It was Sunday. The last full day I could stay here. So far, we only went eating, gazing at the clouds, and then back to the library, where we unironically spent the full day. More than once, I asked him if he wanted to do anything else, but he declined each time. He was truly a book nerd, even more than I was.

Thus, we spent the whole day cuddling inside his favourite reading room. I leaned against his shoulder, while he either wrapped his arm around my shoulder, or waist. Like this, time went by incredibly fast as we were interrupted by only either the mealtime or the occasional interruption from other students.

I made no progress during that time. At all. I asked him a few times about his past, but he blocked off each time. I could only return the favour as he asked me, as I feared it wouldn’t change anything if I revealed my backstory carelessly. Sure, I gave him hints, fed him little scraps, but that was it.

It would have been so easy to stay inside this room once again during the night. I caught him looking out of the dark window more than once, but he didn´t mention anything. He wanted to spend the night with me, but I was honestly quite conflicted.

I knew he would ditch classes for me on Monday as he already told me he didn´t have anything to do on that day. But I needed time alone on campus as well. There were a few things I needed to think about, which wasn’t exactly doable with him around. Acting was always quite taxing on my mind after some time, especially when I played a cute, clumsy girl.

“Oh, no! It´s already this late? I need to pack my things for tomorrow!” I exclaimed, picked up my map and compass and stormed out of the room, around five minutes before the library would close. Jacob ran closely behind me out of the library while I looked at my map in panic.

“I need to go there …” I pointed to the left, hopefully the direction he didn´t need to go in. Hesitatingly, he looked to the right, but then turned towards me and walked very, very close to me.

“Lucy …” He muttered, just as the lights inside the library went out. He stepped closer to me and touched my sides, exactly where the blazer ended and the skirt began.

“Yes?” I yelped as he pulled me towards him. My chest was pressed against him as his fingers found their way in between the fabrics and touched my bare skin. A shiver went down my spine as he let his hands wander to my back and stared into my eyes. I blinked a few times as he went even further than that, and crouched down a bit.

His lips trembled slightly as he got closer and closer while I resigned to my fate. I couldn’t risk losing him here, especially not because I didn´t have much time left. He was creeping disgustingly close while his hands wandered further upwards on my back, warming me considerably.

And then, his mouth touched my forehead while I opened my eyes completely. Panic began to set in, seeping through my body as I tensed up. Flashbacks to the good old day where I kept pets went through my head. Where my pet used me as a fapping material, where I needed to burn down a whole house and felt the urge to chop off my own hand. I was panicking. I didn´t want that. I didn´t want him to kiss me on my forehead, to contaminate me with his spit. I hated it.

But except tensing up, I did nothing. I knew of the consequences of showing disgust right at this moment. It would be Mary´s death.

I could only wait for it to be over, which happened relatively quick, even though it felt like an eternity. His hands were slowly going out of my attire again, and he stared at me, trying to find any indication of what my feelings were. I made it quite obvious as I smiled brightly, while desperately hoping he wouldn’t try that again.

“I love you.” He said the moment the outer lights of the library turned dark.

“I-I …” I stumbled over my words, seemingly in embarrassment as I tripped from one foot from the other, but I apparently didn´t even need to answer him. He dashed away, not even listening to what I had to say. He feared the answer, even though I would tell him whatever he wanted to hear.

“Quite the charmer, leaving me alone in the dark.” I said as I furiously rubbed my forehead and a librarian exited the building.

“Hey, curfew is in ten minutes.” He said, looking at me quite concerned as I used the right sleeve of my blazer to clean up everything.

“Oh? Oh! I need to hurry up.” I said, switching to my left sleeve as I judged the other one to be contaminated. At first, I hoped to walk towards one of the girl's dormitories, but then I changed course as I couldn’t see anyone around me anymore. It was insanely easy to avoid all the teachers or whatever they were patrolling the streets in the dark. Only a few of them were actually lighting the area around them and as the street lamps were quite sparse, I didn´t have much trouble evading them.

What I had trouble with was finding my target. Tom told me the way to the crazy professor, but I had a hard time following his explanation. Sadly, the map was actually quite useless for this task, as his location wasn’t noted on it. And so, I went back towards the entrance, turned around and followed the exact steps Tom took some time ago.

And as I concentrated on the task at hand, I actually found the place I wanted to visit. A campfire, in the middle of nowhere, just like Tom described it. But unlike the time he visited the crazy professor, the fire wasn’t burning. And neither was I experiencing any illusions. There was just a burnt down campfire, an old, damaged sleeping bag. Nothing more, nothing less.

Except for the note of course. There was only a short paragraph written on a strangely yellow paper.

‘You must go above and beyond with the boy. A half-hearted approach will do nothing. You have no choice.’

I knew that I needed to do more. Just abusing the love he felt for me wouldn’t bring me further. A bit frustrated, I turned around and left the area behind, hoping I wasn’t caught in some kind of illusion trap while keeping the disgust of what I needed to do in check.