Chapter 008

Janessa's POV

The next morning, I actually managed to make it onto campus without any parking lot brawls, though my head was completely somewhere else.

I was sitting in the back row of a small, cramped classroom for my first creative writing workshop, staring blankly at the chalkboard. The room was filled with the quiet chatter of other students, the rustle of notebooks, and the smell of old paper. On any other day, I would have been buzzing with excitement. This was the class I had been looking forward to the most. But right now, the syllabus sitting on my desk looked like a blur of black ink, and my stomach was tightly knotted.

Every time I closed my eyes, all I could think about was the insanity of the deal I had struck with Brayden in that retro diner. Fake dating my boyfriend's bitter twin brother just to survive a family war. It sounded like a cheap plot from a trashy novel, yet here I was, living it.

"Alright, settle down everyone," Professor Keller said, clapping his hands together as he stood at the front of the room. He was an older man with kind eyes, patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, and a relaxed energy that usually would have put me at ease. He held up a stack of papers. "I've had a chance to look over the brief sample essays you all submitted with your admission files. Some very interesting voices in this room."

He began walking down the rows, handing back our papers with quick, scribbled notes on the margins. When he reached my desk, he paused, tapping the page against his palm before setting it down in front of me.

"Miss Moreno," Professor Keller said, looking at me over the rims of his glasses. The entire row of students turned to glance at me, making my cheeks instantly warm. "Your prose is structurally flawless. You clearly know how to put a sentence together."

"Thank you," I murmured, offering a tight, stressed smile.

"But," he continued, tilting his head as he called me out right there during his introductory remarks, "it reads like someone who has been holding her breath for 2 years. There is a lot of tightly locked frustration in these paragraphs, Janessa. You're hiding behind perfect grammar because you're terrified of what will happen if you actually let your real voice breathe."

My heart stopped. The words felt like a sudden, icy bucket of water poured directly over my head. I stared down at the paper, my chest tightening as a heavy wave of shock rattled me to my core.

He didn't know me. He was a complete stranger who had read less than five hundred words of my writing, yet he had managed to slice right through my entire carefully constructed existence. Holding my breath for two years. That was the exact amount of time I had been with Trevor. Well, officially, that is. It was completely terrifying to realize that my repression was so blindingly obvious that a college professor could spot it on a single page.

The rest of the class passed in a total fog. I didn't take a single note. The second the clock hit the hour, I practically shoved my notebook into my backpack and scrambled out of my seat, desperately needing to get some fresh air.

I hurried out into the bustling hallway, pushing past groups of freshmen who were laughing and swapping schedules. I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to steady my racing mind, and looked up toward the exit.

And then, my entire body completely froze.

Standing right by a row of blue metal lockers, looking around the hallway with a frantic, desperate expression, was Trevor.

My heart climbed straight up into my throat, suffocating me. He looked exactly like a stressed-out golden retriever who hadn't slept in days. His hair was messy, his favorite college sweatshirt was slightly wrinkled, and there were dark circles bruising the skin under his warm brown eyes. The second his gaze landed on me, his entire face lit up with a mixture of intense relief and utter panic.

"Janessa!" he yelled, pushing past a group of girls and lunging directly toward me.

Before I could even process that he had actually driven all the way out here, he caught me by the shoulders. "Oh my god, Janessa. Thank god. I've been losing my mind. Why haven't you been answering my calls? Do you have any idea what Caleb told me?"

"Trevor, what are you doing here?" I gasped, my voice coming out small and completely breathless as students swerved around us in the crowded corridor.

"I came to find you!" he said, his voice rising in an emotional pitch that made a few people look over. He looked down at me, his eyes searching my face with a terrifying amount of desperation. "Caleb called me screaming this morning, saying you walked out of his place in the middle of the night and never came back. He said you just vanished. Janessa, I was ready to call the police."

He reached his hand out, his thumb brushing against my cheek as he tried to tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear, an old, familiar gesture that used to make me feel safe.

But today, something inside me violently recoiled.

For the first time in our entire relationship, I instinctively flinched away from his touch. I stepped back a full foot, my shoulder hitting the cold metal of the locker behind me as I pulled away from his hand.

Trevor's hand froze in mid-air. His expression instantly shifted, the worried golden retriever act dropping away to reveal a sharp, defensive edge. His eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening as his hand slowly fell back to his side.

"You're flinching?" he demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh, clipping tone. "Janessa, what the hell is going on with you? You lied to me last night. You told me you were staying with some girl from the admissions office, but Caleb told me a completely different story. He said he saw you this morning, and he said you disappeared into some blacked-out SUV last night. I asked who it was, but he kept avoiding the question."

My mouth opened, but no sound came out. My throat felt like it was coated in sand. The lockers seemed to be spinning around me as the heavy weight of my own deception pressed down on my chest. I was about to choke on my own lie, my brain frantically scrambling to find a cover story that wouldn't completely destroy everything.

"Where are you really staying, Janessa?" Trevor stepped closer, his shadow completely blocking out the hallway lights, his tone dripping with a quiet, manipulative authority. "Who was in that car? Tell me the truth right now."

I swallowed hard, the panic rising so high I could taste the copper in the back of my throat. I couldn't do this. I wasn't built for this kind of drama.

Right as the silence stretched to a breaking point, a shadow fell over both of us.

Before Trevor could take another step toward me, a heavy, muscular arm slid firmly around my waist from behind. The sudden, solid weight of it pulled me backward, flushing my spine directly against a broad, hard chest.

The sharp, intoxicating scent of expensive leather and fresh mint flooded my senses, instantly cutting through the stale hallway air.

Brayden stepped fully into the light, his grip on my hip tightening like a vice as he anchored me to his side, completely claiming his prize in front of his twin brother.

"She's staying with me, Trevor," Brayden rumbled, his deep, gravelly voice echoing clearly down the hallway.

I looked up, my jaw dropping as I saw the wicked smirk playing on Brayden’s lips. His dark eyes were completely freezing, locking onto his brother with an aura of venom.

Oh. Oh, no. Fuck, no. Jesus fucking….. Christ. 

I looked back at Trevor, dread sipping into my very being.