Broken (Brown Eyed Boy book 2)

First Clue (Carlos POV)

By the time I was done talking to Cassie, it was ten minutes passed the time Jessie was supposed to meet me for lunch and she still hadn’t come out of the dorm. I waited another five minutes, thinking she lost track of time or was finishing her thought, but she still didn’t come out. I called her phone twice and there was no answer. Finally, I went upstairs and knocked on her room door. There was silence and then a crash from inside before the door opened. Jessie looked groggy at first but then she registered it was me at the door and she smiled the way she always did when she saw me. “Hey,” she said, still sounding asleep.

“Hey,” I said. “Did you forget about lunch?”

“Of course not,” she said, turning to her desk. “But that’s not until…crap.” She turned to me guiltily. “I’m sorry, I guess I fell asleep again.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Don’t worry about it though. You’re tired from working on your paper.”

“I am,” she agreed. “But the good news is I finally finished it. Can you go over it for me?”

“Sure,” I smiled. “But after lunch. We both missed dinner last night and something tells me you didn’t get breakfast this morning either, right?”

“Guilty,” she answered. “But I wanted to finish the paper.”

“And you have,” I said. “Now it’s time to eat.”

“Okay,” she said, reaching for something behind her door. “But I have to make a bathroom trip first.”

“Fine,” I said. “But I’m knocking out on your bed until you get back.”

“Okay,” she laughed and kissed my cheek before leaving.

*          *          *          *          *         

As usual, we spent lunch joking around and talking about the most random of things. We rarely ever had a moment of silence, so when Jessie suddenly went quiet I picked up on it immediately. It was a habit of mine since she first told me about what happened with her and Michael all those years ago to keep watch for these random silences. I didn’t like the idea of her falling into that dark memory, so I always tried to keep her preoccupied. And when I couldn’t think of anything to pull her from it, I just tried to get her to talk on what she was thinking. “Are you okay?” I asked.

Jessie looked up from her plate and at me. “Yeah, why?” she asked.

“You’re quieter than usual,” I answered, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Well I’m fine,” she answered, smiling to prove her point. I looked her in the eyes and as usual she stared back as though she couldn’t look away; something in her eyes telling me that something was wrong.

“I don’t believe you,” I said bluntly. She sighed and looked away from me.

“Of course you don’t,” she said more to herself than to me. “As usual, you can see right through me.”

“Someone has to,” I replied and she smiled. “Seriously Jess, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing really,” she answered and I involuntarily sighed. She looked up at me and met my eyes again. “Honestly, Carlos it’s nothing. I just have this weird feeling that’s all.”

“Oh, well if that’s all,” I said sarcastically and rolled my eyes. She laughed and shook her head at me.

“You’re not going to leave this alone until I tell you, are you?” she asked.

“Do I ever?” I smiled.

“No,” she smiled back. “But… I don’t really have an answer for you. It’s just like, I have this weird feeling like something is going to happen. It feels like it could be something bad but then maybe it could be good? I don’t know, I can’t explain it. It just feels really weird to me. Like whatever it is, something is definitely going to happen.” I sat in silence for a minute as I looked at her, suddenly tense. I didn’t know what there was to be tense about except that when she had feelings like that, things tended to happen; and it was rarely ever good. “Are you okay? You look a little…”