Creep by Jennifer Hillier Page B

every day, until the end.
    It made for a great thesis.
    He slopped another portion of green beans onto someone’s plate, managing to avoid eye contact even though the person murmured a polite thank-you. On another night he might have engaged this person in small talk, and if that had been interesting, the small talk might have led to a deeper conversation. But not tonight. Tonight Ethan was in a foul mood, because Dr. Sheila Tao had dumped him. For Morris. An oversize gorilla who’d somehow managed to make him feel tiny and inconsequential.
    He wanted to kill them both.
    Her lovely face appeared again in his mind, all dark eyes and red velvet lips. Delicate Asian bone structure. The curve of her slender white neck and the sweet spot above her collarbone he liked to kiss. He’d chased her for the better part of a year . . . only to have it end as if it never even started. Did she really think he would let it go that easily?
    It was never supposed to be anything more than a convenient affair. Screwing the professor had yielded some nice perks. Flexible deadlines, a reduced workload, more one-on-one help with his thesis. Plus she could hoover him senseless.
    It had never once occurred to him that it would end this way, on her terms. That she’d try to get rid of him, as if she were taking out the trash. She’d caught him off guard, and it was his fault for being surprised. He was normally never surprised.
    He normally couldn’t feel surprise.
    He might have been able to accept the sexual relationship ending, but trying to pawn him off onto another professor? Unacceptable. She was flexing her muscles, and that was not okay. And then that gaudy display with Morris and the bracelet, sitting on his lap, batting her eyelashes like a lovesick teenager? Making wedding plans as if everything were all right with the world?
    That was very not okay.
    Ethan thought of the picture he’d e-mailed her—the one with her ass in the air—and finally allowed himself to feel a twinge of satisfaction. It was Photoshopped, but she didn’t need to know that. Hopefully it had done its job.
    Okay, he needed to think of something else. Anything else. Forcing Sheila out of his thoughts, he surveyed the large room.
    Dozens of dirty heads were bent over plates of hot food, open mouths consuming whatever slop St. Mary’s was serving tonight. The room was filled with skin diseases, lice, and respiratory infections he was sure you could catch just by breathing. His skin itched thinking about it and he pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket. The ventilation system worked well and air fresheners were scattered everywhere, but the smell of filth was never completely masked.
    A few feet away, Abby was at her station handing out cups of apple juice and milk. Ethan watched her mouth form words he couldn’t make out over the constant din of chatter and eating. Even wearing an apron stained from the grease of a thousand meals past, Abby looked beautiful, her un-made-up complexion making her look even younger than her twenty-three years.
    Abby Maddox was Ethan’s live-in girlfriend. He adored Abby.
    But he craved Sheila. Nothing in life was ever simple.
    A guffaw of laughter drew Ethan’s attention to the corner ofthe room, and he saw that Marlon was here tonight, looking no better or worse than normal. The old black man sat in his usual spot by the window, under the sign that read BELIEVE IN MARY BECAUSE SHE BELIEVES IN YOU. He was muttering to himself as he scanned the newspaper. Ethan hadn’t seen Marlon in a month, but knew the schizophrenic man wouldn’t be able to explain where he’d been. Even if he could articulate it, he wouldn’t, because Marlon believed himself to be a spy for a supersecret government agency disguised as a homeless man, right down to the feces- and urine-stained clothes. His job was to find old newspapers and circle code words. During one brief hour of clarity a few months back, Ethan learned that Marlon