Page 105 of Vicious Desire (Fallen Royals 4)
My stomach twists.
I don’t know why anxiety is suddenly taking over, but I try not to let it slow my movements. Just get your phone and get out.
I search the rows of lockers, pausing at mine. It’s on the end of the row at eye level, easy to spot. The lock is missing.
I squint at it in the low light. It doesn’t look like it’s booby trapped or anything… So I lift the handle and pull it open, jumping back automatically.
Normally, I keep my gym shoes and clothes in there during the week, and then I take everything home for the weekend. My travel deodorant stays in the back of my locker, as does a pack of gum.
But now…
My stickered water bottle sits front and center.
Someone is messing with me.
Right?
I take it, but immediately it feels wrong.
Heavier than it should, even if it was completely filled with water. Which, for the record, it wasn’t. It was barely half full when I dropped it, and that’s the way it remained… on my desk. In my room.
Someone was in my room.
The intrusion steals my breath away.
A sudden loud noise breaks the silence, and I cringe.
It takes me a long moment to realize it’s my phone.
I slam my locker shut, tucking the offending water bottle under my arm, and hurry toward the ringing.
My phone is propped up against one of the sinks in the little bathroom area at the back of the locker room.
The caller ID says it’s Mom’s cell phone.
My heart immediately picks up speed, beating double time.
If I wasn’t already freaked out, this is the icing on the cake. She never calls.
I grab my phone and answer it, bringing it to my ear. “Mom? Are you okay?”
Her breathing fills my ear.
And then the worst thing imaginable:
She says, “I don’t think so.”
Depression runs in the family. If you trace our family history back far enough, you’ll see it pops up again and again. We don’t call it depression, though. It’s a nameless fog that creeps over our minds, until we don’t realize that we’re chin-high in water with no end in sight.
That’s how it kills.
I suspect my grandfather committed suicide when he was forty-three, and the town covered it up. Why? Because he was in politics and no one wanted a scandal. No one wanted to embarrass my grandmother, either.
I found an old newspaper article about how he died peacefully in his home. But no one dies of natural causes at forty-three. That was my mom’s dad. My mom’s brother has been on antidepressants since I can remember.
Noah covered up his negative thoughts with drugs. Pick-me-ups, he called them. Partying. Pretending he was okay when he was most definitely not.
Once he was off them, there was a time we were worried he would try to commit suicide. They helped him adjust in rehab, extending his stay as an inpatient from one month to eight.