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17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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2021

          Going back to school was the worst thing that had happened to me that month.

          Though I'd been here for well over three years, these four walls and long, dark hallways still felt foreign to me, and I had to make an extra effort to learn how to navigate the building. Time I spent attempting to find my way through an ocean of people was time wasted, as I'd quickly realized how the world didn't wait for anyone, not even me, and I couldn't bother with mundane tasks anymore, not when I had a senior project to plan and complete if I wanted to graduate. The clocks ticked, each passing of a second slicing right through me, and no number of words of reassurance could make it better.

          Nothing mattered.

          I could barely stay awake during my lectures now, including Film Theory, and I knew Chase had noticed this. I was certain he would have noticed it, even if I didn't sit in the front row to be the closest to him while respecting his legal and moral boundaries, and I knew he knew I was overworking myself. I had to overwork myself just to match the work rhythm of my peers, as most of them had nothing to prove to one another, and I didn't want to be seen as a nepotism baby. I wanted to be me, Penn, and not my parents' daughter, but my name would follow me everywhere I went.

          At least, in Chase's cabin, I could find some escapism from the real world. Even though I'd brought my laptop along, unable to part from it and not fill my empty time slots with college work, Chase had also been there. If anything, I'd been a distraction to him, not the other way around, with all my drama and crying over him hanging out with his peers, and, with each of my missteps, he was one step closer to leaving me for good. All in all, I was desperate now, clinging to the sliver of a bright future he and my family still saw for me, an alternate reality when I'd follow my dreams and get all I ever wanted.

          (You, Chase, you.)

          That reality wouldn't come as soon if I stayed like this. I sat in the front row, Savannah's fast typing on her laptop lulling me to sleep, and I could vaguely hear Chase in the background discussing our latest papers. He'd brought them all with him, graded, and, if there was something my brain was constantly on the lookout for, it was disappointment in his voice. My elbow slipped out of the edge of my table as soon as my brain detected it and, when I looked up, he was right there, standing in front of me.

          "See me after class, please," he asked. Cold, distant, non-committal—the way he needed to act when we were here, but also the way he'd been acting for days now. Then, he slid my paper face down over my keyboard, possibly to save me from the humiliation of other people seeing my grade, but his request had already said too much. People knew I was failing now and some of my worst fears were being brought to reality in a way I never thought possible.

          I never thought Chase would be the one to announce it.

          It was his job. With me being one of the Steele 5, it made sense for him to want to see me after his lecture ended, especially when I was the only one of us who had yet to declare a senior project. It still prickled the hair on the back of my neck, sending glaciers down my spine, and all I could do was weakly nod.

          Weak. That was all I would ever be. While staying here, I'd have to repeatedly be reminded of the power imbalance between me and Chase and dismiss every point he raised about the university's laws and rules that were the only things standing in our way. I didn't care about the so-called protection those things provided me when I wasn't in any danger, and they hadn't done a thing to protect me or all those other girls from the preying men in frat parties.