CHAPTER SIX

ONEIRIC

( — of or relating to dreams. )

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

          ROWAN KNOWS HE SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM HER. The tiny voice in the back of his head, which might belong to what some would call his conscience or even his superego, tells him she's bad news; Rowan has no idea why he feels so drawn to the girl—and, God, he really hates spending so much time with college students especially while not being one himself—but there's something incredibly alluring about her and everything she does.

          He doesn't dare talk about it to anyone, mostly because he knows he's the only person in Nova Scotia he can blindly trust. It's not like he can simply walk up to someone and tell them there's a college girl who's seriously messing with his head because, even though she's a junior, she's still in college and their maturity levels might be completely different.

          Besides, they haven't said two words to each other and all he knows about her is her name—which he's not even sure it's her real first name or if it's a mere nickname. She never gives him the time of day, choosing to keep to herself, and Rowan would prefer to keep things that way. She doesn't really hang out with Micah's group, meaning she was sitting at their table as a mere coincidence and not through affiliation, but, then again, he wants to think he's not paying her nearly as much attention as he fears he might be.

          God, he really is getting old, isn't he?

          Isla has apparently decided against trying to make things between them relatively normal again, but Rowan isn't really shocked. After what he did—yelling at her in front of all those people, some of which could have been her friends, and giving her what, at the time, seemed like a well-deserved call out speech—he's not expecting her to come running back to him or to wait for him with open arms if he ever decides to go after her.

          Spoiler alert: he isn't going after her, not even in a million years. It was good while it lasted, with her having helped him prepare for the interview with her father, which ended up warranting him his most recent job, but that was about it. They owed nothing to each other back then and they sure as hell owe nothing to one another now, so maybe it's best if things remain this way.

          He wouldn't go as far as saying she hates him, even if it would be perfectly understandable if she did—let's face it, like Micah said and his sister thought, Rowan is an absolute nightmare to work and deal with—and she certainly doesn't care about him nearly enough to be able to hate him. It doesn't bother him as much as he thought he would and he's been managing just fine without her, doing his research and flipping through the draft of the manuscript Gabriel gave him so he'd know exactly what to write.

          Though he's thankful for all they've done for him, both Gabriel and Isla, in her own way of thinking she's giving him a helping hand, he thinks he can take it from here. He just has to stay as far away from them as he possibly can, as he feels his sanity slowly disintegrate whenever he steps through the black iron gates leading to the campus of Crowcrest University.

          Today, however, isn't one of those days—not even by a long shot.

          Rowan has made his way inside the massive library, sneezing whenever he walks past a particularly dusty shelf and being hissed at to shut up by students who are trying to focus. After a long while of searching—over three minutes—for a vacant table, he has set his fictional tent and gotten to work.

          The books surrounding him almost make him look like a scholar and he internally chuckles at that, as he was never one throughout high school or even college, preferring to study at his parents' house or in his dorm room, and never in advance. Procrastinating has always been one of his strong suits—which, in retrospective, might explain plenty of problems he has had in his career, both professional and academic—along with only opening his textbooks three days before his evaluations.

          That's when he sees her. He sees her when he briefly looks up from a book about abandoned ships that used to reside in the port before mysteriously vanishing into the fog. She's mimicking his actions from a few minutes prior, mindlessly walking around the aisles and looking around her, attempting to find somewhere to sit. However, she often gets distracted by the high arches and thin, tall windows, as if they were inside a cathedral.

          Their eyes meet and she immediately stops in her tracks, her bob of platinum hair swinging to the sides when she comes to a halt. There's a crimson layer of lipstick covering her thin lips, exactly the way Jasper used to wear her makeup, and Rowan clenches his jaw, remembering why he's as drawn to this girl as he is and why he ought to keep his distance from her. It's not just because he'd get in trouble—it's also because he needs to stay away from Jasper and anything that might trigger memories from that witch of a woman, which obviously means this girl is nothing but a liability.

          "You're the only thing that's holding you back, Rowan," Jasper used to say. She always wore her hair up when she wanted to get all philosophical and Rowan had learned to plug in his earphones whenever she grabbed a hair tie, knowing he'd be her first victim as soon as she landed eyes on him. Jasper had always had some sort of obsession with fixing people, even if there was nothing to be fixed or nothing she could do, but she was awfully invasive. "Not me, not your ghostwriter buddies, not your family—you."

          "Mhmm," he muttered. "And how in the world is that any of your business when we both know the only reason why you're with me is just so you can have some constant competition?"

          She threw him a wide, lopsided grin, similar to the one Cheshire Cat usually sports. "See what I mean when I tell people no one else in the world knows me like you do?" Rowan didn't answer, but she leaned forward, reaching out a hand towards him to playfully pinch his cheek. "A little competition has never hurt anyone, has it?"

          "I hate you," he simply said, but allowed himself to lean his cheek against her hand when she cupped his face with it. She was always cold, even in the hottest, driest days of summer.

          "Do you really, though?"

          They both knew he didn't. After all this time, after all they did to each other, wrecking themselves and one another in more ways they can count, Rowan suspects she still knows things haven't changed. He's the best at holding grudges, that's a given, and will let them drag on for months, even years, but God knows he can't hate her.

