Wildest Dreams [ON HOLD]

❝ i know exactly where it leads ❞

Fade into view, oh,
It's been a while since I have even heard from you.
I should just tell you to leave,
'Cause I know exactly where it leads,
But I watch us go 'round and 'round each time.

"Style" -Taylor Swift

I had no idea where Jacen was.

He hadn't spoken a single word to me since our fight yesterday and had gone out of his way to make sure we were together as little as possible. He had even booked a hotel room last night so he didn't have to sleep in the RV with me. I hadn't seen him since the presentation at Arizona State and was desperately hoping he wasn't enough of an asshole to leave without me.

I tapped my fingers against the edge of my laptop, debating whether or not I should try a Google search for his phone number. The last time I had done that in public hadn't warranted good results, but the campus café was pretty much deserted.

There were a couple workers bustling around behind the counter, a guy in the far corner who was playing his music way too loud since I could hear it from him while he had his headphones in and a woman on a TV broadcasting some kind of news story.

The last one didn't even count as a person.

"Another iced coffee?" A passing worker asked me, eyeing my empty cup pointedly I glanced at the time on my laptop. Whoops, I had broken the unspoken rule of ordering something every hour when staying in a café like this.

"Uh, could I get a frozen lemonade instead, please?" I had already been here for three hours and too much caffeine probably wasn't a good idea. "Thank you."

She pressed her lips together tightly. "No problem."

Given that the cafe was pretty empty, it didn't take very long for them to complete to my order so I was getting up a moment later to get it from the counter.

As I walked over, an image of a girl on the TV caught my attention but when I turned to look at it completely they had already changed stories. All I caught was the girl's first name, Amanda.

"Excuse me," I asked the worker at the counter. "Did you see what the news was about?"

He paused in wiping the coffee machine and gave me a blank stare. "What?"

I shook my head. "Never mind." I picked up my lemonade and headed back to my seat. I had Google, but I was pretty certain just having the name, Amanda, wouldn't give me the results I wanted.

But I had to know who she was. I had seen her before.

With Nik.

We were still on thin ice two weeks after the incident on Nik's birthday.

He hadn't apologized yet, neither of us had even brought up what had happened. Still, I decided to skip my last period of the day and head over to see him since he had said he would be working tonight.

I stepped off the elevator to see him talking to a girl. They were half-in, half-out of his doorway, like she had been on her way in or out but they had stopped to talk. I slowed down, wondering who the hell she was. She placed a hand on his arm, laughing at something he said, and Nik didn't brush her off, instead giving her a charming smile.

What the hell was going on?

Could Nik be cheating on me with her? I had never seen her before, nor gotten any hints of him drifting. Did that mean I was oblivious or that it was recent? Had it been because of what had happened on his birthday? Was he fed-up or something with me and had decided to move on?

Would Nik be this obvious if he was? He knew that I chose Calc if I decided to skip a class to come see him since I was ahead in that class. Maybe he wanted me to know? Just as I was about to stumble back, Nik glanced up and saw me. He raised an eyebrow, causing the girl to turn around and look at me.