My mother finally lifts her head to look at me, her umber eyes rheumy with sympathy, lips agape like nothing she could say could bring me solace. I hate when she stares at me like that—like I’m some incapable victim who can’t solve her own problems. I always appreciate how easy she’s made my life, but sometimes I wonder if I would’ve been better off clawing my way through the rubble of my seemingly fleeting hardships. More resilient, resourceful.
“Oh, Buttercup. I’m so sorry,” she sympathizes, rising out of her seat and rounding the table so she can envelop me in a hug.
It’s the first time that her embrace isn’t comforting, but I wrap my arms around her nevertheless, clinging to her like I’m still her little girl.
I had one job, and I failed. I failed mymom. My indignation banks as if it’s a sweltering, soot-colored storm waiting on the horizon to rule over the untampered heavens, exiled to the inescapable darkness.
“I feel like I did something wrong,” I whisper, blinking away the dew pearling in the corners of my eyes, finally mustering the courage to tether my hands into the back of her blouse. Numbness has finally rooted itself in my body—a poison that softens my resolve like necrosis spidering through expired fruit.
My mom strokes the back of my head. “Shh, shh. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s the school’s fault. I can’t believe…I can’t believe they’d let this happen. Without even telling us beforehand.”
I can’t see my mother’s expression, but maybe it’s for the best. Her voice drops an octave, steeped in an animosity that rarely ever shows itself. Marjorie Renault is a gentle woman, yet when she’s mad, her anger can be felt by everyone in a ten-mile radius. A flammable compound just looking for a fuse to ignite it.
“Oh, I’m going to have a strongly worded talk with them. This is unprofessional, unfair, and frankly, you shouldn’t be the one suffering just because a nonprofit couldn’t handle their funds correctly.”
Pulling back, I try to swan dive off the train tracks before her rage runs me over. “No, Mom. I don’t want to make this a bigger problem than it is. I spoke with the student employee office. They said I just need to pick up some more tutoring clients to make up for the lost money.”
She doesn’t even let the suggestion breathe. “Absolutely not. How are you supposed to juggle classes, work, your social life? Your roster is already full. They can’t expect you to double or triple your workload.”
“But—”
My mom slams her palms down on the table, scaring me back into my shell. It’s a clinical kind of fury, tamed just enough to keep it from escalating. “I’llpick up extra shifts, Staten. It’s not even a big deal. I was going to run the idea past you anyways. I want you to have some extra spending money each month. I know things are tight right now, and I wish I could say that they haven’t always been like this.”
I can’t ask her to do that. I won’t fucking let her. My mother has sacrificed everything for me. There’s a clear solution to thiswhole fuck fest, and my ego is the only thing standing in the way.
There’s a certain brunet who’s at my beck and call right now—a certain brunet who made itveryclear that he’d do anything to get into my good graces. Monetary compensation for my trauma included.
Sure, taking Knox on as a client would be as difficult as adding three other clients to my roster, but at least I have some leverage over the poor bastard. He owes me. He owes me for running me over, for me not pressing charges, for insinuating I can’t flirt, and for being an overall pain in my ass. Will I regret this decision? Maybe, but knowing that my mom is sleeping a full eight hours every night trumps an hourly dosage of his trifling vanity.
Something akin to hope burgeons low in my gut, and my brain begins to churn out all kinds of machinations that will aid me in my quest to not only humble MU’s biggest playboy but put me back on the path toward graduation.
I’m a good person, okay? I don’t like exploiting people’s guilt, but right now, my survival instincts are the only thing preventing me and my mother from going belly-up. And if there’s anything I’ve learned in this dog-eat-dog world, it’s that you have to look out for your clan first and foremost.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I reassure her, rallying my urge to fight. “I know exactly how to fix this.”
7
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY
KNOX
Staten did the unthinkable: she ghosted me. Me! Well, I don’t know if I can technically call it “ghosting” seeing as we never exchanged phone numbers, but she’s definitely been avoiding me.
That girl is going to be the death of me.
After I pulled out of my promise with that blonde, I spent the rest of the night thinking about the five-foot-three, geek-chic hurricane that unapologetically knocked me on my ass and made an example out of me in front of my teammates.
Come hell or high water, I need her to tutor me. Raising my grades are the most important thing in my life right now,notdisassembling the military-fortified defenses circumscribing her blackened, emotionless heart. I have the best chance at acing my next exam with Staten’s guidance. I don’t want anyone else to tutor me.
Runnels of water from the shower head sluice down my face, sticking my hair to my febrile flesh, then plinking to the porcelain tiles underfoot with the rhythm of a metronome. The opaque steam from the heat fills the wet area, hovering over melike smoke, and I lather my aching body with hockey-worn hands. Practice kicked my ass, but thankfully, I didn’t let Staten’s existence backseat-drive the entire time.
Exhaustion weighs my belly down, my vision pixelated, blinded like the initial flash of an incandescent bulb on a vintage camera. There’s something rewarding about a post-practice shower—about familiarizing myself with the new muscle mass I’ve gained from discipline, determination, and diligence. My fingers rove over the tight ridges of my abs, tracing the V-line that I’ve sculpted over numerous hours in a sweat-saturated gym.
The crescendo of whitewater in my ears suspends my brain in a transitory period of nothingness, every worry rolling off my shoulders and draining into a bubbling film of both grime and soap around my ankles. I don’t want to necessarily think about you know who, but it’s like a reflex at this point. A nettling reflex that makes blood bloat in my groin—that summons a malaise of testosterone to strip me of all rationale. How can I feel on top of the world, yet be so far from glory?
After waterboarding myself for ten more minutes, I finally emerge from the sauna-like cocoon, shaking my hair out and drying off my damp body. Leftover cataracts still glisten underneath the fluorescents. I wrap my towel around my hips and head for the main locker room, immediately greeted by my half-dressed teammates laughing up a storm.
As I traverse the battlefield of (what I assume to be) crude dick jokes or replays of today’s practice, there’s a sudden, stinging pain that blossoms on my lower back, tearing an unmanly yelp from my throat.
