At Thompson University, there's a secret game professors are playing. The name of the game is Teacher's Pet.
The mechanics:
1. Pick a student. Choose wisely.
2. Have sex with the student in select areas across campus.
3. Whoever clears all locations...
For the second night in a row, Hayleigh was not able to get any sleep.
Despite the fatigue weighing heavily on her eyelids, she lay in bed at two in the morning, wide-awake with her cellphone in hand. She ignored Rowen's texts for the rest of the day and did not come over his place. For a second she'd been sorely tempted to answer when he called, but that mysterious girl's words stopped her from picking up.
You're not his first.
Hayleigh had nothing against previous girlfriends. She had no right to begrudge a history she wasn't a part of, but for him to have dated other students before...
He'll get over you and move on to the next one.
That girl must've known Rowen for some time now, but could she really trust the words of a stranger? She'd give anything to shake it off, but it didn't help that Tara's same words had echoed in her mind again. Even if she told Tara about it, her friend didn't seem likely to understand anyway.
After a few hours of tossing and turning, Hayleigh awoke groggily to the sound of her alarm going off. She was just about to disable it when another message prompted on her screen. It was from the same unrecognized number.
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It had been sent two hours ago when she had fallen asleep. It immediately woke her up, as if she'd just downed a pint of caffeine. Now her mind was on overdrive again, restless and agitated. It still escaped her how that girl had figured out Hayleigh's phone number, but now it was inconsequential compared to the grave possibility that everything would finally be exposed. She was falling right into that girl's trap, but now with the first 'clue' out, she had to keep playing.
Perhaps there was an explanation behind everything. There had to be.
The library was littered with students, but one of the farther aisles of the Humanities section was presently uninhabited as Hayleigh stood before a long stretch of shelves. The sign above her read 17, and the number practically burned into her eye sockets from staring at it for too long. She'd lingered down this section for the last five minutes, half-wondering, half-afraid of what she'd find here.
It had only been a week ago when she'd last been in the library, sneaking in with Rowen for a quickie. She'd argued about his reckless choice of location, even though it had been at night with hardly anyone around. Now, the mere memory of it made her chest tighten. Rowen had sent her another text this morning, to which she was yet to respond to.
With a deep breath, Hayleigh began to scan the shelves for any red titles, but it was a surprisingly uncommon color in a sea of black, green, and brown books.
Hayleigh was nearly about to give up when a leather book with a faded, crimson spine appeared before her, sandwiched between two encyclopedias. It was a battered-looking copy of Milton's Paradise Lost with its pages spotted with age. There seemed nothing remarkable as she flipped through the pages, with no notes or dog-eared marks for her to find. At the very back was an old borrower's card, last taken out almost six years ago. None of the names rang a bell to her.
