“You know perfectly well it’s Ema’s room,” she sang. “But I’ll wish her luck.”
“Don’t you mean Ema’soldroom?”
That did it.
She spun on the spot.
“I heard she moved out about…” I checked the invisible watch on my wrist. “Oh—twenty minutes ago, give or take? At least, that’s what the welfare advisor from the school said.”
Miss Lissy’s face distorted in a terrifying display that I recognised, and she tore down the narrow room toward me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hissed.
I flipped my phone over which had been recording our entire conversation, and pressed stop before flicking down to an earlier one.
“Don’t they wonder why they’re not hearing from you so much?” My recorded voice asked.
“Miss Lissy tells them that UK schooling is different from Japanese schooling and takes a lot of immersion. She tells them not to interrupt my learning. So they accept that. They want me to do well. They want me to get a good job after. But I miss them. I want to talk to them more.”
Miss Lissy’s eye twitched. “That proves nothing.”
“Maybe not,” I leaned back, stretching my legs out. “But it doesn’t look good.”
I reached into my off-the-shoulder jumper and pulled out a photo from my bra. Miss Lissy stilled as I slid it onto the table.
Her and Trent Ebsworth, local scumbag and part-time dealer, sat side by side in his rust-bucket car.
“Neither does this.”
That, combined with what Ema had told the welfare advisor yesterday, had been enough. She went back home this morning. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to go back to Japan after her experience with Miss Lissy. She’d received an overseas education she never bargained for.
“Turns out schools frown on host parents restricting contact between a minor and their parents. They didn't seem to like whatever this is either,” I said, picking up the photo.
If I were still five, I’d have been running for a hiding spot because Miss Lissy had murder in her eyes. If we weren’t in public, I had no doubt she would have had something more physical to say to the bomb I'd just dropped. I felt likeHarry Potter when he instigated Dobbie’s freedom with a sock. Adrenaline filled me, causing my knee to tremble under the table, but it was born from excitement.
I’d pay for this; I knew that already. There was no time limit on revenge when it came to Miss Lissy, but I didn’t care. My body was sick to the core of running from my memories and the people who'd hurt me. I couldn’t save Olivia, but I could save Ema. And maybe a part of me wanted to save myself now.
Heat filled Miss Lissy’s face and plunged down her shirt. She looked like she might break out in hives. “There’s plenty more where she came from,” she spat.
“Maybe,” I said, smiling wide. “But there’s a black smudge on your name now.”
She pierced me with a wide-eyed gaze for another moment before storming from the building.
I blew out a breath.Holy crap.
I wanted to high-five the child in me that was jumping for joy. But the real celebration would have to wait.
“I’ve told you before, Jem, I’m not interested at that price. It’s valued at—” Big Boss Betty’s voice trailed off as I passed her sitting on her scooter, engulphed in a phone conversation and completely blocking the exit.
“Yes. Yes, I remember,” she said, frowning as she listened.
Seemed like Miss Lissy wasn’t the only one in the firing line today.
“Miss Walls?” a gravelly tone emerged from the phone pressed to my ear.
What was I—my fake mother?
“Yes?” I wasn’t sure if arguing with every person who tried to use my old surname was the best way to start conversations.