          Perhaps that's what eventually led to their demise.

          Back to Muse, much to Rowan's dismay. The girl drags her feet across the dark wooden floors of the library towards his table and he knows it's no use praying to himself she'll choose to sit anywhere else. The table on the opposite side of the aisle is almost empty, except for a girl, whose dark, long hair covers the side of her face turned to him, and a guy with loose light-brown curls, sitting next to her and leaning forward when she points to something on the book in front of them. Rowan recognizes her as being Isla's friend, the one he saw that day in the waiting room of Gabriel's office, but they've never been formally introduced.

          Truth be told, Rowan really, really doesn't mind. He and Isla belong to two completely different worlds, where she's the princess and he's just a mere servant to the king.

          "Is this seat taken?" Muse asks, in a hesitant voice, with a hand set on the back of a chair at the end of the table. The wind outside slams the branches of the trees against the windows and the harsh sound echoes inside the walls, but no one in the building jumps with a start.

          "Yes," Rowan replies.

          "The other seats are all taken," she points out. "I have some studying to do and I'm not doing much progress back in my dorm room, so I decided to come here."

          It's the longest sentence she has delivered him and the longest sentence he has ever heard her say, period. It feels so out of place, based on every expectation Rowan has formed about her, and the feelings of unease grow even more, if that's possible. Everything about this girl seems so awfully uncanny, almost ghostly, but Rowan can't exactly place his finger on why he thinks so.

          "Don't you have friends to sit with?" he questions, staring back down at his book, despite knowing he won't be able to focus as much as he was before with her being here. She's as persistent as Micah, he finds.

          "Not really." Her voice is now clad with embarrassment and Rowan almost feels bad for the girl, as he wasn't particularly popular either back when he was still a student, but he still feels like he's made of marble—maybe even diamonds, too hard to be broken or scratched by something—or someone—that isn't his equal in every way. "Please. I have a Microbiology test tomorrow and I really can't fail it."

          "Fine." Rowan hears her chair slide across the floor, screeching and hurting his ears, but that also doesn't make him lift his head to stare back at her. Something inside him insists he should, but he's determined to fight against it; after all, the book won't write itself and he can't waste precious time. "But be quiet. Some of us have to focus too."

          "I think you're a really interesting person."

          Scowling, he begrudgingly looks up, finding her staring at him with her head slightly tilted to the side, as if he was a relatively interesting episode of a TV show. "You don't know anything about me. You don't know why I'm here."

          "I don't," she agrees, never pulling her textbooks or notebooks from inside her backpack, choosing to keep her hands folded over the mahogany table. "That's why I said I think you're interesting, not that I know it for a fact. Besides"—she shifts in her seat, keeping her voice low enough to ensure no one else can decipher the words in their conversation—"I doubt you ever give anyone a chance of getting to know you. That's why you yelled at Isla. Because she was getting too close."

          Rowan knits his brows together, with sweat running down the side of his neck. "I yelled at Isla because I got hit in the leg by a baseball bat by her demand. It has nothing to do with her getting close to me—she doesn't know me. I'm not interested in letting her do it either, and I'd appreciate it if you minded your own business. People are trying to study, in case you didn't notice." He gestures towards the table on the other side, as the couple had been throwing them incredulous glares for a while, most likely because their voices were disturbing whatever they were doing. "I'm not here to be analyzed. I don't need a therapist."

          "I'm not exactly . . . popular . . . around here, you know." She fidgets, staring down at her hands. "I'm not surprised that they're glaring. Still, uh . . . I think it's that damn project that's changing people. It hasn't even begun yet, and the professors have just started to interview students, but everyone is so strange. I wish I knew why." Muse looks back at him, green eyes glistening under the soft yellow lights. "I'm used to this. Try to ignore them for the time being."

          Rowan sighs. "And why would I listen to you?"

         "Because I think you're like me, in a way." She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I think you isolate yourself by choice, but also because you're scared. I don't know what you're so afraid of and, like you said, you have no intention of ever letting anyone here get to know you—the real you, not the person you choose to show the world—but I think there's something you're not dealing with. Maybe not because you don't want to, but because you don't know how. Maybe you don't even know it's there."

          "Is anyone paying you to psychoanalyze random people?"

          "No." She chuckles, shaking her head. "No, absolutely not. I don't even like psychoanalysis."

          Rowan closes the book with a dry thud, lifting a cloud of dust that instantly brings him to tears. "Then why? Why are you doing this?"

          "Because"—she sets her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, drumming her slender fingers against her cheeks—"I think you're different. I think you might be the one to solve the mysteries once and for all and put these people out of their misery. I saw the books you're reading." She points to said books with her chin before returning to her previous position and Rowan's heart incessantly hammers against his sternum. When the light hits Muse, she almost turns invisible, with her skin bordering to be on the translucent side and enhancing the bluish tone of her veins—it nearly looks like the color of the lips of a drowning victim. "Not many people have taken any interest in the Vofield lore. You might be one of the first I've seen."

          "Yeah." He huffs. "I don't really like it. I'm just doing this because someone is paying me."

          Muse's smile widens. "A man with ambition. I think you'll fit perfectly in this place."