Like every day, I pulled up her IG feed on my phone. And like every day, I typed out a message. And like every day, I deleted it after staring at it for way too long.
Scrolling through her pictures only appeased the growing obsession that had sunk its teeth into me to some extent. The memories of her haunted me day and night.
All I wanted was to touch her again, to be close to her. I longed for her,devotedmyself to her, body and soul.
The waiting was killing me. I was someone who took what he wanted, and what I wanted, more than anything, so much it fucking hurt, was Sierra.
I wanted everything — her sweetness and her venom, her soft side and the prickly one. Knowing I had to wait, or I might risk losing her before I even had the chance to convince her, was the only thing holding me back.
My eyes were glued to the screen, greedily drinking in her beauty, until the screen dimmed. Frustrated, I locked my phone and threw it onto the passenger seat as though it had burned me.
It wasn’t the right time. Not yet. It didn’t matter how I felt. She wasn’t going to give me a shot — not until I hit college, not until I checked the right boxes.
Fifteen
Sierra
The beauty of a shared drive? You can make copies of it without anyone knowing about it. I had days to gather as many potential resources as possible.
Now it was just a matter of sifting through them.
The apartment was quiet and hollow, amplifying every tiny sound — the tick of the fridge and the soft hum of my laptop. I hadn’t unpacked even half of my boxes.
Filling up my water bottle, I settled in.
From the looks of it, this was going to be a long night. The sheer number of files was nearly overwhelming.
I knew discerning everything, filtering out potential duplicates, and identifying what could be used as evidence would be tedious work.
Not time-consuming at all.
I’d even called the local food bank where some of the donations from the semester-end charity were supposed to go. They’d never heard of the event — not a single donation had come their way.
It wasn’t long before my eyes were burning.
“Fuck all of you,” I mumbled under my breath. “Fuck all of you for forcing me to do this. I hope all of your pillows are warm, on both sides, every single night.”
I wasn’t even supposed to end up here. Now look where it got me.
With my jaw set so tightly that I feared I might crack a molar, my mind jumped right back to that defining, heartbreaking day.
The screen door slammed behind me, its smack echoing through the house like a gunshot. I didn’t mean to slam it so hard, but I wasn’t exactly in control of my hands at that moment.
Nor was I in control of my heart, which felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.
I rushed into the kitchen, clutching the acceptance letter to my chest as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
I fucking made it! They wanted me in their program. UCLA wanted me on their volleyball team. ME! I’d manifested this. Honestly, I would have sacrificed all my favorite things on an altar if it had gotten me in.
The kitchen was lit in amber, and the late afternoon sunlight bled through the blinds in long, lazy stripes. Dust motes hung suspended in the air, caught in the golden beams, like they didn’t want to land.
Restraining from jumping on the spot and squealing like a lunatic — again — I hastily scanned the space, meeting my parents’ puzzled gazes. I held out the embossed envelope with my dream school’s logo, waiting for their reaction.
“What’s this, honey?” My Mom sounded bemused, and my stomach sank as the sting of disappointment hit me.
For years, this logo had adorned my bedroom wall. I even had a sweatshirt with the logo emblazoned across the chest. I wore it so much that the colors had already faded.
Was it too much to expect that they’d remember this was my dream school? I pushed the pang of disappointment down, didn’t want it to taint this moment.
