Forever His

Chapter One

            The clock ticked away beside me, reminding me of the hours winding down before I needed to be in class. My ceiling loomed down on me as I looked up into its swirling blackness. The curtains were pulled tightly together, refusing to let even the slightest bit of light in from the full moon hanging high above the dorms. I let out a sigh and rolled over onto my side. Cortnee’s soft breathing was my only company as I squeezed my eyes shut in a last ditch effort for sleep before seven o’clock rolled around.  

            Completely useless. I had barely been able to drift off before the alarm blared into the quiet room. Cortnee groaned as I pressed the button down and cut off the obnoxious noise. I reached across the bed to my nightstand and turned the lamp on, flooding our room with a dull glow.

            “Time for class already?” My roommate yawned as she sat up on her bed and stretched. She pulled the ponytail holder from her honey locks and let the kinky ringlets cascade down her back.

            “Unfortunately,” I grumbled despondently.

            “Why does morning have to come so fast?” She swung her bronze-colored legs off the side of the bed and stood to her full, petite height. Her brown eyes slipped shut as she brought her fists up to them and attempted to rub the sleep away. I envied how she was so effortlessly pretty. It took at least a half hour to make me look like an actual human being instead of a creature from a Syfy movie. I didn’t give myself much to work with either, considering I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep since I started college.

“You want to hit up Starbucks with me before class?” Cortnee asked.

I nodded and dragged myself out of bed. “Sure. I’ll throw some sweats and a hoody on, and we can head out.”

She changed into a pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt before we left. I could feel an impending rain in the atmosphere the second we stepped out of the lobby. The perfect weather to match my melancholy mood.

“You okay, Cass?” Cortnee asked. “You seem sort of down.”

I put on a smile and nodded. “I’m fine, just tired is all. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”

“Maybe a caramel frappe can turn that frown upside down. I’ll buy today.”

“Thanks,” I murmured as we headed in the direction of the on-campus Starbucks.

 I found myself in the lecture hall for English half an hour later. My head slumped down on the table as my professor droned on about something I couldn’t quite focus on, and I drifted off before I could catch myself. My dreams had been nothing but swirling black nightmares the past few months. Nightmares which included Ralph and a hooded henchman. Ever since I got that first text after the trial, I’d been on edge. I had a feeling that it wasn’t really over.

I managed to work it out with my principal and graduate high school early. I felt like I needed to get out of that town to really get away from what happened to me. Everybody knew who I was; they even put a made-for-TV movie about it on Lifetime. I couldn’t so much as go to the grocery store without getting sympathetic and curious looks. My parents and I both agreed that it was best for me to go ahead and start the next chapter of my life early. So, five months after the trial, I went off to the University of Washington. It seemed to have been working, too. I hadn’t gotten a single creepy text since I moved 35 hours from home.

That may seem a little drastic, but I didn’t feel like I had another choice.

“And you, Ms. Cassandra?”

I jerked out of the sleep I had settled into and peeled my eyes open to find the professor staring at me. A blush tinted my cheeks as I rectified myself in the seat and cleared my throat.