Chapter 52: #FIFTY-TWO

NICHOLAS’S POV

The professor had been talking for almost an hour, filling the board with equations that I should have been copying, but my notebook had barely gained a page.

Every few minutes I found myself glancing at the clock, tapping my pen against the desk before forcing myself to stop when the student beside me shot me an annoyed look.

My thoughts weren’t on class. Part of me kept wondering how things would be with the others when we got home. Elijah and I had talked that morning, but that hardly meant everything was fixed. Roman, Adrian and Cassian were still upset with me, and judging from Adrian’s expression when he came down for breakfast, he wasn’t planning on letting me forget it anytime soon.

Still... That wasn’t what occupied my mind the most. Jayden was.

Elijah was convinced Jayden was lying through his teeth, but after seeing him burning with fever in that tiny apartment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be another explanation.

The second the professor dismissed the class, chairs scraped against the floor as everyone hurried toward the door and I was one of the first out.

I spotted Jayden halfway down the hallway, stuffing books into his bag. "Jayden."

He turned around almost immediately. "Nicholas." A small smile spread across his face. "You’re actually talking to me."

"I’ve been looking for you."

He hesitated. "...About Saturday?"

I nodded. "Can we talk somewhere?"

He looked relieved. "Sure."

We left the academic building together and headed toward the small café near the library. It wasn’t crowded since most students were still in class, making it the perfect place to avoid curious ears.

Jayden carried our drinks over to a table by the window while I looked around briefly before taking the seat opposite him. For a while, neither of us spoke and he wrapped both hands around his coffee as though trying to warm himself up, while I tried to think of the best way to begin without making it sound like another interrogation.

"I wanted to apologize first," I finally said. "About what happened the other day. Elijah shouldn’t have spoken to you the way he did. I know he was angry, but grabbing you and accusing you like that wasn’t fair. I should’ve stopped him sooner instead of letting things get that bad."

Jayden looked genuinely surprised before a small smile found its way onto his face. "You really don’t have to apologize on his behalf, Nicholas. I wasn’t happy about it, obviously, but I understood where it was coming from. If someone thought I was hurting somebody they cared about, I’d probably lose my temper too. Besides..." He gave a small shrug. "I’m still the new person in all of this. From his point of view, I probably looked suspicious."

"I still feel bad about it," I admitted. "Things have been happening one after another and everyone’s on edge. You just happened to get caught in the middle."

"It’s alright," he replied with a reassuring smile. "I’m not angry."

His response made me feel a little better, but it also reminded me why I’d asked him to meet in the first place.

I reached into my pocket and rested my phone on the table. "There’s something I wanted to ask you, and I need you to be honest with me. It’s about the hoodie you gave me. You told me before that it belonged to your brother, but I realized I never actually asked how long you’d kept it. Had you been holding onto it ever since he disappeared, or was it something you only found recently?"

Jayden’s fingers tightened slightly around his cup before he looked down into it. "I’ve had it ever since he disappeared. I never found anything else that belonged to him, so... I just couldn’t let it go. It stayed folded away most of the time, but every now and then I’d take it out just to look at it because it was the only thing that made me feel like he hadn’t completely vanished."

"You never thought about throwing it away?"

He laughed quietly and shook his head. "Not once. I know it probably sounds silly, but it was one of all I had left. For the longest time it still smelled like him. Even after the scent disappeared, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it."

I studied his face while he spoke. He wasn’t hesitating. If he was making everything up, he was frighteningly convincing.

Slowly unlocking my phone, I opened the picture Adrian had taken before the hoodie was burned and slid it across the table. "Then have a look at this. It’s almost identical to the one you gave me. I just want to know if you’ve ever seen another hoodie like it before. Maybe your brother owned two, maybe one of his friends had one, maybe you’ve seen someone else wearing it. Anything at all."

Jayden picked up my phone and stared at the picture for much longer than I’d expected. He zoomed in, looked at it again, then slowly placed the phone back in front of me.

"I’ve honestly never seen this one before," he said. "It looks almost exactly like my brother’s, but as far as I know, he only ever had one. If there’s another hoodie that looks like this, I’ve never seen it."

I nodded slowly before slipping my phone back into my pocket. "What about your brother himself?" I asked. "I’ve realized I barely know anything about him. What was he like? Where did he work? Did he have friends? Is there anyone who might’ve known where he went?"

"He was... loud," he said with a soft laugh. "He could never stay still. He’d tease me all day, then act offended when I got angry. If I got into trouble, he’d be the first person standing in front of me, but five minutes later he’d be the same person making fun of me for crying about it."

"You two sound close." I muttered.

"We were." His smile faded little by little. "Our parents died when we were young, so it was just the two of us for years. He did everything he could to take care of me. Then one day he left the house saying he’d be back before evening... and he never came home."

"You never found out what happened?"

Jayden slowly shook his head. "We searched everywhere. I reported him missing, asked neighbors, asked people he worked with, even went back to places he used to visit. Everyone kept telling me someone would find him eventually, but after weeks turned into months, people stopped asking about him altogether. It’s like he just... disappeared."

Looking at him now, it was difficult to picture him as the person Elijah believed he was.

There weren’t any contradictions, and more importantly, there wasn’t that feeling I’d gotten whenever someone was trying too hard to convince me of something.

Maybe Jayden really was just another victim.

I let out a quiet breath before standing up. "I should probably get going. Thanks for answering everything."

He smiled warmly. "I hope you find whoever you’re looking for."

"I hope so too." I smiled slightly at him.

We left the café together before splitting up in opposite directions. As I walked across campus, one thought kept circling through my head.

I didn’t think Jayden was the one behind any of it.

I checked Elijah’s classroom first, then the courtyard, then the path leading toward the sports field, but there was no sign of him anywhere. One of his classmates mentioned that he’d left a few minutes earlier after hearing that I was looking for him, but apparently nobody knew where he’d gone.

After wandering around for another ten minutes, I gave up searching for the time being. I was beginning to regret drinking that coffee as I turned toward the nearest restroom instead.

A few minutes later, I pushed the restroom door open and stepped back into the hallway.

"There you are." I heard a voice say and I looked up immediately.

Elijah was standing only a few feet away, his school bag slung over one shoulder and a grin spreading across his face. "I’ve been looking all over the school for you," he said. "A couple of people told me you’d been asking around."

"I was looking for you." I nodded.

His smile widened. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I talked to Jayden," I said as I walked over to him. "And I don’t think it’s him anymore. I asked him everything I could think of about the hoodie, his brother and where it came from. Nothing about his story felt forced, and I honestly don’t think he’s lying to me. If we’re going to keep looking for the person who’s been stalking me and broke into the mansion, we’re going to have to start from the beginning again."

Elijah listened without interrupting, his eyes fixed on me the entire time.

"So," I finished with a small smile, "I’m going to need your help."

His expression softened instantly and he took a small step towards me, a rueful smile on his face as he backed me up against the wall. "Mhm— is that so?"

My back hit the wall with a thud and I stared up at him, my heart hammering in my chest. "What are you—"

He smirked. "My wish is your command." Then his lips were on mine.