Chapter 131 Nothing Left to Give Her

Chapter 131 Nothing Left to Give Her
Penny POV

My phone is still warm in my hand from talking to Jake half the night, both of us circling the same terrifying question with no real answers: why would Karen, lying in a hospital bed, tell police my name at all?
Detective Reyes finally calls my mom directly the next morning, explaining carefully, gently, that Karen mentioned me only because she'd overheard my name connected to the insurance policy weeks ago, nothing more sinister than that. It's nothing, but it's not the disaster we spent all night bracing for either. Just one more thread in a tangle that keeps growing bigger every single day.
I drag myself into school running on almost no sleep, and I'm not even surprised anymore when I feel the familiar prickle of being watched the second I step through the doors. It's quieter than it used to be, though. The rumors have mostly died down since Brianna's social circle started shrinking, since half her usual crowd stopped sitting with her at lunch, since word got around that even her own parents pulled her off the cheer squad after some complaint from the school board about her conduct toward me months back finally caught up with her.
I almost don't notice her waiting by my locker until I'm right up on it.
"Brianna." My whole body tenses automatically, old instincts kicking in before I can stop them. "What do you want?"
She looks different than I remember from even a few weeks ago. Smaller somehow, less sure of herself, none of the usual sharp confidence in the way she's standing. "I need to talk to you. For real this time. Not to start anything."
"I don't really have the energy for whatever this is today," I say honestly, reaching past her to open my locker.
"Please." Something in her voice actually sounds like it costs her something to say that word. "Just two minutes."
I hesitate, weighing whether this is worth the emotional bandwidth I genuinely don't have to spare right now. But something about the way she's standing, arms wrapped around herself, none of her usual armor in place, makes me pause.
"Two minutes," I say finally.
She takes a breath, glancing around the hallway like she's checking whether anyone's watching, and something about that alone tells me this isn't a performance. Brianna's always loved an audience. Right now she clearly doesn't want one.
"I've been thinking a lot," she starts, voice unsteady. "About everything. The video, the rumors about Jake's family, all of it. And I'm not going to stand here and pretend I have some big excuse for it."
"Okay," I say carefully, waiting.
"I was jealous of you," she says finally, the words coming out fast, like ripping off a bandage. "I know that sounds insane, considering everything I did to you, but it's true. Jake never looked at me the way he looks at you. Not even when we were together. I used to catch him watching you across the cafeteria before you two were even close, and I hated it, hated that you had something so easy that I could never seem to get no matter how hard I tried to earn it."
I stare at her, genuinely stunned. In three years of knowing Brianna, I've never once heard her admit anything even close to vulnerable.
"You made my life miserable because you were jealous of me," I say slowly, testing the sentence out loud like it might make more sense if I actually say it. "Me. The girl you had notes stuck on for months."
"I know how it sounds." Her voice cracks slightly. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. I don't think I deserve that, honestly. I just needed to say it out loud to someone, and you're the only person who actually deserves to hear it."
I stand there a long moment, waiting to feel something- anger, satisfaction, some kind of closure that finally makes three years of pain worth it. But mostly what I feel is tired. Tired in a way that has nothing to do with Brianna at all anymore.
"I'm not going to forgive you," I say finally, and I watch her flinch slightly, bracing for it. "Not because I'm trying to punish you. I think I just genuinely don't have anything left to give you either way, Brianna. Forgiveness or anger. I've spent this whole year fighting bigger things than you. My energy's somewhere else now."
Something in her face shifts, surprised maybe, or something close to relief, like she expected fury and got indifference instead, and somehow that lands harder than anger ever could.
"That's fair," she says quietly.
"For what it's worth," I add, because some old habit of kindness refuses to fully die even now, "I hope you figure out whatever's underneath all that jealousy. Because it sounds like it's been eating you alive a lot longer than it's been hurting me."
She doesn't answer, just nods slowly, and turns and walks away down the hallway, smaller somehow than she's ever looked to me before.
I close my locker, and something settles in my chest, quiet and unexpected. Not closure exactly. Just space. Room where all that old fear used to live, now finally, mostly, empty.
My phone buzzes as I head toward first period, and I check it automatically, expecting Jake, expecting an update about Karen, expecting anything except what actually loads onto my screen.
It's a text from an unknown number, different from all the others that have been haunting us for weeks. This one's shorter. Colder somehow.
You should ask your mother why she really left the hospital where she worked, sixteen years ago. It wasn't for the reason she told you. And Penny, the timing lines up exactly with the week you were born.
I stop dead in the middle of the hallway, students flowing around me on either side, my whole body going numb.
Because my mom's told me the story of leaving that job a hundred times growing up, said she left to focus on raising me, said it was simple, said it was nothing complicated at all.
For the first time in sixteen years, I don't believe her.