I blink at her.
“Bells.”
“No.” Her tone leaves no room for negotiation. “You will not graduate if you don’t, and Miss Mallory is already on the warpath about it. You can’t draw attention to yourself right now, Jace. You just can’t. And you’re not skipping school because of me. Or because you hate it.”
“I do hate it.”
“I know you do.”
I run my hand through my hair, frustration creeping under my skin. “It’s pointless.”
“It’s not.”
“It seems fucking useless.”
Her eyes soften, just a fraction, like she’s seeing past the bullshit I throw up. “Do it anyway.”
For a moment, I want to argue, to tell her I don’t give a damn, that it won’t change anything. I’ll still be the screw-up I’ve always been. But she’s looking at me like I’m not the disaster I see in the mirror, as if maybe there’s something worth saving.
So I nod, swallowing my pride and my doubts. “Fine. I’ll go.”
She exhales, tension bleeding from her shoulders.
“And we’re moving tutoring here, this afternoon,” she adds. “I don’t want to sit in that library pretending everything is normal.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll pick you up from your trailer after school so you can grab some stuff.”
“You’re a bossy little thing after breakfast.”
She never misses a beat. “Someone has to be, since you’re clearly allergic to making good decisions.”
That pulls a smile out of me.
We arrive at the room at the end of the hall. She pushes open the door and steps aside, letting me take it all in. It’s cluttered, with boxes stacked against one wall, a desk buried under notebooks and random junk, clothes draped over a chair.But there’s a bed—an actual fucking bed with clean sheets folded neatly at the end. It’s more than I’ve had in months, more than I ever thought I’d get.
“You can make it less tragic,” she says lightly, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
As I stand in the middle of the room, a thought suddenly hits me, one that should probably send me running for the hills. Staying has never been my thing. I’m the king of the exit plan, but this is different.
This is about wanting to fix my life because she’s looking at me. This is agreeing to go back to that high school bullshit because she asked.
It scares the shit out of me doing this for her. But not as much as the thought of walking out that door and leaving this behind.
So I stay.
By the time I arrive at school, the day already seems like a mistake.
Cold air clings to my clothes from the walk across the parking lot, settling into my bones the same way everything else has lately. I showed up because Bells looked at me this morning with those tired eyes and asked meto promise her that I’ll go, and I said yes before I could stop myself.
That right there should be a red flag the size of Texas, because I don’t make promises. And I sure as shit don’t keep them.
The hallway hits me with its usual suffocating noise. Metal doors slam shut. Voices bounce off the walls in forced conversations. Cheap body spray mixes with the stench ofwhatever mystery meat they’re serving in the cafeteria today, creating a cloud of bullshit I can practically taste.
Nothing changes in this place. Same assholes. Same judgment. Same fucked-up version of me they all think they know.
By the time lunch arrives, I am slouched against the brick wall out by the back quad, with an unlit cigarette dangling between my fingers. I don’t even remember pulling it out of the pack. My mind is still stuck in Lola’s kitchen this morning, replaying how her voice cracked when she asked me to stay with her until her dad came home.
