Terms + Conditions (Strangers #3)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

THEN

November 2015

A SOFT KNOCK ON the classroom door diverts my mom’s attention from the paperwork in her hands, and a smile replaces her concentrated frown. She jumps from her chair and rushes to embrace me, squeezing me extra tight. I may only be three hours from home, but I haven’t come back much since starting at Chadwick, embracing my newfound freedom in more ways than one. Each time I make it back to Bridgeport, I come with stories of my adventures, making sure to keep the stupid things out of them—you know how it is. But this time, I have no choice. I have to come clean about the stupid thing I did.

A very, very stupid thing, indeed.

“Joshua, what are you doing here? You’re not on break, are you? Oh dear, did I miss something?” Mom shoots question after question before glancing at the calendar on the wall.

“No, Mom. No, I just missed you.”

Her warm hand cradles the side of my face. “Oh, Josh, you’re sweet.” Her lips lift briefly in the corners before she drops her hand. “But I know that’s not the real reason you’re here.”

I chew on my bottom lip, refusing to meet her stare. I find the painted cement wall much more interesting.

“Come on.” She leads me toward her desk, making sure to shut the door behind us. She sits down and motions for me to sit in the wooden chair to the side of her desk—it’s the same chair I used to sit in at the end of the day in middle school. I would do my homework while Mom finished grading papers or putting together the next day’s presentation…It used to be a comfortable place, but now it makes me sick to my stomach knowing what I’m about to tell her. Mom leans back in her chair, twiddling with the pencil from her gradebook. When she speaks, her voice is calm. Whatever I’m about to tell her can’t be that bad because her son could never do anything that bad. “Alright, spill. What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Joshua Isaiah Davis, it’s a mother’s job to know when something is bothering her children, and something is bothering you. So, you’re going to sit there and tell me what it is.”

I sigh. “I fucked up.”

“Language, Josh.”

“Well, I don’t know any other way to describe it.”

She laughs. “Oh come on, Josh. Surely, it can’t be that bad.”

“I’m about to be expelled.”

Mom sits up a little straighter. Her smile falls. Her face stoic and unreadable. Honestly, the lack of a bigger reaction is worse than anything I imagined. “Expelled?”

“I got into some trouble and—”

“What kind of trouble, Josh?”

I take a deep breath. “The fraternity. Some of the guys got a little carried away with initiations and…” I tug at the ends of my hair. “I know it was wrong, but we all went through it. All of us. But this year…things got out of hand.”

The disappointment in her eyes makes me sick. “I raised you better than this.”

“Mom, I know…”

She narrows her eyes. “What did you do?”

“I wasn’t part of the worst of it. I promise. I just had one of them as an errand boy; I couldn’t bring myself to do what the others were doing. But when they did the paddling…” I can still hear the initiate’s screams echo around me The first hits never seem that bad, and then you let your guard down. “I never did it.”

“Josh, how could you do this?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the burning building in them. I swallow back the lump in my throat and blink away the tears. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to screw up everything we’ve worked toward. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“How did the university find out?”

“One of the new guys went to the hospital. I-I dropped him off. One of the sophomores, a legacy, went too far, and—”

“You killed a boy?” I think she might pass out.

“No!” I reassure her quickly. “No, I didn’t—He didn’t die, he just got a little banged up.”

Mom sighs heavily and tears brim her eyes. “What has the school said?”

“We’re all suspended. Expulsion pending dependent upon their investigation.”

“Why didn’t they call us?”

I shrug. “I’m an adult. I don’t think they’re going to tattle to my parents when I do something wrong.”

“We cannot tell your father.” Her mood instantly shifts as she begins to plan how we’re going to handle this. “He cannot deal with this. Business has been slow, and…Well, we cannot let something like this get out. It would ruin our reputation, absolutely ruin it. You know how people are around here, they talk and…”

“Mom, I’m sorry.”

She raises her hand to silence me. “Let’s just figure out what you’re going to do to fix this.”

“Dad is going to ask why I’m home,” I say as Mom gathers her things and tosses them into her backpack.

“You’re on fall break,” she says nonchalantly. Her shoulders rise and fall with a shrug like it’s no big deal. Like we aren’t talking about my entire future being on the line. And, it reminds me of so many times in the past that I’ve watched her put up this wall to disassociate from whatever she’s about to do. Whatever she has to do to protect the family—protect me.

“What about when I don’t go back at the end of the week?”

“Let me worry about that.” Mom heaves her backpack onto her shoulder, grabs her purse, and pushes me toward the door. “For now, you go about your business as usual.”

That seems easier said than done.