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I swallow thickly and nod. “Yeah.”

“I was meaning to talk to you anyway,” she says.

“Oh, what about?”

“I got a phone call from Stanford.”

I stop dead in my tracks.

I can only stare at her while she stops and faces me.

A cunning smile. “You sneaky little bitch.”

CHAPTER 13

I gulp.

Everly laughs. “I mean bitch as a compliment, though you’re definitely sneaky. I can’t believe you lost your scholarship and still decided to fly all the way to Canada to see if anyone would notice. You have some nerve.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck,fuck.

I feel like the forest has turned into a black hole, and I’m sinking, no way to climb out.

“My goodness, Syd,” she says to me. “You look absolutely terrified. Come on. I’m allowed to make fun. You definitely proved how devoted you are to working at Madrona.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s all I can say.

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “Well, I shouldn’t say that. Your apology is necessary and appreciated. But it’s done now. Come on, let’s get you inside.”

She grabs my hand and pulls me along around the lodge, past the cedar where I always see Kincaid standing. I glance up at my window, wondering what he sees when I’m there. The light in my room is on, which means he can see me clearly.

Strange thing to think about, considering you’re about to be sent home.

I follow Everly into the lodge, but instead of going upstairs, she takes me to the couch nearest to the hearth, the flames low. “Here, sit. I’ll get the fire going.”

She goes and grabs a couple of logs from the basket and throws them in. They crackle and pop, embers and sparks. Then she walks to the hot water dispenser and grabs a mug, plopping a tea bag inside, and fills it.

I stare back at the fire, watching as the flames rise, feeling sick to my stomach. I want to keel over right here, crawl into a ball, and simply disappear.

Everly comes over with the tea and hands me the mug. “Chamomile. Should help you sleep after all this commotion and warm you up.”

I wrap my cold fingers around it. “Thank you,” I say quietly.

“You know, I think it’s ridiculous that they took your scholarship away. You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the one who did.”

I wince, closing my eyes. “Great. You know everything.”

“Sydney. It happens,” she says, sitting beside me and putting her hand on my knee. “So you had an affair with your professor. You wouldn’t be the first.”

I give her a pained look. “I didn’t know he was married. He never wore a ring, never mentioned a wife or anyone. He lied by omission.”

“Men lie,” she says simply. “Especially men with power. They gaslight you.”

He certainly did. It was Professor Edwards’ daughter who found out about the two of us. She sent me a threatening message on my Instagram, telling me the truth about her mother and father, which then made me spiral. I drank too much and then found out his real address and made my way over thereto confront him. He answered the door, and I called him every name in the book, except I was so drunk I wasn’t making much sense. His daughter stood behind him, recording the whole thing on her phone. The way she framed it, it looked like I had turned into some drunken and obsessed stalker.

The only saving grace was that school was officially done for the year, so I didn’t have to return to campus to face him in my chemistry class or see the looks of my fellow students because I know that video went viral. I thought maybe if I just stayed offline, I would escape from all of this unscathed.

And then the school called.