Control (Dark Romance)

Chapter 8

A/N - Wrote this to Only Exception by Paramore. HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend playing it throughout the chapter. It's already in the Spotify Playlist!

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Hagen's P.O.V

I was used to getting a few looks whenever I dragged myself to class, but I knew this time it wasn't for the usual reasons. 

But the same rules still applied to pretending not to notice judgemental eyes. So while I headed to the furthest row in the lecture theatre with an empty seat, I kept my head down until I was behind the majority of students.

When I'm settled in my seat, I open my laptop and pretend to get ready for an hour of note-taking like the rest of them. It's all background noise to me, my peers muted conversations and then the actual lesson when our lecturer eventually strides in and gets things started.

I follow the presentation from the projector, eyes dragging between the scribbles made on the large whiteboard and the quickly changing powerpoints, but when my eyes drop to my laptop's open notes tab, there's nothing but the blinking line at the top.

I didn't know what was going on.

It wasn't just the lecture. It was my entire fucking life. 

I was lost within my own fucking head, which was saying something when it usually wasn't in the best place to start with. But now, it wasn't just my future I couldn't figure out. It was the one thing that was supposed to be natural and easy.

Of course, I knew that what Nik and I had was never going to be easy, but it had felt like it could be that night and then— I stifle a groan. Then that shit happened, and now, I didn't know what was going on with my bond, with my mate, and it made me a fucking mess.

I didn't want to be. I tried not to be, but I was sitting here with a hangover so, yeah.

Zyair tried to convince me that it was okay to feel hurt, that he was hurt by Nik's sudden turn in actions too, but I hated myself for it. 

So Nikola didn't want me around him. I hadn't seen him in months; what was different about the situation now? There was no reason to cry over it, yet every time I thought of him, my eyes tried to fill. 

Maybe it was because of the night we'd shared. The one that teased me with a version of my mate I didn't know. One that was honest, present and— Shit! I did not need to be reminiscing again.

I should not be thinking of him or the date, not when the festering cruel pang in my chest spread even further each time I did. The problem was that I thought of Nikola in everything.

The worst part of it was that I still wanted to see him.

Even after he'd pushed me away, I still wanted to go to him again, to just be close to him. There was this urge inside me, this insistent thing that kept telling me that everything would be okay if I was by my mate's side.

But I'd tried that route, and Nikola had been plenty clear in showing me that he didn't want me anywhere near him.

He just... - Zyair's excuses fall apart before they even form - maybe... things can be...

Zyair, stop - I say, cutting him off - please just stop.

With a whine, Zyair falls quiet, leaving me to listen to the furious mix of fingers on keyboards, pens to paper and the rapid, enthused teachings. If there were any chance of me sticking Geology out, it fell away with all the classes I'd missed.