Because of You by Allie Boniface

Author:Allie Boniface
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ghost spirit, small town romance, island, beach, unrequited love, millionaire, second chance romance, second chance
Publisher: DFM Publishing
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Misterion College

Emmy

I

t was funny, Emmy thought, how even though she hadn’t walked this campus in ten years, she recalled so much of it. The two dormitories, one each for boys and girls. The dining hall that sat between them. The football field, the stadium, the sidewalks linking everything together. The wide academic quadrangle surrounded by stone buildings hundreds of years old. The Carter Library at one end and the Interfaith Chapel at the other.

“Some of the windows are broken,” Blake said as they got closer to the chapel. “That’s sad.”

She nodded and rubbed her arms, pimpled with gooseflesh. If she looked hard enough, she could almost see the shadows of students walking by them, strolling to class, kissing in doorways, tossing Frisbees and footballs, finding the perfect place to spread out notes and pretend to study.

Blake turned and looked past the academic quad to the fraternity quad, a quarter-mile away. Down ten wide stone steps set into the sandy earth. Overlooking the sea. He’d once told her that the day he moved into the Delta Eta Chi house was one of the happiest days of his life.

“You want to go down there?”

He shrugged. “Do you?”

“Not really, but we’re already here, so...”

He nodded and went ahead of her, negotiating the places where the sidewalk had broken away. “Careful,” he said a couple times and pointed at holes or uneven patches of ground.

Despite ten years of neglect, the campus looked remarkably well-preserved. A bulldozer sat next to the library, and cones and caution tape already had been set out in a few places. It was easy to picture it coming alive in a few short months with new students. New classes and professors. New possibilities. But Emmy’s mouth went dry as they approached the narrow quadrangle that ran between four Georgian-style fraternity houses.

“Sigma Phi,” Blake said as he pointed around the square. “Tau Ep. Rho Chi.”

“And Delta Eta Chi,” she finished as they turned in tandem to face the tallest and most ornate of the four. A wide front porch, four stories, a rooftop balcony with a missing piece of railing. The front door padlocked shut. A faint chalk outline of a body on the sidewalk. Dizziness washed over Emmy, and she reached out for something to hold.

“Em?” Blake grabbed her arm. “You okay?”

She sank to her knees. For a long few moments, her stomach churned. Sweat broke out across her forehead. She fought to breathe, to channel years of yoga training into this one, desperate moment. I will not die. I will not pass out. When she looked up again, the chalk outline was gone. Of course it was. She’d imagined it. It wouldn’t still be there after ten years of rain and snow and sun.

“Sorry.” She stood, taking her time. “It’s so weird being here. So hard and sad and...”

“Tell me about it.”

She studied Blake’s face. Did any of this really bother him? Was he remembering Piper, his Delta brothers, the swarm of police that had arrived from the

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