MADI FINISHED READING the last page of her notes before walking into her organizational behavior class for a quiz. She’d spent the night reading and studying after she stopped wondering why Jake hadn’t called. Madi turned to put her purse on her chair when she saw him again—the guy with the hoodie—outside her class. Madi glanced at the clock. She had five minutes until class started. She had an idea and decided to run with it. She had nothing to lose. She pushed out of her seat and made her way over to him.
“Excuse me, do you know what time it is?”
He looked down at his phone. “Uh, it’s 12:55.”
“Thanks.” She turned to go, but then turned back quickly. “That’s an interesting book you’re reading. What class is it for?”
“It’s not for a class. I’m just reading it on my own.”
“Do you have a class today?”
“No, not today.”
“This is a weird place to just hang out,” she said with a smile. “Are you waiting for someone?”
“Yes, my girlfriend has a class in this hall.”
“Which class?”
“Um, finance.”
“Really? Because the only other class in this hall today besides organizational behavior is economics.”
“Economics… that’s right. I knew it was something like that,” he replied with certainty.
“There are no economics classes in this hall.” Madi put her hands on her hips. “What kind of shit are you trying to pull? Are you following me?”
He stood taller and looked her square in the eye. “I don’t even know who you are. Why would you say that?”
His left eye twitched and she felt in her gut she was right. She knew one way to find out for sure. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her professor strolling into the classroom. She turned to walk toward class and then spun back around to face him. “Tell Jake he needs to call me immediately.”
She bounded back into the room and flew into her chair. Frustration and anger boiled under her skin. She glanced back at him, and he was staring at her. She knew she was right. Her instincts told her days ago that something was weird about him. Jake was so concerned for her safety but quickly dismissed the guy following her? Bullshit. What the hell was he doing? Why would he have her followed? Didn’t he trust her? Madi’s professor cleared his throat and began to pass out the quiz. Madi took a deep breath before she flipped the page. She would have to deal with Jake later.
After the quiz, Madi sat through a lecture on hiring practices. The subject was one of the reasons she had taken the class, but she found it difficult to focus. She thought her exam went surprisingly well, considering she was fuming the entire time. The hoodie guy wasn’t outside the door after class. She must have scared the shit out of him. Jake was probably ripping him to shreds for getting caught. Or… maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was questioning who the psycho was that told him to tell some guy named Jake to call her. She shook her head. She trusted her instincts. Madi had been around Jake’s security all summer. She noticed them and how they tried to blend in and not call attention to themselves. Was there a reason Jake was having her watched? Did something happen to him?
Madi frantically pulled out her phone and scanned the Internet as she walked back to her dorm. She cringed as she read the gossip pages. A “trusted” source had revealed that Jake had made several calls to Allison Gregory. They were planning a date when he returned to L.A. Allison had just finished filming for her latest movie and was spending some time relaxing in the city. She had been heard saying his name and laughing as she spoke to him on the phone. Apparently they were trying to keep their romance under wraps.
Madi tried to put her jealous feelings aside. Jake wouldn’t do that to her. For some reason, the email she hadn’t opened popped into her head.
Madi scoured through her inbox, found it and opened it. There was a picture of Jake with his arms around a girl. The picture wasn’t clear. The girl had her back to the camera. Madi couldn’t make out anything besides the fact that she had long brown hair tied into a ponytail. Who would send her a picture like this, and what did it mean? Madi closed the file and moved it to the trash folder. Then she moved it back into her inbox. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She’d felt like he had been keeping something from her for days. His voice was off. He seemed nervous. Was he worried she was going to find out hewasseeing Allison Gregory? Was the report true? Was it possible that he was waiting to see her to end things? Had she been wrong about him? Maybe he couldn’t wait for her. Madi could feel tears building in her eyes.
Doubt is like a disease. It creeps into your blood when you least expect it and feeds off the darkness inside you, causing you to bleed inwardly and crushing all reason. She made her way back to her room and fell onto her bed as her tears and fears consumed her.
