I couldn’t stop thinking about Grayson’s face last night. The fury in his eyes when he caught me in the forbidden room still sent chills down my spine. He had dragged me out of the house, his grip firm but not painful, his words cold as ice: “You shouldn’t have been here. Stay out of things that don’t concern you.” And then, without another word, he had kicked me out.
The humiliation still burned.
I wiped my face with a towel after my shower, trying to shake off the memory. My reflection stared back at me, pale and exhausted. My curiosity had gotten me into trouble again, and this time, it had pushed Grayson past whatever threadbare patience he had left.
I sighed and headed to my room, determined to distract myself. But the moment I opened the door, I froze.
There was someone sitting on my bed.
I let out a startled squeal, clutching the towel like a shield. My heart was racing, but when I saw who it was, the fear turned into a mix of confusion and annoyance.
“Grayson? What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, stepping inside and closing the door behind me.
He didn’t answer right away. He just sat there, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his head tilted slightly as he watched me. His dark eyes were unreadable, but his presence felt heavier than usual, like he was carrying something he didn’t want to share.
Finally, he spoke. “I owe you an explanation.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“About Evelyn,” he said, his voice low and even. “You’re not going to stop digging, are you? So I might as well tell you what you want to know.”
I hesitated, unsure if this was some kind of trap. But the way he said her name—Evelyn—made something twist in my chest. It wasn’t just frustration or annoyance. There was pain there, buried deep but unmistakable.
“Go on,” I said quietly, sitting down in the chair by my desk.
Grayson sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Evelyn was my girlfriend,” he said bluntly. “We started dating about a year before she disappeared. She… she wasn’t supposed to get dragged into this.”
“Dragged into what?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He looked away, his jaw tightening. “My father and the school board had been fighting for years. It was all politics and money and power—things I didn’t care about back then. But Evelyn got caught in the middle of it. She became collateral damage.”
“What does that mean?” I pressed, my chest tightening. “What happened to her?”
Grayson’s gaze snapped back to mine, sharp and full of anger—but not at me. “It means they used her to get to me. To us. My father was trying to protect his position, and the board was trying to take him down. They saw Evelyn as a weakness, someone they could manipulate to hurt me.”
I swallowed hard, the weight of his words sinking in. “Did they… did they hurt her?”
Grayson didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stood up and began pacing the room, his hands shoved into his pockets. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “All I know is that one day, she was gone. No warning, no goodbye. Just gone. And no one would tell me what happened.”
I stared at him, my mind racing. “Do you think Tessa had something to do with it?”
Grayson stopped pacing, his expression darkening. “Tessa,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. “She knew more than she let on, that’s for sure. She’s always had her own agenda. She had a crush on me back then—hell, maybe she still does. I mean I dated her, Tessa, but it was never official you know. Missed Evelyn like crazy and Tessa is nothing like her. And she hated Evelyn. She would’ve done anything to get rid of her.”
I felt a chill run down my spine. “And you think she…?”
“I don’t know,” Grayson said, cutting me off. “But if she didn’t do it herself, she definitely didn’t stop it. She’s always been good at staying just far enough away from the mess to keep her hands clean.”
The room fell into a heavy silence, the weight of his confession pressing down on both of us.
Finally, Grayson reached into his jacket and pulled out a small leather-bound book. My breath caught when I saw it—the bloodstained diary I had found in the forbidden room.
“Since you’re so interested in it,” he said, tossing it onto my desk, “you might as well go through it. Can’t keep your nose out of shit, not even when I warn you to.”
I stared at the diary, my hands trembling slightly as I picked it up. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because maybe you’ll find something I missed,” he said, his voice softer now. “Or maybe it’ll scare you enough to finally back off.”
And with that, he turned and walked out, leaving me alone with the diary and a million questions swirling in my head.
I spent hours pouring over Evelyn’s diary, flipping through pages filled with messy handwriting and frantic notes. Most of it was about her fear—how she felt like she was being watched, how she couldn’t trust anyone, how the walls were closing in around her.
But there were also entries about Grayson. The way she wrote about him made my heart ache—how much she loved him, how much she wanted to believe he could protect her.
I was about to give up when I noticed something odd. The back cover of the diary had a small tear, barely noticeable. Curious, I picked at it until the leather gave way, revealing a hidden piece of paper tucked inside.
My breath caught as I unfolded it, my eyes scanning the hastily scrawled words.
“Trust no one—not even Grayson.”