The Autumn Prince

19. Katherine's Cross

The sun had barely crossed the treeline on Saturday morning when I reached Katherine's dorm, missing my poor car, and I paced in the parking lot arguing with myself. I wanted to tell Rachel everything and hope she'd understand, but she knew about my illness and would chalk it up to insanity, or she'd bring it up to the Dean who would contact my doctors, and that would be worse than the police. As a former ward of the state, I could be taken into custody if the authorities believed I constituted a threat to myself or others.

Miss Gold told me to be careful, but I wasn't planning anything I hadn't already done, and we needed Rachel to stay compliant. I also preferred that she stay friendly since she was the only one I knew on campus with a vehicle and I still needed to get the chest back to my apartment. I had plenty of reasons to string Rachel along, but not a single one of them made it feel right, and I might have turned around if not for Katherine. Everything she was going through was because of me, and if this one little thing could help her without ultimately hurting Rachel...

A few students left the dorm, but class schedules were lighter on Saturdays and I hoped most of the girls would sleep in. I finally let myself in through the side door nearest Rachel's room and knocked exactly half a second before I chickened out.

"Yeah?" came Rachel's muffled voice.

"It's Tom. Got a minute?" A series of heavy thuds sounded off her wooden floor followed by hasty footsteps, but a few seconds later she stood in the open doorway tugging at the waistband of a pair of gray sweat shorts.

"Sorry, had to make myself decent." She straightened the strap of her satin camisole and gave me a shy smile. Not a good sign. On any normal day, Rachel was about as shy as a punch to the groin. I cleared my throat and forced myself to meet her eyes. "No problem. Everything okay in there?"

She stepped back to let me in. "Bumped the desk when I stood up. Knocked over some books, no big deal." She crossed the room to pick them up and I knelt down to help.

Rachel was distracting enough at her worst, I was aware of that even when I was head-blind from medication, but as I reached for a textbook, her posture gave me a clear view down the front of her top and I froze. I couldn't have avoided it, but instead of looking away my eyes locked on her breasts, small, firm, and perfect.

"See anything you like?" she asked dryly.

"I—I'm sorry, I—" I stammered, quickly averting my stare.

"Relax, I doubt I have anything you haven't seen before." She stood and glanced down at her low neckline, then looked back, more amused than angry.

"I'm sorry," I said again, "I'm an idiot."

"You're a guy," she corrected, "and I wasn't careful. Some girl flashed her tits around me I'd probably look too." Relief that she wasn't upset couldn't overshadow my embarrassment, and it didn't stop me from wondering if she'd have reacted the same way had she been in a normal state of mind. It made what I was about to do seem even worse.

"Um," I began, realizing only then that I hadn't come up with a believable reason for visiting her. "I wanted to say thanks for bringing Katherine her classwork. And see how you're doing. You feeling okay?"

"Mostly. Why?"

"You looked down yesterday." It was all I could come up with, and it sounded weak even to me.

"You're sweet, but I'm fine." She blew it off and nodded toward her mini-fridge, "You want some water? Yogurt?"

"No, thank you. I was wondering if you could help me out though."

"What's up?"

"My car died."

"Someone run into you?" she asked.