Loving the Campus Monster

Chapter 28 ( Darkness Rising)

Laura

I have no idea where I am going. The intense need to get away from him drove me out without any clear destination in mind. When I made it back to the campus just after nightfall, I wasn't sure where to go next. I don't even have anything with me, no extra clothes, no toothbrush, nothing. I was not expecting this to happen after coming back from baking with Hellen and Holly. I thought I would be spending the evening either cuddled up with Ross sharing the cookies I made with him in the living room, watching a movie, or spending our time together in the music room playing and writing music like we usually would do most evenings. Nothing like this.

After I calm myself down a little, I take a moment to think about where to go. That's when I decide to go to Rony's apartment to stay with him and Holly since they didn't live too far from here and I really had nowhere else to go. I thought about going to Cory's place, but I really don't want to bother him, not with everything he's still going through with Mel and Katy. Besides, being there at the apartment would just remind me of all the time I spent there with Ross and I just couldn't handle that, not now.

Once I make it to Rony's apartment I'm exhausted both physically and mentally. Holly thankfully doesn't ask any questions once Rony calls for her after opening the door and seeing my tearful face, she just helps to clean myself up and changed me into some of her comfy pajamas while Rony gets puts new sheets on the guest room bed for me to stay in. I'm sure she has a ton of questions and that it must have come as a surprise for her to see me like this when just an hour ago I was laughing with her and Hellen at Ross's uncle's house in the kitchen, actually making jokes while we baked. God that felt so long ago now. I wish I could just go back to that, go back to being ignorant of everything now. I wish I never knew the heart-breaking truth about Ross, but now that I do, I could never go back now.

Nothing will ever be the same again.

After they get me settled in the guestroom Holly asks if I want to talk about it, but it's still too raw and painful for me to tell anyone just yet, so I shake my head. She gives me an understanding smile and then leaves me alone in the room to get some rest. But despite how bone tired I feel I can't sleep. The turmoil of emotions inside of me twisting and withering is keeping me awake.

I thought I would never see any of those boys again. After me and my family moved away four years ago, I tried to just forget about everything that happened. I never tried to find out anything about what may have happened to those boys, especially not that hooded who attacked me. Not where he might be or what he might be doing. Nothing. I just wanted to erase them-him mostly-completely from my mind and try to move on with my life.

But instead, I had let him get close to me, so close that I often felt we were one. Crashing through all my defenses, he climbed deep into my very heart. Now that all his lies have exploded out, they left nothing behind but utter devastation. Everything, my heart, my very soul has been annihilated.

I can feel that darkness rising from inside of me again, reaching out for me, threatening to suffocate me with panic all over again. Huddling under the blanket, I curl into a ball, counting my breaths again, waiting for the sun to come up.

I wish I could crawl under a rock somewhere on an undiscovered planet or at least on an uninhibited island- somewhere where no one would look at me or care to speak to me, where I could be invisible until I could regain the ability to face life.

A ping from a new text message came from my phone on the nightstand sometime after five in the morning. I reach for it under the covers and see it's my housekeeper, Shella. My eyes scan the message before widening in shock and disbelief as I read it and reread it.

My father apparently had a stroke, which left him fully paralyzed and unable to speak. Doctors feared that due to complications, he wouldn't have much time left.

The world starts spinning, and the ground swallows me up. There's a lump in my throat that I can't swallow.

My dad.

Stroke.

I realized then that even though we might not be as close as I would like us to be, I still loved him. And I didn't want our argument to be the last words my father ever heard from me.

It's time to try and mend our relationship.

Home. I'm going back home.