Page 26 of Wicked Salvation

I wrap my arms around myself as I pass the chapel steps.

I’m trying to hold what’s left of me together—but it isn’t much. Inside, I’m collapsing, crumbling, assaulted with athousand feelings. All of them too big to hold, all of them too complex to think through.

I was honest when I told Lucian he was my safe space.

But now, I’ve gone and ruined it all. I’ve lost the last person at this place who truly cares about me—and I don’t know where to put the pain.

One part of me screams that he’s right, that I betrayed him. But the other? It’s whispering that I didn’t want any of this to unfold this way, that I was scared, that most of all, I was just trying to survive. I said yes to a boy I don’t think I love, because I was afraid. Because I’m desperate for my mother’s approval, because somehow I felt like this wasthe right thing to do.

Now?

I don’t know if I’ll survive this.

This isn’t just heartbreak.

It’s obliteration.

The lights in the hallway are too bright, too sharp. Every sound is too loud—the echo of my footsteps, the creak of the floorboards. Even the hum of fluorescent lights suddenly starts to get on my nerves. I’ve never even noticed them before.

My thoughts get more tangled with each step I take.

Lucian hates me.

Everyone hates me.

I deserve to be hated.

I’m choking cause there’s no air in the hallway. Ducking into an alcove, I lean against the cold stone wall. I end up on the floor somehow, pressing my forehead to my knees.

Can I make myself small enough to disappear?

My chest hurts so much I feel like I’m dying.

Did I just ruin everything?

Did I manage to destroy everything I care about—again?

A sob slips from me before I can swallow it. Soon enough, I’m wailing, clutching at the sleeves of my rumpled uniform, tryingto feel something,anythingthat will tether me to reality. But it doesn’t work. Every organ in my body feels like it’s turning to dust, rotting from the inside out. It’s all too much.

Too much.

Too much.

Too much.

When I make it back to my dorm room, I’m half-blind and half-numb. As soon as the door closes behind me, I fall to my knees again, heavy breaths wracking my body. Moving my limbs feels like slugging through quicksand.

My roommate isn’t around.

Thank God for that.

But then a wave of grief crashes into me—I miss Vivienne more than ever. She would have known what to say. She would have helped me deal with the emotional fallout of all of this, even if she thought what I did was absolutely stupid.

She was an anchor in my life.

And I’m so stupid she had to die for me to realize.

I crawl over to my bed, a tornado of embarrassment and shame sucking the air out of my lungs. Despite it all—I know one thing that would make me feel better.