Awake | Wattys Winner!

SEVEN: silence

   The clouds blanketing the sky seemed to hang heavier than earlier that morning as I stepped outside of the Harriet building. The air felt foggy as I tried to process the people around me, but my focus wouldn't rest, and the faces wouldn't register.

   The urge to run hadn't subsided, and I gradually found my pace quicken from an erratic walk into a light jog, unaware of where my feet were carrying me. All I knew was that I needed to get away, away from Conrad Blackwood.

   Around me, people walked in clusters and pairs, some holding umbrellas to fight the slow drizzle that had started falling over the green campus. I felt the cold drops hit my forehead and fall through my hair, pricking my scalp, but I didn't stop. My world was falling apart, my sanity quite possibly crumbling.

   My body was drained of terror. Whether it had reached its capacity, or something else had taken the edge away, I was left with a hollow kind of fatigue that wrapped around my limbs, cloaking them with a new kind of will power. A will power to run, to escape.

   When I reached the end of the quad I let my pace slow, my feet hitting the ground heavily and my breath coming in pants. It was then that I caught the site of familiar eyes on the other side of the archway in front of me.

   "Aspen?" Isaac asked, his voice carrying through the air. He started heading towards me, looking a little confused. "I didn't see you this morning."

   "You went to psychology?" I choked, barely able to catch my breath at the idea of him... being there. In that theatre.

   "No," he said, looking a little guilty. His eyebrows furrowed. "I meant on my way to anthropology. When you had chemistry. Are you okay? You look... tired."

   He could have just said I looked awful. My hair was matted from the rain, and my features were probably marred into a look of sleepless terror.

   "I'm okay," I said. "I just - I just slept in."

   He nodded slowly. "Oh, okay. Anyway, I've almost finished the readings for psych. I'll stop skipping the lectures soon."

   The bright smile that flashed over his mouth was enough to cause a stabbing pain in my heart. His eyes were still able to produce butterflies, even when my world was collapsing.

   And then I remembered that there was no way he could go to psychology.

   "No," I said quickly, my voice desperate. "Please don't go."

   He frowned. "That bad?"

   I must have looked crazy. I tried to soften the stress that must have been hardening my face. "Yeah. Awful. Just... stick to the readings."

   He shrugged, and then looked at me a little longer. "Are you sure you're okay, Aspen?"

   I was so desperate to tell him I wasn't, to tell him how scared and confused I was and how much I was grappling with my reality. But I couldn't. I couldn't suck him into this mess, not when there was a possibility he was safe.

   "I'm fine. I just didn't sleep well," I said.

   He tilted his head in concern, the black locks framing his brows sticking in place from the rain. "There's nothing else going on? I know we've only just met, but I'd like to think of myself as good to talk to."

   And I so desperately wanted to talk to him, to talk to anyone. But I couldn't. It wasn't just the compelling orders Conrad had given, it was the brutal truth that everyone would think I had gone off the rails. And that wasn't even considering the danger I'd be putting them in.