Chapter 39
Summer's POV
The next day started out normal enough. Mia and I had just finished lunch and were walking through the main hallway when I heard the laughter.
It was the kind of laughter that made my skin crawl, loud and performative and mean. I knew that sound. I'd heard it directed at me often enough.
"What's going on?" Mia asked, slowing down.
We rounded the corner and I saw them—Tyler and Blake and a few other guys from the crew team, clustered by the lockers. Tyler was doing something with his hand, holding it at this weird angle, and Blake was laughing so hard he was practically doubled over.
"Dude, have you seen how that scholarship kid writes?" Blake was saying, loud enough for half the hallway to hear. "Like this—" He twisted his wrist into this exaggerated, painful-looking position and pretended to scribble in the air.
My blood went cold.
"Maybe he should get some special ed classes," Tyler added, drawing out the words. "You know, for the... disabled."
The other guys cracked up. A few girls standing nearby were giggling behind their hands, and I heard one of them whisper something about "his dad probably beat him" and someone else saying "that's what happens with those poor families."
I stopped walking.
Mia grabbed my arm. "Summer, don't—"
But I was already moving, my vision tunneling down to Tyler's smug face and Blake's stupid fucking smirk.
"Left-handed people have higher average IQs," I said, my voice cutting through the laughter like glass. "It's neuroscience."
Tyler's head whipped around. "What?"
I walked right up to him, close enough that he had to look down at me, and I kept my voice light and conversational even though my hands were shaking with rage.
"Einstein, Da Vinci, Bill Gates—all lefties. So making fun of it says more about your SAT scores than his hand."
Blake's smile faltered. "That's not—"
"What's your Physics score again, Tyler? Because I heard Kieran got a perfect on the last mock exam while you're still struggling with basic mechanics." I tilted my head, all fake sweetness. "Maybe you should focus on your own hands. You'll need them to retake the SAT."
Someone behind me made a choking sound that might have been a laugh. The girls who'd been gossiping had gone quiet, and I could feel their attention shift—suddenly I was the one with power in this conversation, not Tyler.
His face went red. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" I looked at Blake. "Or are you just jealous that a scholarship kid is going to get into better schools than you ever will, even with your daddy's donations?"
"Whatever," Blake muttered, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.
I hooked my arm through Mia's and turned to leave, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. Behind us, I heard Tyler say something under his breath that I didn't catch, but I didn't care. I'd made my point.
"Holy shit," Mia breathed once we were around the corner. "That was impressive. And also kind of terrifying."
My hands were still shaking. "They can't talk about him like that."
"I know. But Summer..." She looked at me carefully. "He might not want you defending him. Some guys get weird about that."
I thought about Kieran in the kitchen, telling me the world wasn't fair and I should just accept it. About how he'd tried to stop me from helping him wring out that rag, like he couldn't stand the idea of someone seeing him struggle.
"I know," I said quietly. "But I couldn't just stand there and listen to them mock him."
Mia squeezed my arm. "For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing. Even if he doesn't thank you for it."
---
That afternoon, I found a note folded in my locker.
They moved me to the library. -K
I read it three times, my heart doing acrobatics in my chest.
The email. My complaint about Harrison. It had actually worked.
I grabbed my bag and practically ran to the library, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached the new reading room on the third floor—the one they'd just renovated over the summer, all modern furniture and good lighting and climate control.
And there he was.
Kieran was shelving books, scanning barcodes with a handheld device, his movements methodical and careful. He'd traded the kitchen's harsh fluorescent lights and cold tile for warm overhead lamps and carpeted floors. Instead of scrubbing grease off tables with his damaged hand, he was doing something that actually made sense—something that didn't hurt him.
He looked up when I came in, and his expression went through about five different emotions in three seconds—surprise, wariness, something that might have been relief, and finally settling on this guarded confusion.
"Hi," I said, slightly out of breath from running.
"Hi." He set down the scanner, watching me like I was a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out. "What are you doing here?"
"I just..." I gestured vaguely at the room. "I heard you were working here now. I wanted to see if it was true."
He glanced around at the bright, clean space—such a stark contrast to that dingy kitchen with its broken heating and Harrison's constant surveillance. When he looked back at me, something in his face had softened.
"I don't know what happened," he said quietly. "But... it's better here."
I wanted to tell him. God, I wanted to tell him so badly—that I'd sent that email, that I'd used my mother's name as leverage, that I'd done it because I couldn't stand watching him be treated like that. But the words stuck in my throat, because what if he got angry? What if he thought I'd overstepped, interfered in his life without permission?
"You deserve better," I said instead.
He studied me for a long moment, his gray eyes searching my face like he was trying to read between the lines. Finally, he said, "Thank you. For... whatever you did."
My breath caught. "You think I—"
"I'm not stupid, Summer." But his voice wasn't angry. If anything, it was gentle, almost tender. "You're the only person who would have done something like this."
We stood there in the warm library light, surrounded by books and silence, and I felt something shift between us—some invisible barrier crumbling just a little bit more.
"Is it okay?" I asked. "That I did that?"
He picked up the scanner again, not quite meeting my eyes. "Yeah. It's okay."