Annie was careful to avoid the study room. Instead, she settled into a quiet corner of the unused 972s. There was an old chair back there and if you adjusted it right you could prop your feet up on the windowsill. And there was a wall plug within easy reach of her laptop charger. No one could see her from the main part of the library but the noise of the other students provided a comforting background murmur.

Pulling her laptop out of her bag, Annie noticed her hands were shaking just a little. They way they used to when she thought of reading Bruce's emails. She frowned down at the offending appendages. He wasn't real, she reminded herself.

He had felt real.

Annie opened her computer and logged into her email, double clicking on the folder she had created just for him. Or more accurately, for Abed's lies.

Why didn't you delete the folder then? Whispered a mocking little voice in her head.

She opened an email at random and started to read.

"I wish I could show you the wheat, how the wind moves over it like waves on the sea. It's whispers are the voice god uses to-"

More waxing poetic about wheat. At the time, she had been moved by his spirituality and depth. He reminded her a little bit of Vaughn. If Vaughn had been . . . well, smarter. Knowing that those words had been written by a guy who had probably only ever seen a field of wheat on tv made her want to scream.

She opened another email.

"-sorry about your father. If you want to call him, you should. But if you don't, that's okay too. If he chooses not to have you in his life, HE'S the one that's missing out."

Tears of embarrassment filled Annie's eyes. She had told him about her father. Told him what even the study group didn't know- how when she was thirteen, he had left. Divorced her mother, abandoned her and her brother, and moved to Brussels to take a teaching job. And start a new family. That was when grades, and extracurriculars, and success had become an obsession. That was when her mother's quest to forge her into the perfect daughter had begun. Like her mother was trying to prove that she didn't need him. That he had just been holding them all back and now they were free to really succeed. Two years later, Annie would take her first adderall as a 'study aid'.

Would Abed tell the others? Drop it into conversation in that detached way he had, just to see what would happen? She could imagine the scene. Everyone would be furious with her again for something she had done, to push them, to protect them, to help them succeed against their own wills. Shirley would demand, "Annie! Why do you do these things?!" And before Jeff could step in with one of his sarcastic speeches about her insecurity, Abed would answer flatly, "Because her father left when she was thirteen and now she has a compulsive need to control the people around her to protect herself from further loss." There would be a long pause and they would all exchange shocked glances. Then would come the long, knowing exhale of breath, "Ohhhhhhhh," as they put the pieces together. She could hear Britta's voice, "That explains the whole Jeff thing."

Annie never wanted them to know that.

Another email.

This one was a long list of questions they had exchanged.

"What's your favorite color?

What's your favorite movie?

What's your dream destination?

What's the one thing you refuse to eat?

What sound makes you automatically happy?

Are you a night owl or an early riser?"

Etcetera, etcetera.

She read over his replies.

"Green.

Too many to choose from.

Los Angeles.

Salmon.

The sound of rain. Or of bacon frying.

Night owl."

Annie frowned. She had never noticed it before but these sounded like Abed answers. He hated all fish but fish sticks. He was a complete night owl. Of course, he wanted to go to Los Angeles. Annie gasped- he had once described a paper he was writing on Foley artists to her. She could hear his voice, his excitement showing in the slight inflection, "Did you know they create the sound of rain by frying bacon?" She had thought Bruce was being cute- oh, men love bacon! Etc. But it wasn't that at all.

Abed was telling her the truth.

She skimmed over her answers. And she had told him the truth- again and again.

"Purple.

The Philadelphia Story

Venice

Cafeteria Meatloaf

The sound of a zipper- pulled in a perfect crescendo- top to bottom

Early bird"

That was what hurt- her vulnerability. Instead of her role as "Annie- Girl Roommate, Type A Study Buddy" she was just Annie. He'd asked her for the truth. And she had given it.

Sometimes masks reveal.

Abed told her the truth.

Annie's hands were ice cold and shaking as she shoved her laptop back into her bag.

She had to find him. Right now.