*Chapter Two
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Skye
All my mother had to do was leave Kelsie’s tuition alone.She begged me to let her handle the finances with Kelsie’s schooling so she could feel as if she’d done something right.My mother promised she would never jeopardize her daughter’s education.She promised me up and down and a million times over.
And I believed her, or else I would have transferred the money into my account.I had done all the numbers and made sure the sum of money the now deceased Mrs.Winter had given my mother would cover Kelsie’s high school tuition, which was exorbitant, to say the least, but worth it.My sister is going to be a doctor.
No one is prouder of her than me.I buy Kelsie new clothes and give her pocket money, too.My mother contributes nothing at all on her own.As usual.
I suppose I should be grateful that she kept her word for at least half of Kelsie’s schooling and didn’t blow through all the money all at once.
My mother’s phone rings twenty-one times before she realizes I will not stop calling, and she can’t avoid me because then I’ll just show up at the house.
“Mom, what did you do?”
“Don’t you take that tone with me, Skye.I’m already under a lot of pressure.I’m still your mother.I—”
“Did you gamble away Kelsie’s tuition?Is that what you did?”
“No, I didn’t gamble away the money.Look, I don’t have the time for this.I have to pick your sister up from school.”
“Because they’re kicking her out because you didn’t pay her tuition.Mom, what happened?Please, just tell me.”
“I thought it was a good deal.A good business deal,” my mom says with a haughtiness to her tone that grates on my nerves.A good business deal, according to my mother, means she met someone and thought herself in love, and the guy is as shady as hell and sweet-talks an investment in her ear, and then she hands him over money, and then he disappears.It happened with the money our dad left her when he died.I just didn’t think she would mess with Kelsie’s life.
“It doesn’t matter, Mom.I don’t want to hear it.You don’t have to pick Kelsie up from school.I sorted it out.”
I want to hang up before the tears in my eyes reach my voice.
“Skye, wait,” my mom’s voice stops me, and I can hear the cogs turning in her head, and it’s never a good thing.Never.“You paid the tuition?You had that much money?”
“No, Mom, I—” But she doesn’t hear me and carries on full steam.
“Okay.Okay, that’s good, but I’m in a bad place.They’re going to kill me if I don’t come up with three hundred thousand dollars in three days.They’re the mafia, Skye.They’re going to kill me, Skye.You have to help me get that money.I promise this is the last time.I won’t do this again.Please, you have to help me.They’re going to start with breaking my legs.Skye, please, my darling child, you have to help me out.Take it from your savings.”
This time I hang up before I start laughing.My mom thinks I have three hundred thousand dollars in savings.
I stare at a damp spot on the wall of my apartment for what feels like forever, just numb until my phone beeps.It’s a text message from an unknown number.
I read the words, take in the picture attached, and throw my phone away from me.
I have no idea what I’m going to do now except maybe bawl my eyes out.My chin is quivering in both fear and anger; I can barely see past the tears pooling in my eyes.I’m one blink away from my emotional floodgates parting to begin the process of ugly crying when there’s a knock on my door.
“Hey, Skye, right?It’s Lily from twelve B,” a voice says on the other side of the door.
Oh right.Lily from twelve B, whose door I tried to break down so she could call the police and tell them my sister was taken because I only had one phone and I didn’t want to disconnect the call with my sister, who I thought was kidnapped.I close my eyes in embarrassment.
“I just wanted to check and see if everything is all right,” she says before I open the door.
“Yes, thank you.Again, I’m so sorry about that,” I say immediately, taking in the girl who now looks as if she just stepped off the catwalk despite now being dressed casually in jeans with her hair brushed out.“I just panicked for some stupid reason and jumped to a crazy conclusion.I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.But you look like you need a drink.”She holds up a bottle of whiskey.Wait, it’s a Glenfiddich bottle, and it’s the fancy kind.I used to work as a waitress at an upmarket restaurant before, so I know that is some expensive whiskey.
We live in Tuscan Rose Heights; it might not be the slummiest of apartments in the neighborhood, but it certainly isn’t Upper East Side Manhattan by a long shot.
The rent is cheap; there’s no one peeing in the corridors or exposing themselves directly outside of the building.It’s meant for people like me, the comfortable side of otherwise poor.But can a resident of Tuscan Rose Heights afford to offer a stranger a glass of that kind of whiskey?
