Page 83 of Bachelor
“I’m fine,” I lied, then gave him my best smile. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Whitney!” His voice was swallowed by the crowd as I turned in the direction I came and hurried through Hollis Hall. I tucked the Scantrons in my purse and rushed down the steps into the foggy, damp night air but found it nearly impossible to breathe.
He was supposed to have told the administration about us today. His classes ended at two. It should have happened by now. Here I was, thinking the fact I hadn’t heard from him today meant everything had gone well, but now it felt like the furthest thing from the truth.
I pulled my phone out of my purse and called him.
It went straight to voicemail.
Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.
I called him again, and it went to voicemail. I sent him several frantic texts and then slipped my phone in my pocket. My heart raced as I turned and made a beeline toward the bike trail.
The gate leading into faculty housing rose ahead of me as I tore through groups of students mingling on the trail. I pushed open the heavy gate, ignoring anyone who may have been watching me. As a student, I wasn’t supposed to be in here. But I didn’t care.
I wove down the path and reached his little cottage within a minute, my breath coming in quick rasps. Pounding on his door, I had the sinking feeling he’d gone to administration and had been held there, like a prisoner, or worse, fired and told to leave immediately. When he didn’t answer the door, I walked along the porch, peering in the windows. Rhys only really had books. He hadn’t fully furnished his cottage or bought anything sentimental to decorate it with. It looked the same as it had the night I came here, desperate, and we’d slept together for the first time.
“Are you looking for Professor Ellis?” came a soft female voice behind me.
I whirled around and saw Professor Catherine Gracen walking toward me. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled back away from her face, and the fog wrapped around her ankles as she looked me up and down, slightly confused.
“I—I’m his TA. I have Scantrons in my purse that I was supposed to give to him but he wasn’t in his office.”
“Oh.” She smiled, heaving a breath. “I’d be a little frantic too if I had to cart those all over campus. I can take them for you.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded as she stepped up onto the porch, extending a hand. “I know where they go after they’re graded. Otherwise, you’d be hanging onto them all Spring Break, and that’s an unnecessary stress I don’t think anyone would want on their shoulders.”
I reached in my purse and handed her the Scantrons. “All Spring Break?” I asked, watching her tuck the Scantrons into her inner jacket pocket and begin to turn away. “Is he not here?”
She jabbed her thumb to the left toward a nearby cottage. “We’re neighbors. He asked me to water his plants for the next week, starting this morning. I saw him leaving last night with a duffle bag. I figured he decided to take off a day early. Some do that.” She shrugged, then chuckled. “I would have loved to take today off, but the law school always stacks the last exams on the final day of the quarter.”
“Oh.” It was all I could say as I watched her walk down the steps.
She waved, assuring me she’d deliver the Scantrons to where they needed to be filed, and disappeared back through the fog. A sob wrapped its way around my throat and squeezed.
Heleft?
My nostrils flared as I turned my shock into fury. Fury for the school that had brought us together and then forced us apart. Anger toward Christian for accentuating it, anger toward Cassandra for her scheming.
Something happened. He wouldn’t have just left me without a word.
I balled my hands into fists and stormed off his porch and into the mist, the silver fog parting and billowing out behind me as I hightailed it toward the administration building.
It took exactly seven minutes to reach the towering fortress of stone that predated the college. I walked right through the door and down a long, red-walled hallway. I knew my way around. I knew where to find the offices I sought. My vision was as red as the crimson wallpaper as I punched in the level on the elevator and stepped inside, reeling. I exited the elevator on the fourth floor and stepped out into a sparsely furnished foyer. A woman sitting behind a desk looking bored met my eyes, her own eyes going wide as she took me in.
But I wasn’t looking at her. I walked right up to her, and then past her and toward the office directly behind her desk.
“Wait! You need an appointment!”
I opened the door to the Chancellor’s office and walked inside, slamming it shut behind me.
The Chancelor of Gatlington University was a short, stout man of roughly sixty. He didn’t even look up at me as I walked toward his desk. His small, round eyes were fixed on his laptop screen, an email reflecting on his thick glasses.
“Can I help you, Ms. Dahl?”
I came to a stop in front of his massive wooden desk. The desk swallowed him whole, making him look almost childlike behind its ornate design. He finally looked at me, his eyes bored and lined with fatigue.
