Chapter 396
[ 512 words ]
Chapter 396:
Caroline reached the dorm room door, fumbled with her key card, and swiped it. The lock beeped green. She slipped inside, immediately trying to pull the heavy door shut behind her. She was so tired. Bone-tired. She didn’t have the strength for this fight.
Just as the door was about to click into the frame, a hand slammed against it. Jarrod. He didn’t throw his shoulder into it. He simply planted his palm flat against the wood, his arm a steel bar, arresting its motion.
“Let go, Jarrod!” she yelled from inside, her voice muffled. She threw her weight against the door, pushing with all her might. It was like pushing against a mountain.
“Open the door, Caroline,” his voice came through the wood, low and strained. “We need to talk about this.”
They were locked in a stalemate, a battle of force and will waged through a single slab of wood. Inside, Caroline’s mind was a maelstrom. His accusing eyes. Her father’s pale face. The throbbing pain in her own arm. The lie she was forced to protect. It was all too much. The pressure inside her built and built until it had to escape.
With a guttural sob of pure, animalistic anguish, she threw every last ounce of her strength and body weight into the door.
It was a blind, desperate act of release. She forgot his hand was there.
The heavy door slammed into the solid steel frame with a sickening thud.
A choked, guttural grunt of pain from the other side was immediately followed by the horrifyingly distinct, muffled crunch of bone.
His hand. She had slammed the door on his hand.
Caroline froze, the sound echoing in the sudden, ringing silence. She heard his grunt. She heard the crunch. The strength drained from her body. Her hands fell away from the door.
𝖴p𝘥𝘢𝘁е𝘀 𝘦𝘷𝘦r𝘺 𝘄𝖾𝗲𝘬 𝗼n 𝗴𝖺𝗅no𝘃𝗲𝘭𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝘮
Outside, Jarrod slumped against the wall, his face ashen. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. He cradled his left hand against his chest, two of his fingers bent at an unnatural angle, already beginning to swell and turn a dark, ugly purple.
Inside, Caroline’s mind was a white void of horror. Guilt, sharp and nauseating, flooded her. I hurt him. I hurt him. Her first instinct was to rip the door open, to check on him, to apologize, to fix it. But what then? Another fight? More accusations? More of his cold, wounding distrust? She couldn’t. She physically and emotionally could not endure another round. She had nothing left to give.
Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise, but she made a choice. The most cowardly, most cruel choice of her life.
She turned her back on the door.
She took one step into the room. Then another. Each step was a betrayal, a nail in the coffin of what they had just built.
Outside, Jarrod, leaning against the wall in a haze of pain, felt the pressure on the door change. She wasn’t opening it. A look of stunned, wounded disbelief crossed his face. She wasn’t coming.
With his good hand, he carefully, painfully, worked his crushed fingers free from the jamb.
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