Chapter 16 Jade
JADE
Ican't sleep.
It's two in the morning and I'm lying in Phoenix's bed, staring at the ceiling while he breathes steadily beside me. His arm is draped across my waist, heavy and warm, and I should feel safe. I should feel like I belong here.
Instead, my mind won't stop spinning.
My phone sits on the nightstand, screen dark but somehow accusatory.
For days now, it's been buzzing with messages I haven't answered.
Missed calls I haven't returned. My mom’s name appearing over and over until I started leaving the phone on silent, face down, like if I couldn't see her trying to reach me, it somehow wasn't happening.
Twenty-three missed calls. Forty-one text messages. Each one probably more frantic than the last.
I know I need to talk to her. I know I can't keep avoiding this forever. But every time I think about picking up the phone, about hearing her voice, about trying to explain any of this—my throat closes up and I can't breathe.
The phone lights up again. Not a text this time. It’s a call. Mom’s name glows the dark.
I grab it before it can wake Phoenix and slip out of bed as quietly as I can. The cool air hits my bare legs as I pad across the hardwood floor, through the sliding glass door, and out into the night.
I close the door behind me and finally answer the call.
"Where are you?" Mom’s voice is sharp enough to cut glass. No hello. No preamble. Just three words loaded with enough fury to make my stomach drop.
"Mom, I—"
"I called your landlord. I called the coffee shop. I called every single one of your tutoring clients." Her words come rapid-fire, each one landing like a blow. "You haven't been home in days. You missed your shifts. You canceled all your appointments. No one knows where you are."
Guilt twists in my chest. I hadn't thought—hadn't considered—
"Are you in the hospital?" she demands. "Jail? Dead in a ditch somewhere? Because those are the only explanations I can think of for why my daughter would just disappear without a word."
I sink onto the cold tile floor of the guest house, pressing my back against the wall. The moonlight coming through the windows paints everything in shades of silver and shadow.
"I'm okay," I say quietly. "I'm safe. I just... I'm in California."
The silence that follows is deafening. I can picture Mom standing in her apartment, phone pressed to her ear, processing what I've just said. When she speaks again, her voice is deadly quiet.
"Why."
It's not a question. It's a command.
"I got a job," I lie, the words tumbling out before I can think them through. "A writing job. I'm doing research for a—"
"Bullshit."
The word cuts through my stammering explanation like a knife.
“You’re lying. I know you’re lying," Mom says flatly.
I close my eyes. She knows me too well.
"Who's there with you?"
My silence is all the answer she needs.
"You're with a man." It's not a question. "How did you meet him?"
I could lie again. I could make up some story about meeting at a conference or through mutual friends. But the lies are piling up now, building a wall between us that I don't know how to tear down.
"Did he pay for you to fly to California?"
The question hangs in the air between us. My silence stretches on.
Mom explodes.
"Some man you barely know paid for your flight?!" Her voice rises with every word. "What else did he pay for? The hotel? Food? Clothes?"
"It's not like that—"
"Don't you dare tell me what it's like!" Mom's voice cracks, and beneath the anger, I hear something else. Something that sounds almost like fear. "Men use money to control women, Jade. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." Her voice hardens again.
"It starts small. A gesture here, a gift there.
Generosity that seems too good to be true because it is too good to be true.
And before you know it, you're dependent.
You need him for everything. You can't leave because you have nothing of your own anymore.
That's when you realize you're trapped."
I press my free hand against my chest, trying to ease the tightness there. "Mom, please—"
"You can never take money from a man," she says, and now her voice is low and intense, almost pleading. "Never. Do you understand me? Never."
"Why are you—" I start, confused by the raw emotion in her voice. This isn't just a lecture. This is something deeper. Something personal.
"I had a friend once." Mom's voice changes, becomes distant, like she's looking at something far away. "My best friend. Closer to me than anyone else in the world."
I go still. In all the years I've known her, she's never mentioned this. She barely talks about her past. Her life before me has always been a closed door.
"She met a stranger," Mom continues. "Rich. Powerful. Handsome. The kind of man who walks into a room and everyone notices. He saw her, and he wanted her, and he pursued her with everything he had."
My heart starts beating faster. There's something in her tone that makes me uneasy, though I can't say why.
"He sent her a check," Mom says. "Out of nowhere. Paid off all her debts—student loans, credit cards, everything. Just like that. She hadn't even asked. He just... did it."
I think of the check Phoenix sent me.
"She went to meet him," Mom continues. "Flew to Hawaii, where he had a house. Paradise. That's what she called it. She sent me pictures of the ocean, the sunsets, this incredible estate overlooking the water. She was so happy. She thought she'd found her fairy tale."
"What happened?" My voice comes out barely above a whisper.
"He paid for everything. The house, the clothes, the lifestyle.
