{18+ COMPLETED • COLLEGE ROMANCE}
When a college freshman with a learning disability and a reputation collides with a straight-A, straight-laced girl in the dorm kitchen one night, he sees the darkest parts of himself reflected in her. But the two o...
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B R E N
The sun woke me. It blinded me, actually. Rolling over with a groan, I flung my arm across the bed. All I hit was a tangled mess of blankets and pillows.
I opened one eye.
What the hell?
"I'm over here."
I flipped over to lay on my back and found Madie looking at me from across the room, a soft morning smile on her face. She was buried beneath a woven blanket, curled up on the corner sofa with a steaming mug in one hand. The other hand held a little notebook.
"Come back," I complained. She was never in bed the mornings I wanted her in bed.
She didn't move—except for her smile. That delicious curve grew.
"What are you even doing over there?" I continued to whine.
"I couldn't sleep, so I was writing in my journal," she said, holding up the leatherbound book.
"Oh," I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "I didn't know that was something you did."
She shrugged.
"I started in high school. I had some anxiety, just about everyday things. I was worried a lot. About everything. I went to a few doctors. They suggested I take a low-dose med, but my mom..."
Madie broke off, sighing. Which made me frown and bite my tongue.
I scooted up in the bed. The comforter fell down, finding a resting place along the waistband of my shorts. Sun filtered through the windows and hit the skin on my chest, warming it. It felt good.
Madie sighed again. "But one doctor suggested that journaling might help. They said to rank my mood on a scale of zero to five and then write about what I'm feeling. Or whatever has been going on. The idea was that it might help to see how different things made my days better or worse."
"And did it? Does it?"
"I think so." She shrugged again, this time only lifting one shoulder. "But sometimes I don't like to write down things that have happened. Because it's just too hard. So I write my silly little thoughts or poems. But I think those paint a good enough picture without actually saying what's happened. The emotions are still there. I have a lot of those. Emotions. Feelings. Journaling gives me a place to put them."
"That makes sense," I muttered, nodding.
"Some of the things in here are ridiculous now that I look back on them, though," she said with a faint laugh.
"Like what?" Knowing her, it probably wasn't that ridiculous. She seemed to downplay everything.
"Oh, I don't know." Madie flipped through the pages in the journal. "Like...you know how I played soccer?"
