by Ivy Smoak
I just need you to know that I don't forgive you. Because you never did anything wrong, so you don't need my forgiveness. And you deserve everything I could never give you. Live your life for me. Just because I don't get any more heartbeats doesn't mean your heart has to stop beating too. Live the life I couldn't.
And if a part of you still remembers me when you look at the stars, let it be the smallest part. Let it be the smallest constellation in the sky on a late night in September. And let it slowly fade away as the seasons change.
I wiped away my tears and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, but there were no stars in the sky. New York City at its finest. I folded the letter back up and slipped it in my pocket. My situation hadn’t changed. I had wanted Miles to forget about me. He had his whole life to live. If I got what I wanted, I’d end up behind bars. I didn’t want him to be part of that.
Besides, he was moving on. I needed to stay lost. I was just about to walk away when someone stepped out of the dorm building.
I grabbed the handle before it closed and slipped inside. What am I doing? My mind was saying one thing, but my feet were guiding me on the familiar path. I had walked up these stairs so many times, but tonight felt different. It felt like I was actually saying goodbye.
I just needed to see if he was okay. Hear if he was okay. I’d put my ear to the door, hear him laughing or something, and walk away forever. Easy peasy.
I opened up the door to my old floor. It was deserted. I stopped outside of Miles’ door and was about to press my ear against it when I heard laughter. But it wasn’t Miles. It was female laughter.
“Shut up!” She laughed again. “Tell me you’re not serious?”
And it was like my hand had a mind of its own. I needed to see who Miles replaced me with so easily. I just needed to know. The sound of my knock echoed in the empty hall.
The door flung open and the same blonde I had seen him with at the beginning of the semester was standing in front of me. Her hair was in a messy bun and she was wearing workout clothes. She was tan and fit and beautiful. And I felt ridiculous all bundled up with my hat pulled low. With my dyed blonde hair. I freaking hated my hair this color.
“Um…I’ll call you back in a sec,” she said into her cell phone and then pulled it away from her ear. “Can I help you?”
“No. I mean…” I looked past her into the room. It was decorated with all her crap. Posters of pop stars and a pink rug. Not only had Miles moved on but he had removed his posters of the constellations. Just like I stopped wearing the Sagitta pendant. I was wearing it again now and it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. “Is Miles here?” I blurted out before my brain could kick into flight mode.
“Miles?” She looked confused for a second. “Oh, Miles Young? The old R.A.? No, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
I wasn’t expecting that response. So they weren’t dating? The necklace felt a little lighter. “Did he move out or something?”
“I really have no idea. We didn’t really talk, he just trained me on the position. I think maybe he took the semester off or something.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Personal reasons probably. But yeah…he’s not here. Is there something I can help you with though?” She gave me a once over.
“You have no idea where he went?”
“None.” She placed her hand on her hip. “Do I know you? You look so familiar.”
“I just have one of those faces. Thanks for your help.” I glanced down the hall. All I wanted to do was go talk to Kins. But I had already made enough mistakes. Blowing my cover with her wasn’t a good idea.
“Are you sure we don’t know each other?” the blonde asked.
“Positive. Have a nice night!” I walked in the opposite direction of the stairwell. Going to my old room wouldn’t blow my cover. Kins wouldn’t be there. She was always with Patrick. And I just needed a second to calm down. I needed to process everything before I went to visit Eli. He’d know something was bothering me, and I didn’t need him to worry about anything but getting better.
My sensor pass hadn’t worked outside. But that was an easy change for them to make. A key though? I doubted they changed the locks on the doors whenever a student dropped out. There was no reason to.
Although, I was wanted for murder. I slid my key into the lock and it clicked open. Apparently campus safety wasn’t a top priority at Eastern University.
Chapter 25
Monday
When I turned on the lights, I froze. All my stuff was exactly as I had left it. My comforter was still on my bed. My books still stacked on my desk. One of them was even opened to the last page I had read. Nothing had moved at all.
I hadn’t been expecting that. Part of me thought Kins would have a new roommate. Or that maybe she would have switched dorms to move in with someone else. But all her stuff was still here too.
I walked over to her nightstand. There was a framed picture of her and Patrick. They were both smiling hard for the camera. I always wondered how the two of them were doing. I had watched them from a distance a few times and it seemed like they fought more than anything else.
I turned around and breathed in slowly. The room smelled like home. Which was odd. I hadn’t lived there for very long. But I was comfortable here. Happy even. For a while anyway. Before the bloody slippers had shown up. I peered under my bed just to check.
Nothing.
As I looked around the room, I felt sad. The room reminded me of everything I didn’t have growing up. Moving from foster home to foster home. There was no way those beds weren’t filled after I left. Another kid to ignore. Or another child to love instead of me. I was easily forgotten. But here? Kins didn’t want to forget. And something about that gave me hope. That maybe she hadn’t given up on me. That maybe Miles hadn’t either.
There were hushed voices outside the door. And then the sound of a key entering the lock.
Shit.
