17
Lila
I barely slept. Jade was already asleep when I got home from the hospital, her bedroom door cracked open, the hall light catching one bare foot tangled in her blanket the way it had since she was little.
I stood there watching her breathe, trying to reconcile the girl sleeping safely in front of me with the one Chloe had described in the ER.
Jade had been walking through school alone, carrying things I had missed because she had gotten frighteningly good at making them look light.
Guilt followed me into bed and stayed until I gave up on sleep before sunrise.
I started coffee while the apartment remained dark, letting the familiar motions occupy my hands while my mind ran in circles.
Eggs hissed in the pan beside bacon, toast waited on a plate, and the old pipes gave one halfhearted complaint when I turned on the faucet.
Something warm and ordinary on the table felt important before I asked my daughter questions I should have asked a long time ago.
Jade shuffled into the kitchen wearing sleep-rumpled shorts and one of my old T-shirts, her dark hair going in six directions around her face.
She stopped when she saw me over the stove and squinted suspiciously at the microwave clock.
“Why are you up? And why are you making breakfast? Are we in danger?”
A laugh almost escaped me. “Good morning to you too.”
She came farther into the kitchen, studying me with increasing suspicion. “No, seriously. What’s going on?” Before I could answer, someone knocked on the door, and Jade glanced toward the sound before looking back at me. “Are we expecting anyone?”
“Yes, actually.” I lowered the heat under the pan and reached for a plate. “Uncle Evan’s coming over. Can you let him in?”
Her squint deepened. “Now I know something’s wrong if he’s out of bed this early in the morning.”
“Jade.”
She muttered something about early-morning conspiracies as she headed for the door. A second later, Evan’s voice floated down the hall before either of them appeared. “Well, good morning, gemstone. You look like a raccoon who just lost a bar fight.”
Jade answered immediately. “And you look like a man who spent way too long deciding which cardigan best says emotional support homosexual.”
They came into the kitchen together, Evan clutching his chest in theatrical offense while Jade carried the white bakery box he had brought. The second she recognized the logo, her steps slowed. She looked at the pastries, then at Evan, and finally at me as every trace of sleepiness left her face.
“Okay,” she said carefully. “Why did you bring bribe pastries?”
Evan blinked. “Bribe pastries?”
“Yes. These are from my favorite bakery. Nobody gets these unless someone died, got hurt, or you have some other bad news you’re trying to soften before you say it.”
The instinct to protect her from what came next tightened my chest, but protection had already cost us too much silence. I set down the spatula and faced her fully. “Sit down, baby.”
The humor disappeared from her face so quickly that I hated the entire morning for a second.
Evan saw it too. He placed a gentle hand at her shoulder and guided her toward the table, choosing the chair beside hers instead of across from her, less interrogation and more family closing ranks.
I turned off the stove, carried the plates over, and sat with them while breakfast cooled untouched between us.
“I know you weren’t at Chloe’s last night.”
Jade’s head came up fast. Her shoulders stiffened, and I watched an explanation begin assembling behind her eyes. I reached across the table before she had to use it. “I also know you haven’t been hanging out with her for a long time. Chloe was in a car accident last night and ended up in my ER.”
Jade went still, but shock never reached her face. That told me enough.
“They were drinking,” I continued, keeping my voice steady. “Chloe had alcohol in her system. The boys she was with had drugs in theirs too. They could have killed her or somebody else.”
Jade stared at the table. “Should’ve done us all a favor and wiped themselves out.”
Evan snorted before catching himself. “Preach, sista.”
My head swung toward him. “Evan. You were supposed to be helpful.”
He raised one hand, expression perfectly serious. “That is helpful. I agree with her opinion on natural selection. Her science is sound.”
Jade laugh-snorted despite herself, cracking the tension enough for all of us to breathe. I rolled my eyes at both of them before turning back to her. “All the times you told me you were hanging out with Chloe, where were you actually?”
The humor drained from Jade’s face. Her gaze dropped as her fingers twisted together in her lap, shame replacing the defensive edge she had walked into the kitchen wearing. “The library,” she said quietly. “I’d go into one of the study rooms and study, or sketch, or just read.”
The answer hurt because it was safe.
And lonely.
I reached across the table and covered her hands before she could twist them any tighter. “Baby, why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”
Her eyes shifted toward Evan before coming back to me, and that small hesitation hurt in a completely different place.
“I didn’t want to burden you,” she said.
“You worry so much already. I didn’t want you to have anything else to worry about.
” Her voice grew smaller despite the effort she made to keep it steady. “Besides, these are my problems.”
Evan leaned closer and laid his hand over ours, the performance dropping out of him so completely that Jade looked up. “Gemstone,” he said gently, “that is where you are wrong. Problems belong to family. We are family. You could’ve come to your mom. Or me. Or Blue. We are here for you.”
Jade swallowed, then finally looked at me. “Freshman year,” she began, “Chloe and I went to a party.”
Something in her voice changed the room, and every instinct inside me sharpened.
I knew that careful tone, the way a girl reached backward toward the beginning of something she wished had ended differently.
Jade rubbed one thumb against the side of my hand before continuing.
“A couple of older boys came up to us. They led us to the backyard. They gave us drinks. I didn’t drink mine. I pretended to. Chloe drank hers.”
My spine straightened as she spoke. “They danced with us for a while, and then Chloe…” Jade swallowed. “She started looking really weird. Like something was wrong. She got woozy. Like she couldn’t stand up right.”
