My first instinct is to deny it. But what can I possibly say?
I lean my weight against the cool, sturdy wooden desk and shut my eyes.
The group of students crowding around the statue and the constant stream of people walking out of the library . . . apparently, not all of them were strangers. I should've been careful, I should've been more aware. But whenever Liam is around, everyone else and everything else just fades into the background. It happens so naturally and automatically that I'm not even conscious of it anymore.
"Well?" Felix is tapping his foot impatiently, the edges of his dark brown shoes scuffed and worn.
"Sorry," I say, shaking my head as I lower myself into the desk chair. I angle it away from him, slowly and discreetly, in a hopeless measure to evade his accusations.
"We were just wishing each other good luck," I say, at last, looking up at Felix. He is still eyeing me skeptically, so I force myself to add, "You know, for the finals."
The words have barely left my mouth when Felix lets out a dry laugh that is utterly devoid of humor. He climbs to his feet in one swift motion, instantly dwarfing me. Something changes behind his eyes, his expression hardening like cement setting solid.
"Nice try," he scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest as shame ignites my cheeks. He looks down at the floor, murmuring more to himself than to me, "I didn't have enough control. I should've known not to trust you. I knew something was going on after that night at that stupid restaurant."
"What?" I say, craning my neck to hear him better.
Suddenly, Felix is standing in front of me, his hands gripping the back of the chair on either side of my shoulders. His face is too close for comfort, his breath hot on my skin.
"Your friend might be stupid, but I'm not," he says, his overpowering frame blocking everything else from my vision like a dark screen. My back is pressed painfully against the chair as I try to put as much space between us as possible. "Do you really think I didn't notice? You couldn't keep your fucking eyes off each other."
I feel panic rising in my chest, as though I'm at the bottom of a pool and can't find my way to the surface. Raising my arms, I push against Felix until he takes a few steps back. His words — loud, full of animosity and something else I can't quite name — are swirling angrily inside my head.
A memory of Felix's face looming over mine with The Blacktop's black-and-white photographs in the background resurfaces. Forehead creased in doubt, a frown on his mouth and accusation in his eyes.
Every little thing — my friendship with Vera, the time I wished Jack on his birthday, the incident at The Blacktop — sparked his curiosity, bordering on paranoia. His suspicions were usually baseless, but he never waited or hesitated to voice them before.
Through all the chaos in my brain, I find myself asking, "If you suspected all this while . . . why did you wait until today to confront me?"
Felix remains silent, running the tip of his tongue over his lower lip as he averts his eyes. For one moment, my mind flashes back to the way he had kissed me today. As I recall his tenacity and desperation, a sickening thought lodges itself in my mind and nothing I do will shake it away.
"What's going on, Felix?" I demand, clearing my throat and forcing myself to look at him. "Did you think you could just, what, try your luck with me first? Did you decide to spring this on me just because I stopped you?"
He hesitates for a moment too long before saying, "I don't know what you mean."
"You know exactly what I mean." I knot my fingers together and look up at the ceiling. "Is that all you wanted from the start?"
My mind races as I stumble over the memories of the past few weeks, ever since Felix and I started 'going out'. All this while, I'd been so caught up with forcing myself to choose Felix over Liam that I failed to see just how shallow Felix's feelings were. I was blinded to the truth, it didn't occur to me to notice the intentions behind his controlling and possessive nature until now.
"You said you didn't have enough control," I go on as Felix's face reddens. In anger or embarrassment, I can't tell. "I'm not going to be controlled by you. Nobody is. And as long as you act this way, we're never—"
Felix lets out another low chuckle, cutting me off mid-sentence. "Wow. You haven't apologized for cheating on me, not once. And now you're giving me bullshit about my behavior?"
Taken aback, I barely get three words out before I'm interrupted again. "No, I am sor—"
"Too fucking late now," Felix sneers, his dark eyes glinting like unpolished black granite. As he advances towards me again, the suffocating feeling returns with such intensity that my fists curl at my sides with the desire to bolt through the door.
"Look, we have an exam tomorrow," I say, inching my way around him to get closer to the door. The scent of his cologne pervades the space around him, causing me to yearn for some fresh air even more.
"I think you should go," I continue distractedly, but just as I'm about to wrap my fingers around the doorknob, Felix's hands grip my shoulders from behind and tug me backward.
