Written in the Stars (W.I.P.)

Chapter 17

Dean
After my weekly therapy visit with Mrs. Briggs, I made my way home feeling ever-so-slightly more calm and measured than before. So, even if it was just a little bit, I appreciated her working with me. Wasting her breath on a person who thought he was already too far gone.
I parked my car in the driveway and got out, walking up to the front door and unlocking it.
I walked inside and shut the door behind me.
"Where were you?" A voice asked from behind me.
I turned around to see Julian sitting on the couch and looking at me.
"Why do you care?" I asked, walking toward the staircase.
"I don't know, because you're my brother and I don't want you going off to some random place in the middle of the morning that you haven't told any of us a thing about." He stood, his voice oddly calm as he walked toward me.
I pushed past him and began ascending the stairs.
"I have a therapist, okay? That's who I've been seeing for these past few days," I lowered my voice so nobody else in the house could hear.
I opened the door to my room and before I could close it, Julian stuck his foot in the gap and pushed it back open, coming inside and shutting it behind him.
"Where did you get a therapist?" He asked, looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face.
"What do you mean, 'where did I get a therapist'? With money, duh."
"What money? Actually, who's money?"
I avoided answering that question, as nobody knew that Rhys had been in the house.
Or so I thought.
When we had both been silent for a moment or two, Julian looked up at me again.
"It was Rhys, wasn't it." Not a question, he already knew.
"How..." I began, a confused look taking over my face.
"I spoke to him before he went up to your room. Told him to be careful with you because I knew that you were on the edge," he paused, looking down at the floor, "and I blame myself for not stopping Glorion. I just... I just don't know how. We've all been hurt by him except for-" he looked at me again, an idea sparking in his eyes.
I realized exactly what he was realizing.
"Except for Skye..." I finished.

Rhys
As me and Zara finished up, slipping papers back into folders and binders and textbooks back into our bags, I thought about what Glorion had said to me as I was leaving the house.
It had been bothering me for days now.
I just didn't quite know what to think about it, necessarily.
"Rhys, don't get-"
"Hey, what's up with you?"
Her deep, southern voice broke me out of my thoughts and the vivid memory and I turned to look at her.
"Nothing, it's nothing. Just have a lot on my mind, lately." I collected myself and shoved a book gently into my bag and remained sitting.
"Ok, well, you better get your head outta the clouds if you wanna get through college with some good degrees." She paused, studying the aged ceiling of the library and picking at her black-painted nails as if allowing me to process her words for a moment. "Anyways, me and some of the others are heading down to the café here on campus before our seven through seven thirty classes, if you wanna come?"
I contemplated the invitation for a moment, trying to remember if I had any work or studying to do in that time gap.
"Yes, I'll be there. Expect me at precisely six twenty-five," I said.
Zara rolled her eyes and slung her backpack over her shoulder, studying the lines in her pale palm. "You sound like one of my professors," she laughed, looking me over with fake disgust.
I chuckled and rolled my eyes back.
"At least one of us does. This is why I'm tutoring you, Zara Maeve."
She smiled and began walking away.
Once she had passed the nearest bookshelf, out of sight and earshot, I ran my hands along the edges of the table.
This whole quiet, empty section in the back of the campus library reminded me of Dean and his strange, but at the same time, not-so-strange obsession with skipping lunch to hang out with himself at the back of the high school library at his secluded, isolated round-table.
I pictured him eating lunch here, reading here, drawing mainly cats and, sometimes, his favorite people.
I hope I'm one of those... I thought, but immediately shot back the feeling and pushed up from the table, grabbing my bag and heading out of the library.