Chapter 67 Chapter 67

Chapter 67 Sixty-Seven
Fabian
I wondered what she was doing.
Was she already making friends? Was she talking to some guy who knew more about Shakespeare than I did? I hated the jealousy that flared in my chest. It was a poisonous thing, but I couldn’t help it. I had spent so long fighting for her, and now I had to just trust that she wouldn’t find someone better.
I stood up and started pacing the small space, my boots clicking loudly against the cold linoleum. My back still ached from the drive, or maybe it was just the sheer tension of the day. I needed to move. I needed to do something with my hands. I looked at the second bed—the empty one. Whoever was coming was going to have to deal with me being a prick, because I had zero interest in being a “good roommate.” I didn’t want some random guy trying to make small talk with me while my head was entirely in York.
The afternoon dragged on like a slow torture. I threw myself into the desk chair and tried to look at some of the introductory material for my engineering courses, but the words blurred on the laptop screen. Equations and syllabus requirements felt completely pointless. My mind kept drifting back to York. I pictured her in her new room, unpacking her books, maybe laughing with that girl she’d mentioned in her text—Maya.
I was happy she had someone to talk to so she wouldn’t feel lonely, but a part of me was entirely selfish. I wanted to be the only person she needed. I wanted to be the one making her laugh, not some new university friend I’d never even met.
By 5:00 PM, the light in the room began to fade into a muddy grey, matching my exact mood. I hadn’t eaten anything since the morning, but I wasn’t hungry. My stomach was tied in knots. I just felt restless, trapped by the four cream-colored walls of the dorm. I grabbed my leather jacket and headed out, needing to clear my head and learn the layout of the campus before classes officially started.
I walked for an hour, weaving through the thick crowds of new students. Everyone else seemed so eager, laughing in big groups and heading off to campus mixers. I felt like a ghost, completely detached from the noise around me. I felt more alone in a sea of people than I ever had out at the farmhouse.
Everything about this place felt temporary. The people, the buildings, the superficial energy—it all felt like something I was just passing through, a waiting room for the next four years. The only thing that felt permanent and real was the weight of the phone in my pocket. It was my only anchor left.
As I walked back toward the freshman dorms, I saw a couple saying a desperate goodbye near a campus bus stop. The guy was holding the girl like his life depended on it, burying his face in her hair, and she was openly crying into his chest. I looked away, my chest tightening with a sharp, familiar ache. That had been me and Paris just hours ago. Now, I was a total stranger in a city that didn’t care, surviving on a strict countdown, waiting for a clock to hit eleven so I could hear her voice and feel like myself again.
I made it back to the concrete building of Room 412 just as the streetlights were flickering on, casting long shadows across the pavement. I took the lift up, swiped my key card, and stepped inside, expecting the same cold silence I’d left behind.
But the room wasn’t empty anymore.
A large navy suitcase was open on the second bed, clothes spilling over the mattress, and a familiar, high-end leather bag was tossed carelessly onto the desk. I froze in the entryway, my heart skipping a beat as a hard knot formed in my throat. There was a sound coming from the small ensuite bathroom—the sound of someone casually whistling a tune I knew all too well. A tune I had heard a thousand times in the car park of Reagan High.
The bathroom door clicked open, and a guy stepped out, wiping his hands on a white towel. He stopped dead when he saw me standing there, his eyes widening in brief shock before his features settled into that familiar, arrogant expression. His smirk widened into something that made my blood boil instantly.
“Well, well,” Colton Harris said, tossing the towel onto his bed and leaning against the doorframe like he owned the place. “Small world, isn’t it, Smith?”