Campus

Chapter 22 - She knows

Alyssa POV:

It didn't take me long to realise that my senses were right when I walked with Lucy to class. Everyone was looking at me because they had all been sent the photo. I want to literally crawl into a dark hole and die. Mera's trying her best to console me, rubbing circles on my back.

"How could he?" I choke out, the tightness in my chest preventing me from completing my sentences without a sob getting out.

"Alyssa honey, lets go back to the dorm."

How could I be so naïve, he has a reputation for a reason. Of course this was going to happen. Fuck him.

My phone starts to buzz, I flick the screen over and see it's him.

James: "Hey, where are you? I need to talk to you."

I just put my phone back in my pocket, he can't be fucking serious.

It buzzes again.

James: "Can I call you?"

My phone starts ringing and Mera tries her best to encourage me not to answer it but I'm hurt, and I have little to no control over my impulses in this state, my emotions surfacing, trying to find a way out and it's through my fingers when I click accept on the call.

I stay silent, fear and hurt preventing my mouth from opening. I can hear his breathing, and even that sound alone threatens to bleed me out through my already open wound.

James breaks the silence, "Alyssa? Are you there? Look I need to talk to you, where are you?"

He doesn't sound apologetic, no instead he sounds like his normal self, which pisses me off. God knows who he sent that picture to and he just sounds normal.

The last thread inside my chest threatens to break, it's all that's holding me together, all I wanted was him, I wanted us to be each others world, the gravity each other needed to stay grounded, to fall for each other in the way people do in books, I wanted the all consuming soul destroying love, but instead I get a man with no apology in his voice breaking me open and letting the blood bleed red.  

"Aly?"

I feel the snap with his use of the nickname, the nickname that carries a story of it's own. I feel the jolt through my whole body, pain floods into my heart which pushes it's way throughout my whole body, every part of me aching, every part of me feeling heavy, every part of me feeling broken.

"How could you?" The sentence comes out breathy and is laced with agony. Here it comes, I can no longer breath properly, I look down and cup my face in my hands, my phone dropping to the ground with a bang. How could he do this to me.

Mera picks up my phone and yells into it, "Just leave her the fuck alone."

I don't remember the walk back to our room, I could barley see through the tears that fogged my vision.

"I can skip my art class Alyssa, honestly I don't mind."

Mera's favourite subject is art and I know how hard she's been working on her project, "No Mera, you go, I just want to be alone." My sentence is barley audible, only a whisper, no energy left. I hold my hand up from my curled position on the bed and she gently squeezes it before leaving. "Call me if you need me."

I don't know how long I've been curled up on the bed, I turned my phone off because James' was blowing it up and I was also getting hundreds of Instagram notifications from new followers to dm's about the picture. I couldn't handle it. The knock on the door breaks me out of my darkness. The sheets around me wet from my tears. I spy his jumper in a bunch by the door, when I got back to the room with Mera I remembered I was wearing it, I've never undressed faster in my life, I don't want anything to do with him.