"I don't think so, Carmen. We're not done here." Felix bends so our eyes are level, his arms still holding on to me as he presses me to the wall. Fear skitters down my spine when he says, in a cold, severe tone, "How dare you make it sound like your cheating was my fault . . ."
"I didn't say that! Let go of me! Felix, let go!" I shoot back, using my wrists to shove his hands away from my shoulders.
After repeated and persistent attempts to do this, Felix finally loosens his hold, releasing me from his iron grip. But his body is still pressed too close to mine, obstructing my breath and my vision, coating everything in an unpleasant shade of red.
Mustering all my strength, I slam my hands against Felix's torso, pushing him to the opposite wall. He reels back, and I take advantage of his surprise to throw the door wide open, letting the hallway's overhead light flood the entryway of my room. I move so I'm just outside, my back pressed to the door with the knob clutched firmly in my hand.
"Get out, Felix," I say to him, raising my voice to feign confidence. "Or else—"
"Or else what?" Felix's lips twist in a vile sneer as he steps out into the hallway. "What are you—"
Suddenly, the door opposite to mine is thrown open. Jessica — one of the two girls that occupy room 116 — comes out carrying a laundry bag. She smiles at me politely, but her face changes when she takes proper notice of me and Felix.
"Hey. Everything alright?" she says uncertainly, a tinge of awkwardness lingering in her voice that indicates the lack of familiarity between us.
"Yeah," I say, as Felix nods along with a toothy smile, thumbs raised in reassurance. As an afterthought, I point to him and add casually, "My boyfriend was just leaving."
"Okay, then. See you later!" Jessica says cheerily, hefting her laundry bag and shutting her room door before leaving. I watch the back of her head, her thick, dark-haired ponytail bobbing as she disappears down the deserted hall.
"What a good friend," Felix says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. My gaze snaps back to him when he shifts to lean against the door-jamb, crossing his arms. All the mirth he'd shown to Jessica has completely disappeared. He tips his head, as though a thought has just struck him. "Can't say the same about you, huh?"
I narrow my eyes at him, suddenly exhausted and disoriented.
"Maybe I should tell Vera what her best friend is doing behind her back," he says, his voice distant and thoughtful. "Maybe I will. Unless you . . ."
Felix raises his right hand to run the length of my jaw with his index finger. But I deflect his touch, swatting his hand away the moment it comes in contact with my skin. His eyes harden to a glower when I do this, and he straightens away from the doorframe.
Heart hammering inside my chest, my voice quivers as I say, "Please go."
"I'm going to tell her," Felix says through gritted teeth, appraising me through complacent eyes. "I'm going to tell her, you fucking—"
"Enough! Just leave!" I cry out, my breath hiking as my voice travels down the hall. I hold my breath, my knuckles whitening around the doorknob as I continue to grab it like a lifeline.
Felix regards me with a warning stare as he takes a few steps back. Finally, before turning and leaving, he murmurs cooly, "You're going to regret this, Carmen."
❅
I wait until the sound of Felix climbing down the stairs recedes and completely fades before I enter my room again, shutting the door with a resounding bang. The reverberation echoes through the room, snapping me out of my daze.
"Oh, god," I whisper to myself, my shaky words piercing the cold silence of the room.
Dread wells up inside me, rancid and raw, and I find myself stumbling to my bed, lifting and shoving the covers frantically in search of my phone. The light behind the screen is too bright as I turn the device on, I turn my face away until the screen dims in my peripheral vision.
Unlocking my phone, entering the passcode, going into the contacts list . . . Every motion is mechanical and unthinking. And with the same detachment, I manage to dial Liam's number, pressing the phone so close to my ear that the familiar ring seems to be coming from inside my head.
It's only when Liam's clear voice calls my name questioningly on the other end that I realize my mistake. I pull the phone away from my face, staring at it as I contemplate pressing the end button.
"Hello? Carmen?" he says again. His voice is further away now, but I can still hear the concern, the confusion.
"I—I'm sorry," I say, bringing the phone back up to my ear. "Liam, I'm sorry—"
"What?" Liam asks. A shuffling sound follows his words, as though he's climbing out of bed. "What's going on?"
"I shouldn't have called," I groan, pacing the length of my room until I start to feel a little dizzy. "You must be studying . . ."
