#Chapter 69: Displaced… Again

Rowena

A few days had passed since the unsettling incident in my office with Eric, and I found myself actively avoiding him whenever possible. Just being in his presence made my skin prickle with a confusing swirl of emotions I didn’t even want to begin to acknowledge—shame, longing, disgust, and so much more.

“It was a prank,” he had said, that telltale smirk of his ghosting the corners of his lips. “Nothing more.”

I couldn’t decide what hurt more: the fact that my own brother would pull yet another disgusting prank on me, or… the fact that part of me, even the tiniest part, wished it had been real.

No. This wasn’t right. And I refused to let myself think that it was.

That week, I tried to push the whole night out of my mind, throwing myself into my work instead. But seeing the influx of new patients come to my clinic certainly helped get my mind off of things.

One afternoon, I found myself passing by the bulletin board in the main hall. I stopped to take a peek at the ballots, altho