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I tip the driver and send her on her way, and then there I am, standing in front of the small rented house where I live.

Inside, it's dark, and the air is stale. I've been gone for months. Thank god I gave my plants away, because they all would have died a long, long time ago.

Flipping on the light, I shiver. The heat's been off for months, too. The chill racks me to my bones.

Another, crushing pang of regret threatens to swamp me. I could be eating dinner around a big table, surrounded by the five mountain men that I love. I could be calling Lonely Peak my home, but instead I'm here.

There aren't as many ghosts kicking around this little house as there were at my grandmother's.

It's entirely my fault. But I don't think I've ever felt quite so alone.

35

The next day, after a fitful night, I comb through my closet for my best suit. This is the one I wore to my job interview five years ago. It's pale gray and fitted, with a skirt that goes to the knee. I almost reach for the plain white button down I usually wear it with, but then pause. I reach for a purple top with a low V neck instead, and yes. That's what I was going for.

Regarding myself in the mirror, I turn side to side. I look professional as hell like this, but also sexy and savage. I don a pair of spiky black heels and tie my hair into a neat twist at the back of my head. Some concealer, mascara, and a dark smear of red lipstick, and I'm ready to take on the world.

Or so anyone on the outside would think. On the inside, I'm a quivering mess.

Connie didn't give me all the details about what was going on in our conversation yesterday. All I know is that Richard is trying to bring in a new art teacher—an older man, one with more experience and glowing recommendations.

Forget that he has to dick me over to do it. The leave I took to care for my grandmother and see to her affairs was completelylegitimate. The guy screwed me over in an awful lot of ways. But threatening my livelihood? My career? This has got to be the worst stunt he's pulled so far. I'm not going to let him get away with it. I'm not.

The whole ride over to the school, I keep telling myself that. Exiting my car, I keep my head up and my gait steady. I pull open the front door and stride on through.

But instead of feeling at home, I immediately feel on edge.

Unintentionally, I've arrived during a class change. The hallways are full of teenagers, and yeah, this is a small school, but the crowd is unbelievably overwhelming.

I've spent the last few months on Lonely Peak, surrounded by silence. Sure, the guys could get rowdy sometimes. In his workshop, Deandre liked to listen to his sexy music awfully loud, and Jax never did turn down the volume on his video games. But it was still nothing like this.

The cacophony intensifies as murmur starts up in the midst of it all. A few kids wave my way, and I wave back. More point in my direction, and I feel uncomfortable, being stared at like that. One of the teachers, an old vet who never liked me, narrows her eyes at me from her station in front of her classroom door.

I force a smile at her, but already my confidence is falling.

There's a reason I was the one to volunteer to close out my grandmother's affairs, and it's not just that my father made more money at his job. I was disillusioned with teaching, burnt out and uninspired, and this school had only made it worse. People like Connie helped, but the rest of the place felt like hostile territory where I never really belonged. No one trusted me, and I couldn't trust any of them.

All over again, I wonder what the hell I'm doing here. Yesterday, I didn't see any other options, but now it feels like of all the paths I could have picked, I planted myself on the very worst one.

But it's too late. I picked my fate. I left behind my best shot at happiness because I was afraid of losing it, but now it's gone all the same. What was I thinking? What am I going to do now?

I have half a mind to walk right back out the door. I have some savings. Being treated with kindness and adoration on Lonely Peak left me feeling useless and vulnerable, and maybe that's how I would always feel if I stayed there, but that doesn't mean I had to comehere. I could pack up my things and go anywhere. To a new town or a big city. To my father's house.

Or back. I could go back. I could tell them how I feel and ask them if things can change.

The very idea shakes me to my core. That's not who I am. I don't rock the boat. I go along. I do what needs to be done.

But what if I did? What if I could?

I turn around, dizzy, my vision narrowing until the hallway before me dissolves into a distant speck of light at the end of a very, very long tunnel.

And then it expand. It blows up, and I blink against the explosions rocketing through my brain. Because when I face the door, it's not to find glass and metal and an inhospitable world beyond.

It's to five faces. Ten eyes gone dark with concern.

It's to find the five men that I love, and that I ran from, standing right there. Right here in this place that holds no home for me.

And all of them are looking at me as if I broke their fucking hearts.