Consequences Be Damned

11 ⇻ a damned secret

It had been a few days now since I'd felt Dawn being a little distant. Unlike my first week there, I never caught her in the mornings. Even when I woke up abnormally early (five in the morning versus my seven AM daily alarm), I still couldn't manage to catch her.

    At night, she'd always have her headphones in or she'd come home, head straight to her closet to change into new clothes, and then go out for a run until late. Or at least until I was asleep.

    It was getting sketchy. I didn't want to think much of it, so I started to text her.

    SUMMER: do you wanna go study after class?

    I had a tendency to come into our class late because the class before was all the way across campus, so I usually had to squeeze into whatever seat was available. But our first week as roommates she had been saving me a seat on the aisle.

    Unfortunately, though, she'd been coming in late and there were never seats beside each other by the time we'd come in. So I figured that that was why we weren't sitting together–not because of something else.

    But that text.

    DAWN: i have another thing to do

    SUMMER: oh, okay. that's fine. how about later?

    DAWN: i don't think i'll make it back in time

    SUMMER: oh

    SUMMER: what about this weekend?

    DAWN: i'll let you know. i have to go

    I watched her type that last one. The furrow in her brows, the frown on her lips, and the final shake of her head as she tucked her phone away in her pocket. When I walked up to call her, I saw another one of her friends come up to her and asked her if she was busy.

    She told them she wasn't. And then they left together, chatting happily.

    That was when I knew.

When I went home that afternoon, a little disheartened, I found Luke taking up Bellamy's usual space on the couch, his notebook leaning on his propped up leg and a textbook open on his thigh. A large black Hydroflask was lying horizontally on the couch beside him, with a bag of Hot Cheetos open just over it.

    At the sound of the door slamming shut behind me, he looked up, a smile automatically spreading across his face. Brown eyes alighting on me, he raised the hand holding up the pen. "Hey, welcome back."

    "Hey," I returned softly. Sliding my shoes off, I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and sighed.

    "What's wrong?"

    I glanced up at him, eyes wide in surprise. His brows drew together, lips curling down and replacing the welcoming smile that had been on his face.

    Blinking fast, I cleared my throat and shook my head. I licked my lips, stuttering, "Um, no. It's all good. I'm just–I've just got some things–some classes to study for."

    "You do?" He looked taken aback. "I thought you were done with those for a few more weeks?"

    Right. We talked about it when we went to eat at Gehenna. Smacking my head with what I hoped was a smile, I said, "I'm a dummy. I forgot about some projects that I have to complete. I'll just–" I was about to say that I was gonna head upstairs, but the thought of my shared bedroom with Dawn reminded me of why I felt so bad. I shook my head.

    Taking a step back from the steps, I backtracked a bit and asked, "Actually, can I join you here? My room's a bit stuffy."

    Lips pressed together, his eyes scanned my face, before narrowing slightly and nodding. "Yeah, definitely."