"It's fine," Liam insists, his tone rising as he speaks, "Carmen, tell me what's wrong. Are you okay?"
After a brief silence, I let the words rush out of my mouth. "Felix knows."
Liam doesn't ask for an explanation, and somehow, this only causes my anxiety to worsen. I close my eyes, picturing the way his eyebrows furrow when he's concentrating.
Felix knows. He knows. And he's going to tell her.
"He said he's going to tell Vera," I say urgently when Liam remains silent. I can't bring myself to even attempt to conceal the dismay in my voice. "We fought. I called you right after he left."
I'm bracing myself for Liam to ask me how Felix found out, or when he's going to tell her — a question that has been circling in my mind since he left — but he doesn't.
Instead, he says, with forced calmness and deliberation, "He didn't hurt you, did he?"
"No, no," I say in a rush, shaking my head in frustration. "Liam, listen to me, he's going to tell Vera about us, I don't know what I'm . . ."
"Hey, hey, stop," Liam says, his voice resonating in my ear like a warm caress. "Calm down for a second."
"Calm down?!" I demand, balling a fistful of my t-shirt in my free hand and staring at the crumples that appear in the fabric. "I can't calm down! This is all my fault! If I hadn't seen you at the statue today and h—"
I stop mid-sentence and try to release my breath in a deep exhale, but the air leaves my mouth as a strangled sob.
"Don't you get it?" I whisper into the phone, desperate and on the verge of tears. "It's over, she'll never forgive us. I'm sorry, Liam, this is all my fault."
Liam sighs. "Please stop saying that."
I imagine him reaching up to run a hand through his hair in frustration, peering at me with his head dipped, his liquid gold eyes muddled with worry. A wave of longing — incredibly potent and enticing — makes me shiver, and once again, I find myself wanting the one thing I can't have.
"Carmen, don't worry, okay?" Liam says a moment later in a distracted way, as though he's preoccupied with the thought of something. "I'll figure something out."
"What?" Perplexed, I start pacing the room again. "What do you mean?"
"Just—don't worry." A pause. "I can fix this."
My legs grow tired of all the pacing, and I collapse onto my mattress.
"What are you going to do?" There's a dire, beseeching quality to my words. "Liam, please, you're scaring me."
"You don't have to be scared," he says softly. "I'm going to make sure Felix doesn't say anything, okay?"
Liam's composure baffles me, and it makes me wonder vaguely if my panic is unnecessary. But then, a moment later, I think back to the time when Vera had nearly caught us together in the closet. He wanted her to find us, he was almost disappointed that she did not.
Suddenly, I'm hit by the realization that whatever Liam intends to do about Felix now, he's doing it only for me.
"How are you going to do that?" I ask, and as I hear myself say this, a horrible image of Felix and Liam caught in a violent tussle on a sidewalk materializes in my mind, causing me to gasp aloud. "Please tell me you're not getting in a fight."
Much to my surprise, Liam laughs, a light-hearted and amused sound. "No, I'm not. But the idea of punching him is tempting."
"Liam, no, listen to me. It—it's okay if he tells her. I'm sorry. Just . . . don't do anything crazy, I'm begging you."
"Stop worrying, Carmen! It'll be fine, I promise," Liam says with so much conviction that I know I'll never be able to change his mind about whatever it is he's planning to do. "Forget about all this, okay?"
When I respond with dumbfounded silence, he says — in a louder and clearer voice, like he has put his lips a little closer to his phone — "Good luck for tomorrow's final. Goodnight, Carmen."
And before I can conjure up a reply, Liam hangs up.
❅❅
Hi guys!
First, I just want to talk about Felix for a second. He's a potentially violent person with anger issues, and he has hurt Carmen before (regardless of whether it was intentional or not, physical or not). Carmen did the right thing by getting out of her room when she did. But if you ever find yourself in any such situation, don't hesitate to approach a trustworthy adult/authority/family member to protect yourself. Nobody deserves to be subject to any kind of abuse, be it physical or emotional.
On another note, I was supposed to post this chapter a few days ago, but I had to take some time with it because I wanted to include the phone call with Liam as well. Sorry about that!
But hey, did you like this chapter? Please let me know in the comments! We're somewhat closer to the end now (although I can't tell exactly how many chapters are left yet), so I'd love to hear what your thoughts are about this story so far.
Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day/night. ♡
Amethyst