003

Elena Carson

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

I jolt awake, heart pounding. Ow. My head is killing me.

I rub my temples and slowly register that I’m on the floor of my room. Not my bed. My hair is stuck to my cheek and there’s a dull ache behind my eyes that makes even breathing feel like effort.

Everything looks upside down. My dresser drawers are half open, my clothes are everywhere, and one of my boxes is spilled across the carpet like a crime scene.

“What the—”

I crawl closer, still dizzy, and freeze.

It’s that box.

The one I’ve kept since I was thirteen. The one filled with every stupid memory of Killian Davenport.

Photos I secretly took of him. Printouts from Nora’s phone. Even the letters I wrote to him when I was a lovesick teenager, pages and pages of my pathetic crush that I never sent. Some of them have fresh lipstick stains on the edges.

Drunk me apparently dragged this box out last night and kissed the damn letters.

I groan and bury my face into my pillow. Please tell me Nora didn’t see this. We were both wasted, but still. If she knew her best friend had been obsessed with her older brother for years… especially when he was ten years older than me…

Another knock on the door makes me panic.

I quickly shove everything back into the box and push it under my bed before stumbling to the door.

Nora is already dressed, buttoning up a crisp white shirt, with her hair neatly styled, looking like she has her life together. She’s wearing slacks like she’s going for a job interview.

“Why are you dressed like that?” I croak.

Nora raises an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you? It’s the first day of the second semester of junior year and you’re still in last night’s dress?”

My eyes widen. “God, how late am I?”

Nora glances toward the living room clock. “You have roughly ten minutes before we need to leave.”

“Oh shit…”

I rush back into my room, stripping as I go. I hear Nora rummaging through my closet while I’m in the bathroom trying to wash my face.

“Where are your slacks?” she yells.

“I don’t know!”

“God, I’ll grab one of mine,” she mutters. A minute later she’s back, handing me clothes while I’m still half wet. She even grabs the hair dryer and starts drying my hair for me when I can’t do it fast enough.

“What would I do without you?” I mumble gratefully.

“You’d fail out. Now you owe me one. I can’t let you be late to that psychology class you took for extra credits. You need it if we’re graduating together.”

Psychology.

The word hits me like ice water. I completely forgot about that class. Worse, I have that class this morning. I’m cooked!

Nora finishes my hair and twists it into a messy bun. We rush out of the apartment like our lives depend on it. I’m still fixing my appearance in the car when I remember last night.

“So…last night, huh?” I say, trying to sound casual. “I can't believe we made it home.”

I bite my lower lip and glance at her, looking for any sign that might prove she saw that box last night.

Nora laughs. “Yeah, thanks to Killian. It’s a shame he’s only back for a year, teaching at a university nearby while he’s here. I forgot to ask which one though. He’s being all mysterious about it.”

Teaching at a university? Worse, nearby?

My stomach drops. I don’t want to imagine what it would be like sitting in a class with Killian every week. Seeing him. Hearing that deep voice lecture. Being under his authority. His students would partly be lucky.

I pinch my thigh hard. No.I don’t want that. I can’t want that. There’s tons of colleges in New York, it definitely cannot be Ravenscroft.

We pull up at Ravenscroft University.

Nora kisses me off like this is normal.

“Don’t be late again,” she says.

“I’m never late,” I mutter.

She snorts. “Sure.”

We split off at the fork, different faculties.

And I start running.

Of course I do.

Because I am absolutely, completely, disastrously late.

I practically sprint up the stairs, heart hammering. The class has already started. I can’t see the professor from the back, but a man is standing at the front lecturing.

I sneak in through the back door, trying to tiptoe to an empty seat near the middle.

Just sit. Just sit. Just…

“Elena Carson!”

The voice slices through the room.

I stop.

Every head turns.

Including the professor’s.

My blood turns cold.

Gwendolyn Myers sits somewhere in the front row, smiling like she just won something.

“Nice of you to finally join us,” she adds in that fake sickening voice of hers. It’s moments like this that I hate her.

My pulse spikes.

No.

No, no..

Slowly, I lift my gaze.

To the front of the room.

And the world stops.

Killian Davenport is standing there. Black shirt and dark slacks. Sleeves rolled up but not enough that his tattoos are peeking out like last night. Calm posture.

He stops mid-sentence. For one long, charged second, everything freezes. His grey eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that steals the air from my lungs. His jaw tightens. His grip on the pen in his hand goes white-knuckled. Something dark flickers across his face and it’s gone so fast I almost think I imagined it.

Then his expression smooths into perfect, professional calm.

“You’re late, Ms. Carson,” he says, voice low and controlled, but his eyes stay on me a beat too long. “Take a seat.”

My legs move before my brain does. Somehow, I sit. My hands won’t stop shaking. Behind me, I hear Gwendolyn whisper something that sounds like laughter.

I can’t breathe properly. Because the man at the front of the room is not just Killian Davenport anymore.

He is Professor Davenport.

And the way he looked at me just now… it wasn’t the look of a man who barely remembered me.

I spend the entire lecture in a complete daze. I can’t focus on a single word. Every time I glance up, I catch him watching me, only for him to look away the second our eyes meet. The tension coils tighter in my chest with every passing minute.

At the end of class, he closes his laptop with slow precision.

“I’m Professor Davenport,” he says after a pause. “Welcome to Introduction to Psychology. I expect discipline and focus in this class.”

His gaze sweeps the room… then lands on me again.

“Dismissed.”

Students start packing up. I try to move, but my body feels heavy.

“Miss Carson.”

His voice cuts through the noise like a command.

My heart drops.

I turn slowly. Killian is leaning against his desk, arms crossed, staring directly at me. The last students file out. The door clicks shut behind them.

He doesn’t look away. I can’t feel my hands anymore. Only the sound of my heartbeat fills the silence between us.

Maybe I was never over him.

But for the first time since I was thirteen, I understand something far more terrifying.

I don’t think I ever will be.

“Stay behind.”