The One Who Came for Me

"I got your bed wet. Where are you supposed to sleep tonight?" The boy I'd grown up with was out in front of everyone, asking the pretty transfer student to be his girlfriend.

I was in his roommate's hoodie, on his roommate's bed, asking Thaddeus that with a perfectly innocent face. Everyone expected me to lose it.

To go crying and screaming and put a stop to it. But right up until it was over, I never showed. Right then, Thaddeus looked away. His throat worked.

He tossed me a towel. "Go dry your hair.

You can sleep once I've changed the sheets." Chapter 1 Colton was going to ask the pretty transfer student out, and he was going to do it in front of everyone.

He'd told everyone ahead of time to keep it from me. What he didn't know was that the gossips hadn't been able to hold it in, and they'd told me long before.

Everyone knew I was in love with Colton. That I'd dreamed about marrying him. And this time Colton had fallen for a girl at first sight and meant it.

So surely I'd cry, make a scene, threaten to end it all. Nobody can resist that kind of show. Love, hate, people tangled up in each other.

They were all waiting for me to lose it, to come tearing over and turn the whole place upside down. Too bad.

Right up until Colton had asked and gotten his yes, I still hadn't appeared. The crowd stood three deep on every side, and by then most of them looked let down.

Even Colton didn't look all that happy about it. He kept one arm around his new girlfriend and pulled out his phone. Not one call. Not one text.

Colton's brows drew together, just slightly. Then he turned to the crowd. "Dinner's on me tonight. Everybody who's here." The students watching cheered.

And that was when I finally stepped out from behind the hedge, where I'd been standing the whole time. Someone with sharp eyes spotted me and shouted, "It's Gwendolyn!

Gwendolyn's here!" "What did I tell you? No way Gwendolyn could stay away." Colton's head came up.

The instant he saw me, the corner of his mouth curved, so faintly you could have missed it. I ignored all of them standing there waiting for the show.

I walked straight up to Colton. "Gwendolyn." Colton pulled his new girlfriend in closer.

He looked at me, and his voice was flat. "You can't force feelings." "We've known each other more than ten years.

I don't want to say anything ugly and wreck what we had." "I'm still going to think of you like a little sister." "If you ever need anything, you can still come to me." Then his voice dropped. "There are a lot of people watching.

Don't make a scene. Go on home." "Colton." I cut him off and took a slow step forward. His brows pulled together again. "Gwendolyn.

Be good." I smiled and held out the bracelet I'd just taken off my wrist. "I only came to give this back." The moment he saw it, Colton's face went dark. "Gwendolyn, what are you playing at now?" "Take the bracelet back.

I'm not going to hang around you anymore." Colton stared at me, and his voice went colder still. "That's pocket change to me." "If you don't want it, throw it out." He'd barely finished when I turned and dropped the bracelet in the trash can beside us. "The things I gave you before, you can throw those out too." Then I walked away without looking at him again.

Colton stayed where he was until Gwendolyn was completely out of sight. His face still hadn't cleared.

His friends jumped in to smooth it over. "Come on, Gwendolyn's just saving face. She's toughing it out." "Watch, Colt.

She'll regret it before the night's out." "She'll probably be back digging through that trash can in tears the second we leave." Chapter 2 Colton laughed once. "Let her have her tantrum." "If it weren't for both sets of parents and how it would look, who'd have the patience for her?" "All right, all right, don't let it get to you.

We're celebrating tonight. Don't let her spoil it." Colton glanced at the new girlfriend beside him, at how bright and lovely she was.

And he pushed Gwendolyn's tiresome face out of his mind. By tomorrow she'd be acting like nothing had happened anyway. Waiting outside his dorm, hanging on him all the way to class.

He'd sat through that show plenty of times over the years. By the time I got down to the Charles River, the rain was coming hard.

I stood under my umbrella in it, thinking about the dreams I'd been having. In the dreams, when Colton asked Seraphina out, I'd cried and made a scene.

And that night, to force him to break it off, I'd gone into the river right here. And what came of it? I nearly died.

Colton sat at the hospital five minutes and walked out for good. The family who raised me were disgusted by all that carrying on about killing myself. The shame of it.

And after the way Colton acted, they decided there was nothing left to get out of me. They cut off my tuition and every dollar they'd been spending on me, until I had to drop out.

No money, nowhere to go, nobody left but the birth parents who drank, gambled, whored, and never met a rotten thing they wouldn't do.

From there my life went straight down, and I died wretched in a foreign country.

After I died, the one who gathered up what was left of my bones was, of all people, the one I'd always kept away from and been afraid of.

While Colton, newly married and riding high, never showed up at all, start to finish. These past days, the things in the dreams had been coming true one by one.

Without them, I'd be frantically calling Colton over and over right now. And then threatening to kill myself, about to go into the river. I was grateful for these dreams.

It was as if I'd been reborn. As if I could change the miserable fate already set for me, one piece at a time. On the third call, someone finally picked up.

I gripped the phone and held it lightly to my ear. Thaddeus. The name circled on my tongue a few times before I said it, slowly.

The rain came down in sheets and shut out the noise of the whole world. There was only Thaddeus's voice, a little lazy, low. "Gwendolyn?" "Thaddeus.

It's really coming down." "I'm at the river and I can't get back. Can you come get me?" The line was quiet for a few seconds.

I held on to the umbrella handle, nervous, my palm damp and sticky with sweat. In the dream, when Thaddeus gathered up my bones, I think he cried.

