I could practically feel his scowl over the phone. “I told you it was unnecessary to stay that long away from everything. So, she wants to marry you, wants to move forward, start your life together. Instead, you run away with your tail between your legs.” He sighed. “You aren’t off your meds, are you?”
“No.” I ground my teeth. “And you’ve always pounded it into my head that no decision is to be taken lightly. Think of my time away as my doing that, looking at every angle.”
Another sigh. “As long as you’re back for Christmas.”
“I will be.” It was a lie. A total lie. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to him, back to that life, back to the life he’d built for me.
“Fantastic.” He sniffed. “I’ll talk to you later this week. Don’t forget to check in with the board every once in a while. I know you run a smooth ship, but I still worry.”
“Always.” There he was; in the end it was always about money, about making more of it. And I’d had the Midas touch. I’d turned his multimillion-dollar empire into a multibillion-dollar empire. I could have done it in my sleep. Because that’s the thing about madness… it breeds brilliance. For others? Like Taylor? It breeds death. Absolute death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It took me a few days to put the chess pieces into place. To make sure all parties knew what their task was, to make sure she was broken enough to snap. To make sure it would happen exactly as I’d predicted. —The Journal of Taylor B.
Lisa
I IGNORED HIS EMAIL.
And got to class fifteen minutes early.
Part of the reason was because I hadn’t been able to sleep worth crap the night before and figured I may as well get a head start. Better to shock him to death than walk in a minute late and earn another scowl.
“Hey.” Jack plopped down next to me. “You’re early!”
“I am.” I returned his smile. He was easy, no pressure, kind of like Gabe. Not that I had any interest in him, but he was… nice to me. Unlike Tristan, who, by the looks of things, wanted to set me on fire with his eyes.
Jack touched my arm. I looked up to see Tristan’s gaze trained on my arm and then narrowed in on Jack’s fingers.
I pulled away and tucked my fallen hair behind my ear.
“We’re two weeks into the semester.” Tristan started pacing in front of his desk. “I want you guys to start thinking about your first big project. Since this is Psychology of Emotion, I want you to pick an emotion to study. It has to be one of the four emotions. I’ll give you two minutes to pick a partner. Then I’ll give the rest of the instructions.”
“Partner up, cowgirl,” Jack whispered next to me. “You in?” He held out his hand. I shook it and gave him a firm nod.
“What do you want to study?” I asked, pulling out a fresh piece of paper.
“Anger.” He’d said it with an edge in his voice, but when I looked up, his face was its normal goofy self. “That okay with you? It just seems the most complex. I mean, think about what anger entails? Revenge? Bloodshed? Wars?” He grinned. “Sorry. I’m a guy. I can’t help it.”
I waved him off. “It’s fine. Anger, it is.”
“Now that you have your partners and most likely your idea of the project,” Dr. Blake continued. “I’ll be passing out the instructions. Please listen as I start explaining.” He cleared his throat while his TA started passing out the worksheets. “You’ll use a personal experience to describe this emotion. Please write it in first person, no less than three pages. I’d like you to research instances when this emotion has helped people in history, and when it’s hindered. You need to find pictures and attach them to your story and include nonverbal cues as well as verbal cues to identify this emotion. Think of this project as taking one emotion and getting to know it so well…” His voice trailed off as his eyes found mine. “…that it defines you.”
Shivers ran down my spine. The last thing I wanted to explore was anger; it reminded me of his personality. It was way too close. Taylor had been a bomb just waiting to set off. Only he was the only one with the timer.
“Hey.” Jack touched my arm again. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I was going to hate this project. “Fine.”
I couldn’t help but think about the angry notes I was still receiving and the fact that someone was clearly angry with me, so angry and hateful that they destroyed university property on my behalf. I swallowed the fear and focused on the project at hand. By the time class ended, both Jack and I had adjusted our schedules so that we could work together for the rest of the week.
“Lisa,” Dr. Blake barked just as I stood from my desk. “A minute.”
Jack swore under his breath. “Damn, it’s like he can’t help but pick on you. If it helps… I know what that’s like.” His face was shadowed. “If you want me to do something—”
“No,” I shook my head and laughed to put him at ease. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Jack nodded slowly. “Just be careful. Crazy comes in all forms, even ones who look completely harmless.”
“Noted.” I swallowed and turned toward the front of the room.
Tristan was stacking papers on his desk. When the last student exited the room, he walked to the door, locked it, and pulled the blinds down.
Nervous, I shifted on my feet. “You going to scold me again?”