Chapter 55: I told you so

I do not remember the bus ride home from the academy. I sit by the window the entire time, staring out at the grey streets as the rain begins to hit the glass. My hands are buried deep inside my jacket pockets. The palms of my hands still sore from where the silver chain cut into my skin when I snapped it off. Every time I close my eyes, I see Jackson holding Chloe's waist in the middle of the hallway, his face expressionless as he looks at me.

When the bus finally stops at my corner, I step out into the cold drizzle. I walk fast down the cracked pavement toward our apartment building, my head down to hide my swollen eyes from the neighbors. I climb the concrete stairs slowly, my legs feeling numb.

I unlock the front door and step into our small living room. I expect the apartment to be empty, since my mother is usually working her afternoon shift at the store. Instead, the smell of hot tea fills the air.

My mother is sitting at the small wooden kitchen table. She is still wearing her faded work uniform, but her jacket is draped over the back of her chair. Across from her sits Leo. His injured legs are extended straight out beneath the table, resting on a small plastic stool to keep the swelling down. His crutches are leaning against the wall behind him.

The second I close the front door, the clicking latch makes both of them turn their heads to look at me.

I try to turn my face away quickly, wiping my nose with the sleeve of my jacket, but it is too late. They can see the tear stains on my cheeks and the red color around my eyes. I stand frozen by the entryway, my backpack still hanging heavily off my right shoulder.

Leo looks at me across the room. His mouth is set into a line, and his eyes are cold. He reaches out and taps the screen of his phone, which is sitting flat on the table surface between him and our mother.

"Let me guess," Leo says, his voice cutting through the quiet room like ice. "Your jackpot has slipped away?"

I flinch at the harshness in his words. I press my back against the front door, my fingers gripping the metal doorknob behind me just to keep myself upright. "Leo, please. Not right now."

"Why not right now?" Leo asks, his voice rising slightly as he leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. He points a finger directly at the phone screen. "I saw the article on your fancy school journalism site last night at midnight, Maya. It didn’t take long for the news to drop. The front page is covered in pictures of Jackson Thorne and his old girlfriend in the parking lot. He didn't waste any time at all, did he?"

I keep my mouth shut, fresh tears starting to blur my vision. The pain of hearing him say it out loud is almost too much to bear.

"I called Mom the second I read it," Leo continues, his tone full of bitter satisfaction. He looks at me with an intense glare. "I told her exactly what happened. I told her that your wealthy little boyfriend finally got tired of playing house with a girl from our neighborhood. He used you to make himself feel better about what his family did to my hockey career, and the second he got bored, he went right back to his own kind."

"That is not what happened," I whisper, though the words feel empty in my throat. I cannot defend Jackson. I cannot tell them about Arthur Thorne buying our apartment building, or the eviction threats.

My mother stands up from her chair. She walks across the small linoleum kitchen floor toward me. I brace myself for her anger, expecting her to yell at me for skipping school yesterday or for causing more drama.

Instead, she reaches out and places her warm hands on my shoulders. She looks down at my face, her tired eyes full of sadness, but her expression is relieved.

"It is for the better, Maya," my mother says softly, her voice steady and calm. "I know it hurts right now, and I know you think you love him, but this breakup is the best thing that could have happened to this family."

I look at her, my bottom lip trembling. "Mom, you don't understand."

"I understand enough," she interrupts gently, leading me away from the door and forcing me to sit down in the empty chair at the table. She sets a warm mug of tea in front of my hands, though I do not touch it. "Every single night since you started talking to that boy, I have been terrified. I lie awake in my bed thinking about Arthur Thorne. I think about what a man with that much power can do to people like us. He could take your scholarship away with a single word. He could make sure I never get hired at another store in this city."

She sits back down in her own chair, leaning across the table to look at me earnestly. "When Leo called me last night and told me that Jackson was back with that wealthy cheerleader, I felt like a stone was lifted off my chest. As long as Jackson was looking at you, his father's eyes were on us too. Now that he has moved on, we are invisible again. We can just go back to our normal lives."

"Our normal lives are broken, Mom," I say, my voice shaking with raw anger as I finally look up. I glance at Leo's legs beneath the table, then look back at her. "We are barely paying the rent. Leo can't play anymore. Nothing about this is normal."

"And a Thorne wasn't going to fix it!" Leo snaps loudly, slamming his palm flat against the wooden table. The force of the strike makes the tea mugs rattle against the wood. "Do you honestly think he was going to save us, Maya? You thought you were special to him. You thought you were living in some movie where the rich prince rescues the poor girl. But look at what he did the second things got difficult. He handed his ex-girlfriend an identical silver necklace this morning in front of the entire school. Sarah texted me about it during fifth period."

My chest heaves as a broken sob escapes my lips. The mention of the twin necklace makes the image of the toilet bowl flashing through my mind again.

"He is exactly like his father," Leo says, his voice dropping into a vicious whisper. "They take whatever they want from us, they use it until they are bored, and then they throw us in the trash. I told you so from the very first day, Maya. I told you to stay away from him, but you wouldn't listen because you were too busy being blinded by his expensive car and his status."

"Leo, that is enough," our mother says, her tone turning strict as she glances between the two of us. "Your sister is hurting. Stop lecturing her."

"She needs to hear it, Mom," Leo says, turning his head away from me and staring out the small living room window at the falling rain. His shoulders are rolled with resentment. "She almost ruined everything for a guy who didn't even care enough to wait a full twenty-four hours before kissing another girl in public. She needs to realize how stupid she was being."

I stand up from the kitchen table so fast my chair scrapes loudly against the floorboards, mirroring the way Jackson's chair had scraped in the cafeteria yesterday. I cannot sit here and listen to them celebrate the very thing that is destroying me from the inside out. They think we are safe now, but they don't know that we are actually standing on a ticking bomb.

I walk down the short, narrow hallway to my bedroom, push the door shut, and click the lock into place. I drop my heavy backpack onto the floor and slide down the wooden panels of the door until I am sitting on the rug, burying my face in my knees in the dark.