned around and left. The only consolation there was in all this was that Sawyer was also a senior at Berkeley, so he’d be gone soon, along with Calvin.
As for Ethan, I’ve done my best to avoid him, and it was rather easy since I knew his class schedule. However, it’s only been a couple of weeks since I broke up with him, and I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever. A part of me suspected that he might be giving me space, but if that was the case, he was wasting his time.
I’d never been so done with another human being in all my life.
But no matter what I thought of Calvin and Sawyer, they weren’t the ones who had betrayed me. They weren’t the ones who had sold my secrets. They weren’t the ones who had violated my trust. Sure, they were complicit, but only up to a point. Ethan was the one who had kicked this entire shitshow off, not them.
And as much as I wish I could go back in time, I couldn’t
I couldn’t undo what’s been done, and I was going to have to find a way to learn to live with it.
I glanced around at all the females sitting in class and I wanted to scream at them in warning. I wanted to tell them nothing was a guarantee, not even a ring on your finger. Phones got hacked all the time. People lost their phones and laptops all the time. Couple broke up every day, no matter how in love they might have once been. Sending pictures of yourself or videos was dangerous, no matter what.
You might feel safe sharing your secrets with the man you love, but if technology has proven anything, it’s proven that our secrets were never safe.
And, sure, there were laws in place these days against revenge porn and all that, but so what? So what if your ex-boyfriend or ex-husband or ex-friend gets fines or jail time? Your pictures and/or videos have still been seen by other people who were never meant to see you like that.
We trusted too easily and, these days, it was a hard lesson learned.
But since I couldn’t scream my warning in a room full of people, I did my best to clear my head and pay attention to Professor Stevens. I did my best to ignore my caffeine withdrawal and my encounter with Calvin Hackett.
I did my best to get a handle on my shit.
With Lorcan’s surprise visit this upcoming weekend, I had no choice. Knowing me the way he did, he’s going to know if something’s up, and I couldn't risk that.
