City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford

Chapter 1

Itried not to stare at the frat boy I’d punched last night, but three things were making this hard. One—the bruise around Jack’s eye was a deep, shiny purple that caught the glare of the classroom’s fluorescent lights. Two—he didn’t even belong in this class. And three—he was sitting in the back making a grotesque gesture that involved waggling his tongue through V-shaped fingers.

Suffice to say, my presentation was not going well.

Jack Corwin had been harassing me since high school. I would have expected that by senior year of college, he’d have grown past finger-in-the-hole gestures and fake orgasm faces, but Jack liked to buck convention. Why give up that level of obnoxiousness when it was his defining trait?

I’d prepared so well for today, putting in hours of memorizing the names of the relevant psychological studies. I’d selected a knee-length black dress with a white collar—cute but professional, and only slightly goth. I’d copied down my notes and pulled my bright red curls into something like a neat ponytail. And yet, my preparation didn’t matter when confronted by that waggling tongue.

Focus, Rowan. Forget him.

I squared my shoulders, surveying the rest of the class. My classmate Alison twirled a blonde curl around her finger, looking at me expectantly. She gave me an encouraging smile.

I glanced at my notecards and started to read again. “As I was saying, the concept of repressed memories is fraught with controversy.” I raised my eyes. “Many psychologists dispute—”

Jack made a circular shape with his finger and thumb, then slid his other index finger in and out, opening his mouth wide in an orgasm face. The lights gleamed off the strange silver pin he always wore, which was shaped like a hammer.

“Sorry. Uh, dissociative fugue…” I started again. “Which is in the DSM—”

In the back of the classroom, where no one but me could see him, Jack was thrusting his crotch up and down in a pounding gesture.

Anger simmered. For a number of reasons, he was the last person I wanted around, and I finally pointed at him. “Is he supposed to be here?” I blurted. “He’s not in this class. Why is he here?”

Unfortunately, no one else had seen what he was doing, so I just looked like a dick.

My professor, Dr. Omer, raised his dark eyebrows and stared at me. When he glanced at the back of the room, Jack looked like the picture of innocence. He held his pen in his hands as if he’d been taking notes the whole time, eyebrows raised. Just a studious kid here, trying to learn.

Dr. Omer steepled his fingers, then frowned at me. He didn’t say anything because he was doing that psychologist thing where they looked at you in silence and waited for you to realized that you had done something inappropriate. I swallowed hard.

Here was the thing: Jack had followed me last night and cornered me outside my house. In fact, he’d been stalking me for years. There was a legitimate reason I’d given him a black eye.

But this wasn’t a therapy session, and I wasn’t trying to be professional. We were here to learn, or at least to get a passing grade on our transcript and move on.

“He’s not in this class,” I repeated more quietly. “I don’t understand why he’s here.”

I could feel the class’s eyes on me, and heat spread over my neck. Considering I was pale as milk, it was hard to hide it when I was blushing.

“He’s auditing the class for the rest of the semester,” said Dr. Omer in a calm voice. “He has permission to be here.” He pressed his fingers against his lips for a moment, frowning. The psychologist stare. Then, “Is there a problem with your presentation? You are usually prepared, Rowan.”

Normally, I adored Dr. Omer’s calm demeanor, but now it seemed off, like he was calmly ignoring the house that burned around him.

I took a deep, slow breath and tried to center myself by thinking about my feet, rooted firmly to the floor. Just focus and get through this, Rowan. Tonight, I’d have drinks with my best friend, Shai, for my twenty-second birthday. Beer, pizza, gossip about her amazing new life. All I had to do was get through this next twenty minutes.

“No problem at all.” I smiled. “I was just confused for a moment. I’m actually very prepared.” I cleared my throat. “Dissociative amnesia is theorized to be a state—”

Wait. Was he really going to be in this class for the rest of the semester? I had to take this class to graduate.

I glanced through the window at the City of Thorns—the magical city that loomed over Osborn, Massachusetts. I planned to get in there for graduate school, and I wanted to do so as soon as possible.

“Rowan?” Dr. Omer prompted, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “It might be better if you try this again on a day when you’re more prepared. I don’t think this is the best use of our class time.”

Ouch.My hands were shaking, but I wasn’t sure if that was the result of anxiety or anger.

“No, I’ve got it. Sorry. I was thrown off by the projector not working.” I swallowed, ready to regain my composure. “What I’m talking about is an inability to access memories in the unconscious…” I flipped my notecards around, trying to weave my thoughts together into something coherent. “Particularly autobiographical memories, the things from your life…”

I looked up at Jack again to see him leaning back in his chair, massaging his nipples with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

At that point, two ideas became tangled in my working memory. One was the next phrase on my notecard, which was “If you could imagine…” The other was I’d love to hit that fucker again. With my brain tripping over the two thoughts, I stared right at Jack and blurted, “If you could love fucker again…”

Which made no sense but definitely sounded inappropriate.

Shocked, half-stifled laughter interrupted the silence.

The class turned back to Jack. He’d immediately adopted his innocent note-taking pose again, looking baffled at my pronouncement. His eyebrows rose, innocent.

My stomach plummeted.

Kill me. I’m praying that the floor could swallow me up now.

I felt the warmth creep over my cheeks as a terrible silence fell. The lights buzzed and flickered above me, and my mouth went dry. “I said the wrong thing.” I gestured at Jack. “He was making faces…” I trailed off, realizing how lame this sounded.

Jack’s obsession with me had started years ago when he asked me out as a freshman at Osborne High. I’d said no, and that had made him mad. So he’d started rumors that I’d banged the whole baseball team. Everyone had believed him. They’d called me Home Run Rowan for the next four years, and he’d even photoshopped my face onto nude models. That was what my high school experience had been like.

But no one needed to hear that. They wanted to get this over with and move on to Taco Tuesday in the dining hall.

“I just said the wrong thing,” I added again.

Dr. Omer pressed his two palms together in front of his mouth. “Okay, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I sense there is some interpersonal conflict, and I don’t think this is a productive forum for discussion. If there’s an issue between you two, we can explore that after class.”

Jack looked sheepish and raised his hand for the first time. “I think I know what’s happening. Rowan was upset when I turned her down for a date last night, and she didn’t know how to handle it. She lashed out.” He gestured at his eye. “But I swear, I’m ready to put the physical assault behind me. I’m ready to focus on Abnormal Psych. I’m a very good student. If you’ll look at my transcript, I think you’ll find that I’m one of the best students you’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, my God!” Alison’s eyes were open wide. “Did you really give him that black eye, though?” she asked me. “I’m not trying to be dramatic, but I’m literally physically scared right now.”

Someone said something about calling the police. Others guffawed, half shocked and half thrilled. From their perspective, this was probably the best thing that had happened to them all semester. This was better than Taco Tuesday. This was drama.

I crumpled my notecards in my hands, and my heart slammed against my ribs. “Wait. I hit him, yes, but he deserved it. He’s the problem here, not me.”

Already, I could see the recommendation letter from Dr. Omer disappearing before my eyes. Goodbye to grad school in the City of Thorns; goodbye to my lifelong dream of closing an unsolved crime.

Unhinged. I seemed completely unhinged.

They had it all wrong, but nothing makes you seem crazier than trying to scream that you’re the only sane one.

“Okay, you know what?” I tossed the notecards in the trash can. “I think my presentation is over.”

My entire body buzzed with adrenaline as I rushed out of the room.