Lose Control (The Jewel Project #5)

19.1|| She's Back

Sam finally decided that there was no point to keep living in denial. Life sucked and he had to face it the way it was, so he chose to bury himself in college work. If he were completely honest, he did it because he couldn't stand being in his own house anymore.

Part of him feared the inevitable return of his father and what it meant to what was left of his family. The other part was sick of watching his mother pretending to be brave and acting as if nothing had happened. It was bullshit, everything had changed.

His last session with Skye hadn't helped. Sam had wanted to come clean about his parents' divorce, so he carefully prefaced it with a lengthy description of his family, actually answering Skye's irrelevant questions about his childhood. He'd wrapped it up so nicely, presented it so objectively, and then she'd dropped the bomb. He was a sheltered little rich kid who was for the first time realizing life wasn't all roses.

What had fallowed was a hurricane of curses before he stomped out of her office and swore to himself for the millionth time that he was never going back there. It was a lie. He would and soon because hating her gave him something to distract him from the rest of his shitty life.

Just like he'd hoped college would be a distraction. It turned out, it was a poor one. He could hardly focus on the classes and people were still surprisingly hug up on his personal life and the reason he broke up with Christine. Maybe screaming it from the roof of the building would make everyone happy.

His head pounded as he exited the building, the sense of exhaustion and numbness already achingly familiar. He really wished he would stop feeling like a zombie, but fat chance at the moment. If he could only get home and sleep. Or anywhere, actually. He faltered on the final steps, wondering where he should go. His first impulse would be Tom and Angie's, but since Tom had just moved out a day ago, it sort of felt like betrayal. For some reason, he wanted to see Angie though, even if just to comfort her. What stopped him was the feeling she'd sink a knife in his neck for looking like Tom.

"Finally! You're impossible to find these days."

Sam jumped and turned to his right. It was impossible and he was certainly hallucinating, because there was no way Christine was heading for him and had announced her presence as if nothing had happened.

But there she was, stopping in front of him, a small smile on her lips, shaking her head. The lack of sleep was getting to him and the throbbing in his head just proved it.

"I've been trying to talk to you since forever," she said, her tone light and friendly.

"Are you shitting me?" Hallucination or not, he was not going to let her act as if he'd failed to return her call once and she was now scolding him with good humor.

"I'm not. You've just hid away and left me no choice but to basically stalk you." She still smiled, but it was obviously forced now. "We need to talk about what happened."

"Have any news about it?" Why wasn't he just walking away? Why did his feet feel like they'd sunk into the last concrete step?

"You don't have to be an ass." She narrowed her eyes at him, finally revealing her real intention. Shifting the blame some more.

"If you're here to tell me how this is my fault, you can save your breath."

"I'm actually here to apologize and ask you to come home so we can talk."

"Wouldn't want to bother Harry now."

She gritted her teeth. "That idiot is not there. Who do you take me for? I told you it was nothing, just a moment of weakness from my part."

"How long did it last then, Christine?" Everything hurt with every word, but he finally had the chance to rage at her and he wasn't going to squander that opportunity. "Your so-called moment of weakness? One night? A week? A month? A year?"