The Fray Theory: Resonance Read Online Free Page B

his
lips and lowers his head. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?”
    Mad ? Neve’s heartstrings tighten enough to
snap.
    “I’m sorry—” she
slips her diary into her purse. “I have to go,”
    “Neve, come on.”
    “Look—Dylan, it
was great seeing you and all. I mean, at least now I know you’re not dead .
But this whole pretending like everything’s fine?” she shakes her head as she rises
from her seat, and then heads straight for the front door.
    Don’t cry . Don’t you dare be that girl .
    Dylan springs out
of his seat and falls on her trail. “You have every right to hate me…”
he follows Neve out of the café. “Just give me a chance to explain.”
    “No need,” Neve
says in full stride away from him, “got your message loud and clear.”
    “I’m so sorry if
I hurt you.”
    And Neve suddenly
finds herself pinned in place.
    “ If ?” she turns
to him, her strangled voice barely escaping her aching throat. “ If you
hurt me?”
    Dylan drops his
head and slides his hands into his pockets.
    “You just left !
You could have been lying dead in a ditch somewhere, for all I knew,” she leans
back onto the balls of her feet, and yet can’t seem to rip herself away. “ God —I
had to hear from your classmates that you’d moved away! Not moving away, moved away! They all just stared at me like I was some psycho ex,
showing up at your class, looking for you!”
    Dylan parts his
lips to speak, but at the sight of something in the distance, his face goes
slack.
    Thrown off by his
sudden shift in demeanor, Neve glances over her shoulder, but there’s nothing
worth noticing as far as she can tell.
    Just a dilute crowd of haggard students.
    “I’m sorry,”
Dylan says as he makes his way past her. “I have to go.”
    “What—” Neve
practically whispers, the shock of his departure shielding her from fully
registering her reality—from accepting that he is in fact abandoning her for
the second time.
    So she stands
there as Dylan becomes smaller and smaller, until she can no longer tell him
apart from the crowd. And despite the pain brewing inside, she stands her
ground and fights gravity’s resolve to bring her to her knees.
     

Chapter 3
The Harbinger
    One tormented step at
a time, the space between Dylan and Neve stretches. And although he can
practically feel her pain he can’t rip his gaze from his target up ahead—from a
gentleman in a gray suit and charcoal fedora, carrying a dark, vintage briefcase.
    It’s him … Dylan’s pace accelerates. Has to be .
And then he finds himself running with little regard to his surroundings. The
students he zooms past blur into swatches of color, but his focus never wavers.
At full speed, he segues off the sidewalk and cuts through traffic with an absurd
level of confidence, ignoring the upheaval of loud honks and angry shouts from
drivers.
    With his eyes
glued to his target, Dylan dashes up the green landscape towards UBC’s pharmaceutical
building: a modern monstrosity composed of darkly-tinted glass cubes.
    But his chase
comes to a staggering stop when he notices a security guard manning the entrance.
    The man in gray
swipes his key-card, exchanges a terse nod with the guard, and makes his way
into the building.
    Dylan retracts a
bit, clenching his jaw. Even if his student ID hadn’t expired, it’s still highly
unlikely it would grant him access into this particular building.
    With his window
of opportunity fast coming to a close, he retrieves his phone from his back pocket
and pulls up his Contact List.
    And he finds
himself hesitating. It has been three years of nearly zero communication
between them.
    But what if this
is a sign? What better excuse than a spontaneous run-in for Dylan to reach out?
    Just do it , he banishes his doubts and dials ‘Alex’.
    He slaps the
phone to his ear and flings his focus back onto the man in gray.
    Through tinted windows,
Dylan watches him stop, pass his briefcase to his left hand, and pull out