She never had to work again, never had to worry about money.
And at first, it seemed perfect. But Jade.
.." Mom's voice drops. "It wasn't love. It was control.
By the time she realized it, she was already in too deep.
She had nothing of her own. Nowhere to go. No way out."
"What happened to her?" I ask. "Your friend?"
A long pause. When Mom speaks again, her voice is flat. Dead.
"We're not friends anymore."
"Why?"
"It ended over money. It's always money." Mom laughs, but there's no humor in it. "She chose him and his wealth. Lost herself completely in the process. I tried to warn her. I begged her to see what was happening. But she wouldn't listen."
Her voice hardens.
"Just like you're not listening now."
"Mom, this is different—"
"Is it?" she snaps. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks exactly the same. You meet someone and suddenly you’re on a plane to California to play house with him."
"He's not a stranger," I say weakly, but even as the words leave my mouth, I wonder if they're true. How well do I really know Phoenix Crawford?
"Her name was Olive," Mom says suddenly. "My friend. And the man she married... his name was Nicholas Crawford."
The world tilts.
Crawford.
Crawford.
The name echoes in my head like a death knell. My blood runs cold, ice spreading through my veins until I can't feel my fingers.
What are the chances that this is the same family?
"The Crawford family," Mom continues, unaware of the bomb she's just detonated. "They have an estate in Maui. Olive lives there with him. Or she did, last I heard. They had a son named Phoenix. We haven't spoken in years."
I can't breathe.
Phoenix Crawford.
Son of Olive and Nicholas Crawford.
The man I just slept with. The man whose bed I just crawled out of. The man who sent me a check and flew me across the country and—
Oh God.
"Jade?" Mom's voice sharpens. "What's wrong?"
I open my mouth, but no words come out. How can I tell her? How can I possibly explain that the man she's warning me about, the pattern she's begging me not to repeat. It’s already happening. History isn't just rhyming. It's repeating, word for word, beat for beat.
Nicholas sent Olive a check. Phoenix sent me a check.
Olive went to Hawaii. I went to Malibu.
Nicholas controlled her. Phoenix is controlling me?
Like father, like son.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I say, my voice strangled.
"Come home." Her voice is steel wrapped in velvet. "Right now. Get on a plane tonight and come home."
"I can't."
"You can. You just won't."
Something cracks inside me. All the years of following her rules, of living by her principles, of letting her shape me into who she thought I should be—it all comes rushing to the surface.
"No," I say, and my voice doesn't shake. "I'm an adult. I make my own choices."
"Then you're making the wrong one."
"Maybe—" I take a shaky breath. "Maybe what you taught me was wrong."
The silence that follows is devastating. I can almost see Mom's face, the hurt that must be carved into every line.
When she speaks again, her voice is barely a whisper.
"Then I've failed you."
The line goes dead.
I sit in the darkness of the guest house, shaking so hard my teeth are chattering. The phone slips from my numb fingers and clatters to the tile floor. I don't pick it up.
The parallel is undeniable. It's not just similar—it's a carbon copy.
Nicholas Crawford saw Olive. Wanted her.
Sent her a check to make her come to him.
And she did. She went to his paradise, lived in his house, wore the clothes he bought her, ate the food he provided.
She gave up everything—her independence, her identity, her best friend—for the fairy tale he sold her.
And now, a generation later, his son has done the exact same thing to me.
Phoenix saw me. Wanted me. Sent me a check. And I came running.
The thought makes me want to throw up.
Is this love? Is any of this real?
Or am I being played by a man who learned at his father's knee exactly how to trap a woman?
I draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. The moonlight has shifted, casting long shadows across the floor. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the ocean.
Phoenix is still sleeping, unaware that everything has just changed. Tomorrow, I'll have to look at him and pretend I don't know.
Or maybe...
Maybe I need to confront him. Ask him about his parents. About whether the check, the plane ticket, the beautiful house by the sea—whether any of it was ever really about me.
But the thought of that conversation makes my chest tighten until I can barely breathe. Because what if Mom is right? What if I've walked straight into a trap that was laid for me before I even knew it existed?
What if I'm already too far gone to escape?
I don't know how long I sit there in the dark, turning the same questions over and over in my mind. Long enough for my legs to go numb. Long enough for the tears to dry on my cheeks.
When I finally stand, my whole body aches. I pick up my phone from the floor and stare at the cracked screen. Mom's number is still there in my recent calls. I could call her back. Apologize. Beg her to forgive me.
But I don't.
Instead, I slip back across the lawn, through the sliding glass door, and into Phoenix's bedroom. He's still sleeping, one arm thrown across the empty space where I should have been.
I stand at the foot of the bed and watch him breathe.
Is this the face of a man who loves me?
Or the face of my captor?
I don't know anymore.
And that terrifies me more than anything.