Evan’s fingers tightened over hers.
“The guy she was with got really handsy. She didn’t even seem to notice.
” Anger pulled at Jade’s mouth now, tangled with something older and more painful.
“The guy with me started getting irritated. Said I wasn’t drinking enough.
He tried lifting my cup to my mouth to make me drink it, but it spilled all over me.
” Her eyes dropped again. “I grabbed Chloe and told her we needed to go clean up in the bathroom. She got really sick in there.”
My pulse climbed with every sentence, but Jade kept going. “I was sure they drugged her,” she whispered. “I called the cops anonymously about the party. Then before they got there, I dragged Chloe out through the woods and got her back to her house.”
For a second, breathing became something I had to think about.
Jade had been fourteen, dragging another drugged girl through the woods while boys who had tried forcing a drink into her mouth remained behind.
I tightened my hands around hers, needing the contact while she stared at our joined fingers.
“The next day I tried telling her what happened. That I thought they’d drugged her.
She wouldn’t listen. Said I was overreacting.
” Her voice began to shake. “Then when we got to school Monday, people started asking if we were the ones who called the cops. Started calling us snitches, since we weren’t there when they showed up, and since Uncle Matty’s a cop. ”
A bitter little laugh escaped her. “Chloe threw me under the bus. Said she heard me on the phone. Said she tried to warn someone at the party that I snitched and called my uncle, but they were too drunk, and then she ran off.”
My hands had gone numb around hers by the time Jade’s face crumpled.
“She started making fun of me with everybody else because she wanted to be popular. Started spreading rumors too.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and her voice cracked under the weight of them.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s stupid. I know I should’ve said something. ”
Evan moved first, pushing out of his chair and pulling Jade into his arms as if he could make up for every day she had carried this alone. She clung to him for a moment before looking at me over his shoulder, red-eyed and heartbreakingly young. “I’m sorry if you’re mad at me, Mom.”
I was out of my chair before she finished. “No, baby.” I crouched beside them and wrapped my arms around both of them, feeling Jade shake between us. “I am furious, but none of it is aimed at you.”
Her breath hitched against Evan’s shoulder, and I pulled back enough to see her.
“Chloe had you beside her when she needed someone brave enough to get her out of there. You may have saved her from being assaulted.” Rage surged hotter as the rest of the night settled into place.
“And those boys tried to make you drink whatever they gave you. If that cup hadn’t spilled… ”
My voice caught.
I cupped Jade’s cheek, forcing myself to breathe past the picture my mind wanted to create. “You got both of you out. You called for help. You were fourteen years old, and you protected her.”
Her mouth trembled harder.
“That is what I see when you tell me this. My daughter saved herself and her friend.”
Jade broke against us, and I hugged her again while fury buzzed beneath my skin. “I am vibrating with rage right now and seriously considering calling your Uncle Matty and asking him to commit an off-duty crime.”
A startled laugh escaped Jade through her tears, and Evan barked one out above her head. I glared at both of them. “Do not laugh.”
“As opposed to an on-duty crime?” Evan asked. “Do cops commit those?”
That cracked me too. A laugh slipped out, sharp and unwilling but real. “I said what I said.”
Evan grinned like he had accomplished something important, while Jade scrubbed at her wet cheeks with the heel of one hand. I brushed her hair away from her forehead, the rage inside me settling into something steadier now that I could touch her and know she was here.
“I wish you’d told me earlier how bad it was.”
“Mom, it really isn’t that bad.” Jade gave me a tired shrug. “I keep to myself. Mostly they leave me alone because they’re afraid of Uncle Matty. Only once in a while do they say stuff. Honestly, it could be worse.”
The casual way she said it tightened my chest more than tears could have. Jade had learned to live around cruelty until endurance felt ordinary.
Evan stepped back and pulled himself upright with offended grandeur. “I absolutely abhor this town. Wicker Falls wraps itself in church clothes and homemade pie, then spends the rest of the week acting like gossip is a sacrament and cruelty is a community sport.”
Jade gave another watery laugh.
He straightened his cardigan like he was preparing to address Congress. “Frankly, I would like to be interviewed for a documentary when this place eventually implodes under the weight of its own hypocrisy.”
That one got me too. Jade smiled through the last traces of tears, and seeing it hurt because I suddenly pictured all the other times she had wiped her face alone before walking back into the house and pretending everything was fine.
Evan clapped his hands once. “Okay. Now that the heavy emotional devastation is over, I say we proceed with emergency treatment.” He pointed toward the living room like a general directing troops.
“Kissing Booth movie marathon. Snacks. Popcorn. Sugary drinks. To the television, ladies. Healing awaits.”
Jade looked at me, and I looked back at her. We both laughed before she headed toward the couch, moving a little easier than she had when she walked into the kitchen. Evan immediately began rifling through my cabinets like he contributed to the rent.
I stayed beside the table for another moment, watching my daughter disappear into the living room while the morning rearranged itself inside me.
Her quieter answers about school suddenly carried weight.
So did the independence that had arrived too quickly and the easy way Chloe’s name had become an answer whenever I asked where Jade was going.
I had missed the shape when the pieces came one at a time.
Now I saw it.
I cleared away the breakfast cooling untouched on the table before joining them in the living room. Evan was already demanding popcorn before he perished, and Jade rolled her eyes at him in a way so much like mine that another laugh tugged at me.
The harder conversations would come.
For today, Jade had trusted me with the truth, and I intended to show her she never had to carry it alone again.