I glanced around before jumping into the opened closet. Ow. I grabbed my side after it collided with a vacuum cleaner. I was just able to scramble into the dark corner and crouch down out of sight when the dorm room door opened.
“You didn’t have to walk me back,” Kins said. “I can take care of myself.”
It was a dismissal if I’d ever heard one.
“Babe, I’m sorry I brought it up. I just think it’s important for us to talk about if it’s still an issue.”
I recognized Patrick’s voice. I slowly moved some of the hanging dresses to the side so I could peer out at them.
“It’s not an issue,” Kins said. “God, can’t we just have one normal night where you don’t try to psychoanalyze me?”
Patrick sighed. “All I want is a normal night. But look around you. Clearly it is still an issue.”
“Patrick, there’s no point in talking about this. You never listen to me. What’s the point in rehashing it right now?”
“The point is that I don’t want you sneaking around behind my back.”
“Seriously?” Kins opened up her dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas. “I should have known. You’re jealous that I went to visit Eli? I only went because I was looking for Sadie. And for the record, he didn’t know where she was. Apparently they broke up months ago.”
Broke up? I shook the thought away. I knew Eli was just trying to protect me. I stared at Kins. Apparently everyone had been to visit him but me. I bit the inside of my lip.
“Isn’t that proof enough that she…”
“No. It’s not. Eli didn’t break up with her because she killed someone. He said he broke up with her because she always seemed distant. If you ask me, by the way he looked when we talked about her, I think she cheated on him. But that’s beside the point.”
I thought about V’s arms around me. When had Kins visited Eli? I shook away the thought. Eli was just covering for me. That was all. I wasn’t distant. I had been so present. Until he got injured. I hadn’t visited him. And now tha
t I was finally able to, I was here spying on Kins for no reason at all. What the hell was I doing?
“Distant?” Patrick asked. “Maybe she was distant because she was plotting how to murder her next victim.”
“She’s not a criminal!” Kins yelled.
“She killed that woman. She…”
“You didn’t know her like I did. She wanted to be a psychologist. She wanted to help people. She wasn’t going around making bombs and blowing people up. She’s a good person.”
“The cops…”
“They’re wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m right or wrong. This obsession you have is unhealthy. She’s not coming back. You have to let it go.”
Kins slammed a drawer shut. “I’m exhausted, Patrick. And I have an 8 a.m. tomorrow.”
There was an awkward silence in the air. I could feel the tension between them, beyond just their words. I thought by me leaving, Kins would be safe and happy. But she wasn’t. I was ruining her relationship without even being around. I pushed the dress aside even more and stared at her face. She looked like she was about to cry. That was my fault. Everything was my fucking fault.
“Let me spend the night,” Patrick said and stepped toward her.
She put up her hands to stop his embrace. “Not tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch, okay?”
He kissed her forehead and then glanced toward the closet. I held my breath. Had he seen me? But then he immediately left, leaving Kins standing there alone. I slowly exhaled. As soon as the door closed, Kins wiped tears away from underneath her eyes. She lifted up the opened book on my desk and threw it.
Tears pooled in my own eyes as I watched her.
“No.” Kins ran over to the book. “No, no, no.” She picked it up and thumbed through it, looking for the page it used to be on as she set it back down exactly where it had been.
I watched her fall apart until I couldn’t take it anymore. She needed me. She needed to know the truth. Or maybe I just missed her. Maybe I wanted a tiny piece of normalcy back in my life.
The hangers screeched as I pushed them aside.
Kins screamed and reached into her purse. When I stepped out of the closet I half expected to see her holding a gun, but she was just aiming a canister of mace at my eyes.
“Stay back!” she yelled.
“Kins, it’s me.”
Her eyes scanned my face. There didn’t seem to be any recognition. “I swear to God I’ll make you go blind,” she said.
I stepped forward.
“Someone help me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“It’s me! Sadie.”
She shook her head. “Intruder! Help!” Her finger moved to the trigger on the mace.
Damn it. I grabbed her arm and twisted it as a stream of mace went over my shoulder. I lifted my knee and slammed it against her wrist. The mace fell out of her hand and skidded across the floor. “Kins, would you stop yelling? I’m not trying to end up in jail tonight.”
“You’re not my friend, you’re a freaking ninja.” She tried to pull her arm away.
I let go of her and pulled off my hat.
She looked at my dyed blonde hair and then back at my face. Finally she seemed to recognize me. “Sadie?”
I nodded.
“Oh my God, Sadie!” She threw her arms around me. “I knew you’d come back.”
I didn’t cringe. I just hugged her back. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry about everything.”
She pulled away from me. “You just mean about abandoning me, right? Not about murdering that woman? You didn’t kill her? You couldn’t have…”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” I kept off the fact that I desperately wanted to kill Don. That I dreamed of vengeance. That I wasn’t the same person she had met.
“I knew it. I told everyone you were innocent. Did you know that they made me start seeing a therapist after what happened? They tried to make me take the rest of the year off. But I told them that I needed to be here. That you’d come back.” She started to blink fast like she was about to cry again. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy, Sadie.”
