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Cougar22:Not long enough.

Never long enough.

I hit the END button then, close my laptop and collapse on my bed. My room is freezing now. Sobs and shivers rack my body. If from the cold or the never-ending pain, I cannot tell.

Later, much later, when I can make myself move again, I close the window, turn the space heater back on, nest under the blankets and allow exhaustion to take me.

Chapter Fourteen

I’m not hungry,but I force myself to eat. The jumbled sounds of the cafeteria reflect the confusion of thoughts in my mind, as if I too, have hundreds of voices speaking at the same time inside my head.

I barely paid any attention in my classes today. It’s a miracle I took any notes at all. Thank goodness I had no tests, or else who knows what would have ended up on the paper.

“Earth to Becca.” Fingers snap inches away from my face.

“What?” I blink at River who is looking at me with a smirk on her face.

“There she is. Welcome back. I was beginning to think you had been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by a clone.”

“Nope. No such luck.” I sigh. “I’m tired, I didn’t sleep well.”

She snorts. “Did your boy Tommy keep you up?”

I ignore the innuendo. “No, I was alone. What about you? Seeing anyone?”

“Negative, ghost rider.”

“You and your movie quotes.”

“What?” Her hands go up. “Top Gun is life.”

I pick a french fry from my plate and point at River with it. “What’s up with the dry spell?”

She steals the fry, dunks into the little cup of ketchup between us and takes a bite. “Dry spell?”

“Yes.” I grab another fry and eat it before she can take it. She pouts and goes for my plate. “You haven’t gone on a date since last semester. What’s up?”

River holds my gaze for a few extra seconds, then shrugs. “Nothing. Taking a break from men and concentrating on classes with it being senior year and all.”

Evasion is not in River’s nature. I know she lied just now. Or at the very least omitted the real reason she’s been flying solo for months. I’m too good a liar not to recognize an untruth when I see one. The way she looks at me—unblinking—that’s her tell.

“That’s it? A boy time-out?”

“Oh, look!” She points over my shoulder. “Your favorite professor. We should ask him if he wants to join us for lunch.” Her smile is so devious, I’m afraid to look behind me.

Her arm shoots up, and she waves. “Hi, Professor Beckett. Want to join us?”

Kill.

Me.

Now.

I stare straight at River. She gives me the sweetest of smiles. I don’t look back, but I can feel someone standing to my right.

“Miss Devereux. Thank you, but I have a huge pile of papers to read and grade sitting on my desk.” He says this in his cold and distant voice. He pulls back the chair next to me and sits anyway.

He’s inches away, and his clean scent reaches to me with invisible fingers. His proximity overpowers my senses. The sounds of the cafeteria, the competing smells of food, the constant motion of people moving all around us fades away. Sitting this close to him, I can see a ring of green around the whiskey color of his eyes, and a tiny scar above his right eye, a thin line slightly lighter than his tanned skin.