MasukZach's POVI rode straight back to campus with the folded paper sitting in my pocket like something radioactive, mind already racing three steps ahead of my own body. Two days. Matthew's words looped on repeat the entire drive, each mile marker feeling like one more grain of sand slipping through an hourglass I had no way of flipping back over.I burst into my dorm room and didn't bother turning on the overhead light, the desk lamp enough to work by as I yanked my bag out from under the bed, the same half packed duffel I'd assembled days earlier and never actually used. Clothes came off hangers in fistfuls, shoved in without folding, the careful, methodical version of myself from the library terminals nowhere in evidence now. This wasn't time for research anymore. This was time to move.My laptop stayed open on the desk, a transit site already loaded, and I scanned departure times with trembling fingers, booking the earliest possible bus out, one that would put me within striking dis
Zach's POVThe address Matthew gave me over text led to a diner on the outskirts of town, the kind of place with flickering neon signage and booths worn soft with decades of regulars, chosen deliberately, I guessed, for its distance from anywhere either of us might be recognized. I sat in my cab outside for a full five minutes before going in, watching the parking lot through the windshield, half convinced I'd clock some unfamiliar vehicle idling too long nearby, some proof that whatever careful surveillance had been tracking me all these weeks had followed me here too.Nothing. Just an old pickup truck, a couple of tired looking delivery vans, ordinary Tuesday night traffic that had nothing to do with any of this.I went inside, slid into a booth near the back where I could watch the door, and ordered something I had no intention of drinking just to have something to occupy my shaking hands. The waitress, gray haired and unhurried, set it down without asking if I wanted anything else,
Zach's POV The gut punch hit before I'd even fully processed what Brittany had actually said, a visceral, physical thing that knocked the breath clean out of me. My ears rang faintly, the ambient noise of the quad, laughter drifting from somewhere near the fountain, the distant clatter of a skateboard against pavement, all of it dulling into a muffled hum beneath the single, deafening certainty pounding through my skull.“You won’t find him there.”What had I agreed to? Was Ryder really missing?Matthew knew. Matthew had told her.I turned without looking, blind instinct carrying me away from Brittany's smug, satisfied expression before I could trust myself to say anything else, and collided hard with someone's shoulder, a stack of textbooks spilling loudly across the pavement between us."Sorry, I'm so sorry," I muttered, barely registering the stranger's annoyed glance as I bent to help gather a scattered notebook, hands shaking too badly to actually be useful. The guy waved me off, irr
Zach's POVThe first thing I registered was the smell, antiseptic and faintly sweet, the particular sterile hush of a room designed to make people feel cared for while stripping away every ordinary comfort at the same time. My eyes opened slowly, ceiling tiles swimming into focus above me, fluorescent light too bright and too even, nothing like the warm amber glow of the warehouse that my mind seemed determined to compare everything against lately."Hey. Hey, easy." Gigi's voice, close, urgent, her hand pressing gently against my shoulder the second I tried to sit up too fast. "Slow down. You're at the campus clinic."Memory returned in a disorienting rush, fragments assembling themselves out of order. The dining hall. Brittany's voice, pitched deliberately loud enough to carry across three tables, something about Ryder transferring schools, some casual cruelty tossed out like a gut punch. The room tilting. Then nothing."Ryder." I struggled upright despite her hand still braced again
Zach's POVThe first thing I registered was the smell, antiseptic and faintly sweet, the particular sterile hush of a room designed to make people feel cared for while stripping away every ordinary comfort at the same time. My eyes opened slowly, ceiling tiles swimming into focus above me, fluorescent light too bright and too even, nothing like the warm amber glow of the warehouse that my mind seemed determined to compare everything against lately."Hey. Hey, easy." Gigi's voice, close, urgent, her hand pressing gently against my shoulder the second I tried to sit up too fast. "Slow down. You're at the campus clinic."Memory returned in a disorienting rush, fragments assembling themselves out of order. The dining hall. Brittany's voice, pitched deliberately loud enough to carry across three tables, something about Ryder transferring schools, some casual cruelty tossed out like a gut punch. The room tilting. Then nothing."Ryder." I struggled upright despite her hand still braced again
Zach's POVThe first thing I registered was the smell, antiseptic and faintly sweet, the particular sterile hush of a room designed to make people feel cared for while stripping away every ordinary comfort at the same time. My eyes opened slowly, ceiling tiles swimming into focus above me, fluorescent light too bright and too even, nothing like the warm amber glow of the warehouse that my mind seemed determined to compare everything against lately."Hey. Hey, easy." Gigi's voice, close, urgent, her hand pressing gently against my shoulder the second I tried to sit up too fast. "Slow down. You're at the campus clinic."Memory returned in a disorienting rush, fragments assembling themselves out of order. The dining hall. Brittany's voice, pitched deliberately loud enough to carry across three tables, something about Ryder transferring schools, some casual cruelty tossed out like a gut punch. The room tilting. Then nothing."Ryder." I struggled upright despite her hand still braced again
Zach's POVAfter that night, the quiet peaceful life I had envisioned for myself in college had crumbled to dust. Whispers of that night flooded every nook, cranny and hook.Headsplash, enemies with history.Gigi had given me an earful for my actions. Yeah, maybe I should've left immediately I bump
Zach's POVI was just about to let something cruel slip out from my mouth, something sharp and loud enough to wipe that damn smirk off Ryder’s face, but Ellis grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.“Not worth it,” he muttered under his breath, steering me through the crowd like I was a balloon about t
Zach's POV "Avoid him. Go to class, keep your head down. You are here for school, not high school drama," Gigi had said as she shoved me towards the Business and Leadership Building.“He might not even be in the same class as you are!” She added cheerfully, and that felt like a rush of sweet adren
Zach's pov College. Higher institution. A fresh slate. A new town, and a better place. The halls were white, the scholarship letter in my hands seemed like a breath of much needed air, and the boys....cute.Maybe the universe was finally throwing me a bone, considering that my highschool years wer