“You’re not crazy. Trust me, I know how it feels when you think you’re losing your mind.”
She laughed.
For a moment I didn’t care about what Liza, Eli, or V wanted. Kins was on our side. And we were close. I knew we were close to solving everything. Bringing Kins into the loop wouldn’t put her in danger. Would it?
“Well maybe you can tell my therapist that,” Kins said and dropped her purse on her desk. “She thinks I’m a loon. You should come to my next session.”
I was barely listening to her. There was a row of prescription bottles on her desk that I'd never seen before. I remembered she used to take a multi-vitamin with breakfast, but that was it. “What are all those prescriptions for?” I asked.
“Anxiety mostly. And paranoia.” She shrugged. “After you left, I kept thinking some guy was following me.”
“Who?” It felt like my heart was about to beat out of my chest. “Did you recognize him?”
“This guy in a suit. But I didn’t recognize him.” She shivered. “Actually, I told my therapist that he looked like the mayor. You should have seen the look on her face when I said that. She doubled my doses. And I think it was the right call. Clearly I didn’t actually recognize him. Why would the mayor be following me?” She laughed and scratched the back of her neck.
I stared at her. For the first time, I noticed the dark bags under her eyes. Her normally tanned skin looked pale. She was thinner than I remembered, and not in a healthy looking way. The worst part is that she was in danger and no one was even listening to her.
“Pack up some things for the next few days. You need to come with me.”
She glanced at the pills on her desk.
“And you don’t need those, Kins. You’re not crazy.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as she looked back up at me.
I told her the one thing I knew would get her to follow me. “I’ve been staying with the NYC vigilante. I think it’s about time you met him.”
Chapter 26
Monday
“Can we backtrack for one second?” Kins asked as we climbed the emergency escape ladder toward my apartment.
I had caught her up on all the important things. The fake witness protection program. The fact that my name was actually Summer. And that the mayor wasn’t who he said he was. I’d tell her everything else soon. I needed to talk to Eli, V, and Liza first so we could figure out what else Kins should know. I was already looping her in on enough information without their permission.
My stomach churned. I had been allowed out of the apartment for hours now and I still hadn’t gone to see Eli. I needed to visit him. I’d just fill V in and leave him and Kins to get to know each other.
“Are you even listening to me?” Kins asked.
“What?” I stopped outside my apartment window and turned toward her.
“I don’t understand what the mayor has to do with any of this. You said I wasn’t crazy but you didn’t tell me why I wasn’t. Was it really him following me?”
“I’m going to fill you in on everything soon, I promise.” I typed in the code on the keypad and there was a whirring noise. The window slowly rose.
“But the mayor has to be who he says he is. He’s literally the mayor…” her voice trailed off. “Holy shit,” Kins said from behind me.
And I knew she didn’t say it because the apartment was amazing. We had made the entranceway look as normal as possible. Not that entering your home through a window was normal. But we tried. She had said it because V was standing there with his arms folded across his strong chest. And he was staring at me like I was the plague.
“Come in,” I said, trying my best to ignore him.
“Sadie, can I talk to you in private?” V said. He had formed it like a question, but there wasn’t a hint of a question in his tone. And he didn’t even ackno
wledge Kins.
“I thought you said your name was Summer,” Kins whispered.
V disappeared into his bedroom.
“Long story. Just wait right here,” I said. The window automatically shut behind her as soon as she stepped into the apartment. “I’ll only be a minute.” I followed V into his bedroom.
He immediately slammed the door behind me. “I thought you’d go see Miles! Or Eli. Not…Kins.” He said her name like she disgusted him more than I did. And the rumble in his voice terrified me.
It was like I was standing in front of Don. Like I was transported back in time. The blinds in his room were drawn closed and we were bathed in darkness. He morphed into Don. His leering smile. His haunting gaze. I winced and turned my face away from him. I was waiting for the fury. For the pain.
“What are you doing?”
I closed my eyes. I wanted to tell him that Kins was in trouble. That she needed to stay here. But my throat constricted. I took a huge gulp of air and my throat squeaked.
“Sadie.” The anger had thawed from his voice. “You’re alright. It’s just me.”
Just me. I opened my eyes.
“It kills me that he hurt you.” He put his hand on the side of my face.
I wasn’t going to have this conversation with him right now. He was manipulating my life. He made me believe that Miles had given up on me. He twisted everything I thought I knew. I had absorbed whatever anger he had just released. But for some reason, I didn’t push his hand away. “She’s in trouble, V. Don’s been following her.”
“Why would he follow her?”
“To get to me? I don’t know. But she’s not safe in that dorm. I wasn’t safe there. She should have been here with us this whole time.”
He sighed. “Fine. She’ll sleep in your room. You’ll stay with me.” His hand dropped from my cheek.
Before I could protest he had walked out of the room. “Where the hell did she go?” he said from the hall.