His tears fell one by one onto my rotting flesh and bare bone. Even in the dream I felt how they burned. Afterward he kept a small jar of my ashes with him.

He kept it his whole life. And he was alone his whole life. I started crying, and a sound caught in my throat. "What are you crying about?" Thaddeus's voice came through.

Still that flat tone, with a trace of impatience in it. "I didn't say I wasn't coming." "Then when are you getting here?" "Wait there. Twenty minutes." "Okay.

I'll wait for you, Thaddeus." He didn't say anything else. The line went dead. Fifteen minutes later I gave my umbrella to a mother and her little boy trying to get out of the rain.

So by the time Thaddeus got there, I was soaked through. He got out of the car with his mouth pressed thin, his face cold as frost.

I pushed my soaked bangs off my forehead and tipped my face up, beaming at him. "Thaddeus, you're right on time." "Gwendolyn, you're too stupid to live." His face stayed cold as he grabbed my arm and stuffed me into the car.

Then he threw a soft blanket at me. Chapter 3 "Dry off.

Don't get my car dirty." He glanced at me in the rearview mirror and swung the car around. "Okay." I did as I was told and wrapped the blanket around myself.

And couldn't stop sneaking looks at him while he drove. With no expression on his face, he always looked cold and out of reach. Plenty of girls at school liked him.

None of them dared make a move. He and Colton were roommates. I went to Colton's room all the time, and every time I did, Thaddeus acted like he couldn't stand me. Even now.

He'd come for me, and he was still ice. When he'd shoved me into the car just now, his grip had been hard. My wrist still hurt. There was a red ring around it.

Nothing in any of it showed that he'd been in love with me in secret the whole time. I lowered my lashes. Everything in the dreams had happened exactly as they showed it.

But now that I'd changed things, a lot of it was different. So would Thaddeus still love me?

And if he didn't love me at all, wasn't I just making trouble for him again? "Back to your dorm?" Thaddeus glanced back at me. My heart gave a jump, and something got into me. "Mm.

Back to yours." Thaddeus's hands stayed on the wheel.

He made a small scornful sound. "Colt's not coming back tonight." "I know." I had the edge of the blanket in my fist, twisting it tighter and tighter. "I'm not looking for him." The car braked hard and stopped at the curb.

Thaddeus turned around to look at me, and the frost in his eyes was cold enough to hurt. "Gwendolyn.

Don't fucking use me as a piece in whatever the two of you are running." "I'm not…" He looked at me a moment longer, then picked up his phone. "I'll get you a car.

You can get yourself back." "Thaddeus…" I bit down hard on my lip and grabbed the phone out of his hand. "Gwendolyn." He looked at me, and there was no anger in his eyes.

No disgust either. Only that they were very dark, holding more kinds of feeling than I could count.

Something in me hurt, and I couldn't have said why. "Thaddeus, I don't want to go back to my dorm.

They all laugh at me." "And I don't dare go home." "Could you let me stay in your room, just for tonight…" I hid his phone behind my back, my voice getting smaller. "Of course, if you really can't stand me, if you don't want to look at me, then forget it." The second I finished, right on cue, the tears came.

One after another, without a sound. Thaddeus didn't say another word to me. But he started the car again. We drove back toward campus, and he parked outside his building.

I followed him up. He got a clean hoodie out of the closet and handed it to me. "Bathroom's over there." He was tall, so the hoodie swallowed me.

It came down almost to my knees, like a dress. After my shower I just pulled it on and came out barelegged. Thaddeus looked at me once and looked away.

I walked past Colton's bed and sat down on Thaddeus's. My wet hair dripped, and the sheet under me went damp fast. The shampoo and the body wash on me were all Thaddeus.

In that small room, the same scent spread through everything. Something charged, quietly growing, that I had no name for.

Thaddeus picked up his cigarettes and cleared his throat. "I'm going to have a smoke." He went out to the balcony. I looked over his bed, curious.

Light gray sheets and comforter, all of it clean. Chapter 4 His desk had a computer and books on it, and it was neat too. I was about to go look at the things on his desk.

Then my phone rang. Colton's name flashing on the screen. I didn't answer. It rang again right away, and showed no sign of stopping.

So I put it on silent and dropped it back in my bag. "Thaddeus." I called toward the balcony.

He turned right away, put out the cigarette, and came in. "What is it?" Sitting on the bed, I had to tip my head back to see him.

Thaddeus held my eyes for two seconds and looked away. But I'd noticed the tips of his ears had gone a little red. "I got your sheets wet.

Where are you supposed to sleep tonight?" He glanced at me, then at the damp patches on the sheet.

His throat worked hard before he turned and got me a towel. "Go dry your hair first. You can sleep once I've changed the sheets." Then he went to the closet for clean ones.

I held on to the towel, thinking about how red his whole ear had gone, and pressed my lips together on a smile.

When I came out with dry hair, the bed was already made. "Go to sleep." "What about you?" He pulled out his chair without turning around. "I'm gaming." "Oh." I sat down on his bed, deflated.

Thaddeus picked up his headphones, and just as he was putting them on, his phone rang. He looked at the screen, then back at me, and answered. "Colt.

What's up?" Something pulled tight in my chest and I held my breath. "Yeah, I'm in the room." "Somebody saw Gwendolyn come into our building?" Thaddeus turned to look at me again. "I