Shame (Ruin #3)(25)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

To apologize?

Scold me more?

Or… I shook the thought of my head. It couldn’t be for any other reason. That side of our relationship was officially non-existent.

“Hey.” Kiersten nudged me. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I forced another fake smile. “Totally. Just really tired.”

She wrapped an arm around me and pulled me in for a tight hug. “Well, let’s get you fed so you can go to bed then.”

Great. Bed. Just another reminder that I was in mine… not his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“No man will ever love you as much as I love you,” I whispered in Mel’s ear when she was fast asleep. Time to put part of my plan into action. I went to my computer and started putting my journals into personal files. One copy sent to someone I’d never met, and the other copy? To the person who was going to carry out my revenge — again. The best people to pick on? Ones who wanted revenge, whose hearts were broken. I laughed at my own brilliance. I would probably still be laughing from hell. Most people want to leave behind a legacy, and that’s exactly what I was doing. —The Journal of Taylor B.

Tristan

FINDING HER EMAIL was easy. Sending the email? Not so much. I started typing then deleted the entire thing. With a growl, I typed again then deleted. I repeated this same process until finally settling with…

[email protected] to [email protected]

Are you okay?

Dr. Tristan Blake

UW Psychology Department

I waited for about a minute before refreshing the page. When nothing happened, I freaked out over what I’d said. Should I have apologized? I’d rather do that to her face. With a groan, I wiped my face with my hands and started getting ready to turn in.

I hit refresh a few more times before finally giving up. With a sigh, I crawled between the sheets and reached for the journal by my lamp.

The Journal of Taylor B.

It was the thing of nightmares. My nightmares, most likely hers. It was also such an addicting read I didn’t know what else to do. I’d only been halfway through it when I’d decided to make the trek across the country and take a semester teaching. The first few chapters had convinced me, and now the story of his insanity called to me. It called to that part of me who understood him, who understood that type of madness. I wasn’t sure what was so horrifying. The fact that I got it or the fact that I could end up just like him.

My cell rang, jolting me out of my dark thoughts.

It was my father. I couldn’t ignore him forever. With a curse, I picked up and barked a hello into the phone.

“Well, that’s a nice greeting.” He chuckled. “Any trouble with the benefit?”

A vision of Lisa in her black mask caused my body to tighten. “Nope, no trouble at all.”

“Erica’s been asking about you.” He coughed and then sighed. I could picture him now, sitting near the fireplace, cigar in one hand, whiskey in the other. “You ignoring her phone calls too?”

“I’ve been busy. Companies don’t run themselves, you know. Besides, I’m teaching this semester.”

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.”