Page 26 of Beautiful Forever
I’m not paying attention and accidentally bump into someone just as I step out onto the main walkway. “Sorry.”
The guy grunts at my apology but doesn’t reciprocate and slides past me down the alley. My mind automatically catalogs him, storing the information away. Hunched shoulders, deep-set brown eyes, thin build, and long hair and beard that do little to mask his pockmarked, pale face.
Pyotr: Good work or bad work?
It shouldn’t take too long to find out everything there is to know about the pretty redhead with the light-blue eyes.
Me: About a girl named Syn…
Thirteen
Journal Entry
Twenty-two years old
I knowI have obsessive tendencies. Knowing that I have them and being able to stop the compulsions are two very different things. I’ll fixate on something to the point it becomes unhealthy. And Synthia no-middle-name Carmichael with cornflower-blue eyes from Dilliwyll, Virginia has become an obsession.
There’s no record of her birth or her life before she was adopted by Alana Carmichael, who also has a past as mysterious as her adoptive daughter’s. They have zero online or social media presence, which is out of the norm for today when everyone wants to post about themselves in vivid detail for the world to see.
During my dive down the rabbit hole that is all things Synthia Carmicheal, I learned that she was a straight-A student. She must have been held back at some point because her DMV record for her driver’s license lists her age at twenty.She’s here at DF on scholarship, one provided by the Knight Foundation, Hendrix’s family, which ups the interest factor. But what intrigues me the most about Synthia Carmichael is what happened to her before she was adopted.
Pyotr was able to access some of her medical records from Duke. The full workup they did before her first skin graft showed evidence of past childhood abuse. Scar tissue from old fractures and broken bones in multiple sites. Healed knife wounds on her side near her kidney and lower rib cage. Severe burns to her left arm, torso, upper thigh, and side. Taken together, they show in graphic detail the horrific physical trauma Syn endured as a child.
And then there’s her diagnosed psychological trauma. PTSD and dissociative amnesia. Who is Synthia Carmichael? Even she doesn’t know.
Unfortunately, Tristan has put her on Francesco’s radar. I found out about what happened in the alley the other night after Aleksei and I left the Bierkeller. The guy I accidentally bumped into. Francesco sending his lap dog, Malin, to clean up the mess and his summon to Tristan the next morning. And how following that summons, Syn has been living in the guys’ house near campus, even though she just leased an apartment off Chesterton Street. A shitload of stuff has happened in a short period of time, and I do not believe in coincidences.
I almost feel sorry for the pretty redhead because she’s about to become collateral damage in my war against my father, Malin, my brother, and anyone else who had a hand in Aoife’s death.
“Your girl has shit taste,” Aleksei murmurs in my ear as Serena rambles on about a frat party this weekend.
I look up from my phone and immediately spot Syn walking across the quad—with fucking Constantine.
She’s wearing a powder-blue long-sleeved shirt and black leggings that conform to her shapely hourglass figure like asecond skin. Syn has a natural beauty that draws the eye. Paired with her pale-blue eyes and red hair, you can’t help but notice her. She’s like a single red rose in a garden filled with weeds. The way Constantine has been smiling as Syn talks only proves how unique she is. He never smiles. Or talks. Not since we were kids. The latter because of his father. Gabriel Ferriera is the epitome ofthe enemy of my enemy is my friendand another vital piece on my chessboard of revenge.
Sensing he has eyes on him, Constantine’s grin falls when he sees me watching, but it’s Syn’s curious interest when she turns and looks at me that hits me like a blow to the chest. I don’t know what it is about this particular woman that pulls at something I thought I had buried a long time ago. It must be her eyes. They remind me so much of the girl who owned my heart as a boy.
Pocketing my phone inside my messenger bag, I tear away from Aleksei and the girls he’s talking to, the impulse to follow Syn too strong to ignore.
I maintain my distance and stay out of sight as Constantine waits for Syn to go inside Barnaby Hall. As soon as he leaves, I jog up the steps and enter the building through the front double glass doors and get blasted in the face by a whoosh of chilled air being pumped out of the overhead vent.
I know which auditorium Syn will be in because I’ve seen her class schedule.
The main corridor past the entrance buzzes with excited chatter and the squeak of sneakers on freshly polished tile as students hurry to their first class of the day. Just as I get to the open auditorium doors, I stop short, Syn’s long, crimson ponytail unmistakable in the back row, first seat next to the aisle.
Damn. That complicates things.
Unaware that I’m standing only a few feet away, Syn rifles through the backpack she set on the floor. Her hair falls forward over her shoulder, giving me a flash of her profile—and for asecond, I’m struck by how much she looks likeher. An invisible fist reaches inside my chest and strangles my heart until it barely beats. Some days, I want to be free from the torture of Aoife’s memory. Maybe, once I get her justice, missing her won’t hurt so fucking much.
“Dude, you’re in the way,” someone says as people squeeze past me, one by one, filling the auditorium with noise, anticipation, and the aroma of the dozens of to-go cups of coffee they picked up before class.
A girl wearing paint-splotched coveralls and green-rimmed glasses sits down next to Syn, and I use the distraction to slip inside. Keeping my head lowered, I skirt the outer edge of the tiered floor toward the farthest seat in the back corner where the overhead lights don’t quite reach.
For the next hour, my focus never strays from the woman who has become my instant obsession. Every smile, every head tilt, the long, graceful curve of her neck, the way she holds the pencil as she jots down notes, are etched into my brain in vibrant detail.
When the professor eventually dismisses everyone, I’m the last to leave, but I don’t exit the building because Syn is standing at the bottom of the steps, looking around, like she’s waiting for someone. After four minutes, she checks her phone, her posture displaying her growing irritation. Several more minutes lapse before she takes off down the sidewalk that cuts through the middle of the quad. I don’t see any of the guys lurking, so I quietly stalk her, my feet having a mind of their own as they eat up the ground in her wake. I should turn around and go to class, but I’ve already missed Comparative Politics and am in no hurry to get to my Leadership in Emerging Technology lecture.
With the last vestiges of summer holding on as long as they can before the cooler temperatures of autumn roll in, sweat beads on my neck from the intense August morning sun thatburns through the upper haze of cirrus clouds. A lot of students are already taking advantage of the beautiful day and warm weather. A half dozen shirtless guys fling a frisbee back and forth. A few sunbathers lie on blankets in the grass, while others sit under the shade of the maple and sweet gum trees and work on their laptops.
