Pieces [Wattpad's Editor's Choice]

10: gUtS & gLoRy

I searched the campus for two hours. My stomach growled and I was starting to smell, so I finally relented and went back to my own dorm to eat and finally shower.

Luna wasn't there. Neither was my lover.

I checked all the areas in our dorm, the closet, even under the beds in case my lover had some childish sense of humor, but there were no signs of his presence. How could he run away from me?!

I was playing hide-and-seek with a person whose brain I hadn't had time to figure out. This was too much thinking for me-and that was unusual.

Another hour later, I found myself sipping Naked juice on my bed with my feet propped on my pillow. My curls were slightly damp from my shower and I had finally changed into a clean pair of white jeans and a red Stranger Things hoodie. With nothing else to do, I reflected on my life.

Roughly thirty-six hours ago, I had my heart broken by a guy I liked for no reason. Twenty-one hours ago, I determined I was single for life. About twenty hours ago, I made the conscious decision I would create my own lover. And sometime at birth, I was placed in some impenetrable bubble that determined I was too special for any guy to have. I guess that was a privilege in some sense; I must've been made of gold.

But the longer I sat and thought, the more my heart ached. I couldn't give up. My lover was somewhere. Maybe he was mad I never called him by his name.

What could I name him?

Isaac called him "Mr. Cupid" earlier and that was such an insult. Cupid was a baby. Yeah, he was a Greek God, but he was also a matchmaker who seemed to suck terribly at matchmaking.

So in that moment, I decided to call him Arrow because he wasn't ruthless little Cupid who couldn't aim his bow right, but he was the arrow that pierced my heart and made it ache for only him.

He was part of me now. Couldn't get any closer to my heart than that.

I had to find him. I had to find my Arrow.

Once I finished my Naked juice, I checked my phone for any texts from either 1) Luna checking up on me to see where I was and where I went last night, 2) Isaac telling me he caught something on the security cameras, or 3) Phillip calling to tell me Arrow was handcuffed and in good hands. Mostly.

But it was BLANK.

"Eff you all!" I threw my phone at my pillow on my bed, but then I grabbed it again and stuffed it in my back pocket. Staying inside wasn't getting me anywhere, and he clearly wasn't here. Not to mention, someone would've reported a guy in the girl's dorm if he were.

I left my dorm and started calling, "Arrow! Hello? Arrowww." I didn't care if people stared. I kept calling. Some girls slinked past me down the hall without even looking up from their phones. I guess it was normal to scream random things in the halls. For all they knew, I was still drunk from the night before.

Once I was outside again, I stared at the buildings before me. He wouldn't have gone back to the Wacky Lab. He couldn't have gone to any of the buildings where our classes would be because they were closed till tomorrow. But...one place was open. And it made the most sense.

I started walking again until I found the stairs that led up to the campus library. Last night, Arrow's eyes fell upon books and papers that contained writing. If that was how he learned about the world, then his best place to be would've been the library.

"Hi," I said to the girl at the front desk. "I'm meeting a classmate here to study. Have you seen anyone unfamiliar around?"

The librarian was a nice young woman of something like twenty-ish. She had bright blue eyes, poufy brown hair and brown skin. Her makeup looked better than ninety-percent of all YouTube tutorials: a sharp wing straighter than the horizon, naturally long lashes coated in a thin layer of mascara, and ombre eyeshadow with mixes of greens and yellows. She could've easily landed a top modeling job if she wanted; I'm sure she'd had plenty of offers. But every time I came here, she was reading a book about conspiracy theories that she shared with whomever cared to listen. If the library was a body, then she was the lungs that kept it breathing.