If they want things to burn down, they can go up in flames just like the frat house had.
My phone buzzes again, and I don’t have to check to know it’s from my mother. After five ignored calls, she’s probably worried about me. I would be worried about her, too, and guilt gnaws at me.
The guilt almost immediately turns into something more as I think about how much she’s kept from me over the years.
I have felt so many things about my mother before: guilt, shame, concern, frustration. But I don’t think I’ve ever beenangryat her. At least not like I am now, and I don’t know what to do with all of those emotions.
This isn’t the time or place to have a conversation with her, but I know I can’t keep ignoring her. I start to text her to tell her that I’m in class, but I realize I’m like a volcano ready to erupt at any given moment.
I duck into an empty classroom, closing the door behind me.
I grip my phone more tightly, looking down at the missed calls and ignored texts. I never go more than a day without talking to her, and it’s been three now.
I suck in a deep breath, then stare at the screen of my battered phone.
Blaze is always trying to get me to let him replace it. It’s one more way to make me beholden to his family, I guess, even though he has no intention of letting me be a part of the business I’ve been counting on joining for as long as I’ve known him.
Of course, that’s all gotten complicated.
It’s one thing to know that the Bouchards profit off of sex clubs. It’s another to have it in my head that it might be something more, something worse. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it had taken me off guard.
Maybe I don’t want anything to do with them after all.
Maybe it is time to call it quits.
That’s a stupid thought. I’ve already called it quits. Our friendship is already over… and so is my future.
I look at my emails, even though I know I’m stalling. There are no emails or calls from any of the places I’ve applied for jobs at yet, and the noose feels like it’s tightening around my throat.
I growl, then tap the screen until I get to my mother’s number.
“Asch?” Her voice is full of anxiety and relief, all at once, and I still can’t tell whether my own anger or guilt is stronger. “Are you okay, baby?”
No. No, I’m not okay. “Yeah,” I say shortly.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I want to say something else, anything else, but I blurt out, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think that everything I had was because Iearnedit?”
“Tell you what?” she asks.
I wish I could believe that she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but there’s a small hint of trepidation in her voice.
“That the scholarships weren’treal. That everything I thought was true about myself was a lie,” I say bitterly.
There’s a moment of silence on the other line. “You did earn it,” she says. “You always worked so hard, Asch. You deserved better than I could give you.”
I laugh, the sound ugly even to my own ears. “How can you be so grateful that I’m not working for them when they’ve given me everything? Now I owe them everything.”
“No, you don’t,” she retorts. “They owe me. They oweyoufor taking your father away from you. There are no strings?—”
“You aren’t that naive!” I snap at her, hating that I’m taking such a harsh tone with her but unable to stop myself. “There are always strings attached with people like that!”
Except Blaze had tried to insist that there weren’t. He’d tried to make me believe that he wanted me to walk away as soon as I graduated.
He’d humiliated me.
“No,” she repeats. “There aren’t strings attached. It’s because they’re responsible for?—”
