Toxic

For some reason, it made me sad.

Music wasn’t really music unless your soul was exposed, unless your heart was either bursting or breaking.

And hers… was doing neither.

Then again, who was I to judge? I would have used the piano for kindling if she hadn’t barged in on me.

With a sigh, I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. What if. Damn, I hated those two words.

“Are you lost?” A female voice asked.

I opened my eyes, a girl the size of a middle schooler was looking at me like I was the ghost of Christmas past. Her eyes went wide as she looked at my neck and then lower. Yeah, I really didn’t fit the part of Musical Performance major.

“No,” I said curtly, closing my eyes again.

“You look familiar.”

My eyes opened, and then realization seemed to dawn in that smart little head of hers.

“Gotta run.” I pushed away from the wall.

“Wait, has anyone ever told you, that you look a lot like—”

“Adam Levine?” I interrupted. “All the freaking time. See ya.”

Close call, close call. I ran out of the building, pausing only to look at my reflection in the window.

Damn it.

My hair was begi

And my entire existence depended on keeping my secret from the world.

I made a mental note to stop off at the drug store and grab some more hair dye.

The guy with the sandy brown hair and smiling eyes was gone — and I’d replaced him with an imposter — a picture of what I felt like on the inside.

Dark.

An empty void.

Chapter Ten

Ashton freaking Hyde, how I loathe you! My roommate had found out about my obsession and littered my walls with his sexy face. I guess there were worse things to stare at. Damn his blue eyes. —Saylor

Saylor

By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was dragging my feet. All the late night practices were getting to me and I still couldn’t get Sexy Stranger out of my mind. Yes, I’d officially resorted to calling him Sexy Stranger.

Ugh.

I walked back toward the dorms. I’d promised my study partner I’d stop by and go over our plans for our freshman project. I’d only met her once, but she seemed really nice. Added bonus, she seemed like the type of girl who didn’t make the other person do all the work.

I kept my head down as people walked by me. Being a social butterfly was never high on my priority list. Plus, I never really knew what to do when people looked at me. Was I supposed to smile? Wave? I always felt awkward and uncomfortable and then there was that whole long hallway scenario. Seriously. What are you supposed to do when you and one other person are on opposite ends of the hall walking by one another? Five minutes into walking and it’s like, okay, let’s just acknowledge that each of us are attempting to pay attention to everything but each other and then, boom, at the last minute, “Oh hey I didn’t see you there, what’s up?” Lame.

I reached for the door to the building and stumbled backward into something hard. “Whoa there,” an amused voice said from behind me bracing my shoulders. “You okay?”

I nodded and turned to face whoever saved me from a concussion. Of course, as luck would have it, Football God, also known as the great Wes Michels, was my savior.

Naturally, because life was just that cruel. And I clearly hadn’t had enough embarrassing moments in the past three days to last me a lifetime.

Unable to find my voice, I lifted my hands to my temples, faking the whole dizzy thing, buying me enough time to say in a voice that sounded like a three year old, “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He shrugged then opened the door for me. I walked past him, straight toward the elevator.

He followed.

I pressed up.

He stepped in with me.

I moved to the farthest corner of the tiny box and waited for the floor to ding. The minute the doors open, I nearly collided with another person getting in, but was able to sidestep the harried genderless student who was hidden behind an armload of textbooks and make my way down to Room 226.

Balancing my bag in one arm, I lifted my hand to knock when that same voice said from behind me.

“You a friend of Gabe’s?”

“Who?” I whipped around. “Is that who lives here?” With shaking hands I gripped the piece of paper with Lisa’s contact information. “I was actually looking for Lisa. We’re in the same business seminar class and we’re doing a project together, but I can be super forgetful, so I’ll just text her and see if I wrote down the wrong number and—”

“Whoa.” Weston held up his hands. “Totally wasn’t meaning to scare you shitless… Lisa lives here, and she probably won’t hear you knock on account that on Taco Tuesday she turns up Mexican music so loud the rest of the building complains.”

“Taco Tuesday?” I repeated.

“You’ll see.” He sighed and reached behind me, pushing the door open. “Lisa!”

He yelled like a football player. I winced as my ears started ringing.

“What!” Lisa yelled from somewhere in the apartment.

And he was right, the music was crazy loud. I couldn’t even hear myself think, thanks to both the mariachi notes and the fact that Weston had just yelled in my right ear.

“Someone’s here to see you!” he yelled back just as a girl walked out of one of the bedrooms. I recognized her immediately — Kiersten, Football God’s fiancée. You’d have to be living on a different planet not to know their story.

He fights cancer, she fights for him, they fight together, he proposes during football game and what do ya know? He’s miraculously healed! They were a living, walking, breathing Hallmark Movie.

“Oooo, are you a friend of Gabe’s?” Kiersten’s eyes widened with amusement as she stepped into Weston’s arms. He kissed her on the head, and started toying with a piece of her dark red hair.

“Who’s Gabe?” I said for a second time.

“Stupid dry spell!” Lisa yelled again from somewhere in the kitchen. At this point I still hadn’t seen her.

“Am I missing something?” I said as loud as my voice was capable of going, which wasn’t very loud.

“It’s a damn choice!” An even louder male voice said behind me. I could have sworn the hair on my arms stood on end as I slowly turned to face the owner of the voice, hoping, praying that I was wrong.

“You!” We shouted in unison. I dropped my bag to the floor and held my hands in the air like I’d just gotten mugged and was about to drop his ass, when really every meeting with him had gone far, far differently.

Gabe grabbed my wrists and gri

The darkness was gone.

Who was this imposter? He seemed… happy. But every time I’d seen him he may as well be wearing a sign that read: Chip on shoulder, beware.

Confused, I shook my head. His smile grew as his fingers tapped playfully across my wrists.

“Gabe!” Lisa yelled. “Release my partner or I’ll put Pepto in your tacos!”

“What would that even do?” asked Weston from behind me.

The music was turned down and then Lisa was prying me away from Gabe.

“So…” Lisa’s grin grew to epic proportions, as her eyes seemed to calculate our acquaintance. “I take it you know each other.”

I yelled, “He assaulted me!”

At the same time, Gabe winked and countered with, “She’s a damn spy!”

“Forget the movie,” Wes said in an amused voice. “Gabe drama? Way better.” He took a seat on an arm of the couch and smirked.

My eyes narrowed into slits as my hands twitched at my side. The guy needed to be punched. This time Lisa put a calming hand on my arm, while Gabe threw his head back and laughed.

Again with the laughing? Did he have multiple personality disorder? Were they aware he was mentally unstable? And if they weren’t, wasn’t it my duty to say something? So he didn’t knife them in their sleep when he decided to take the train from happy land back into hell?