Chapter 16
sixteen
MAINE
My mother’s voice sounds brittle through the phone, like she’s been crying and trying to hide it. “The new medication isn’t hitting the way they hoped.”
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, staring at a water stain on the wall that looks like Australia if you squint. The familiar weight settles on my chest, that specific and shitty brand of helplessness that comes with every Chloe update.
“Define ‘not hitting,’” I say, keeping my voice light, because that’s my job.
There’s a long pause and a sigh. “Yesterday was... it was rough, honey.”
Honey. She only calls me that when things are terrible.
“How rough are we talking? Scale of one to ten?”
“Seven.” The word comes out strangled. “Maybe eight.”
Fuck.
“But we’re managing,” she adds quickly, because that’s what we do. We manage. We cope. We survive. “The doctor says there’s another option, but it’s?—“
“Expensive,” I finish for her.
The silence on the other end tells me everything.
I can picture her in their cramped kitchen, probably still in her grocery store uniform because she picked up an extra shift.
My dad’s probably passed out on the couch after his overnight, still wearing his boots because taking them off requires energy he doesn’t have.
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, and the forced cheerfulness in her voice makes something crack inside me. “We always do.”
“Mom.” I close my eyes, already doing the math in my head. I’ve got maybe four hundred saved up—my buffer from the past few weeks of not having to pay Maya’s half of the rent or utilities. It’s supposed to be my safety net, my just-in-case fund for when life inevitably kicks me in the teeth again.
Or the money to pay off the guys if I decide to make a go of things with Maya.
I sigh. “How much?”
“No, Maine. Absolutely not. That’s not why I called?—“
“How much, Mom?”
Another silence.
Then she speaks so quietly I almost miss it. “Three-fifty for the copay. But we can work out a payment plan, and your father gets paid tom?—“
“I’m sending it.”
“Maine Hamilton, you will do no such thing!”
But I’m already pulling up the transfer app on my phone, typing in the amount before I can think too hard about it. Before I can remember that this puts me back to zero. Before I can calculate how many shifts at Pizza Plus it’ll take to rebuild.
“Too late,” I say, hitting send. The little whoosh sound feels like a punch to the gut. “Already done.”
I hear her sharp intake of breath. Then, quieter, her voice full of shame. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Sure I can, it’s my job,” I say, but the joke lands wrong, too bitter, too close to the truth.
“Maine...”
“Give Chloe a hug for me, yeah? Tell her she owes me a rematch in Mario Kart when she’s feeling better.”
“I will.” Her voice cracks, and I know she’ll be up all night punishing herself. “Thank you, baby. I don’t know what we’d?—“
I can’t handle her gratitude right now, not when she hasn’t asked how I’m doing since I started at college. “I gotta go. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The call ends, and I’m left staring at my bank balance.
Fifty-three dollars and forty-seven cents.
Back to square one.
I drop the phone on my bed and press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars. The bet—that stupid, shitty bet—feels like a joke now. If I bail on it like I want to, giving me the chance to see where things go with Maya, then I’ll owe Rook and the others a total of six hundred bucks.
Money I literally don’t have.
But if I win, it’s a hundred bucks from each guy. Enough to keep me afloat, to give me breathing room again, to stop this constant drowning sensation. All I have to do is make Maya fall in love with me and ignore the feelings from the past couple of days.
Easy, right?
Except nothing about Maya is easy. She’s sharp edges and quick wit and a smile that makes me forget my own name. She’s also the reason I could afford to help my family just now, her rent money the only thing between me and complete financial ruin.
The guilt tastes like copper in my mouth.
I need to move. Need to get out of this room before the walls close in. With a long sigh, I stand and put on some sweats, planning to run off the troubles plaguing me. And, when I’m dressed, I head for the door, hoping I can get out without seeing Maya.
The living room is quiet when I emerge. I expect emptiness—Maya’s usually out on Saturday afternoons, probably at the library or with Sophie or whatever else a social demon of her notoriety gets up to. But she’s there, on the couch, and the sight of her stops me cold.
She’s passed out, nursing textbooks scattered across the coffee table and floor like casualties of an academic war. Her head is tilted at an angle that’s going to give her a killer neck ache, cheek smooshed against an open book that looks more boring than one of Kellerman’s jokes.
Her hair has fallen across her face, and there’s a small puddle of drool forming on the textbook pages. Real sexy stuff. The kind of thing that should make me want to take a picture for future blackmail material. But, instead, I just stand there like an idiot, frozen by something I can’t name.
Can’t afford to name.
She looks exhausted. Like bone-deep, soul-crushing exhausted. The kind I see in the mirror every morning. There are dark circles under her eyes that her concealer couldn’t quite hide, and her hand is still wrapped around a bright pink highlighter like she fell asleep mid-sentence.
One of her socks has a hole in the toe.
It’s such a stupid detail to notice—she’s got money for designer bags and expensive shampoo but apparently draws the line at new socks—but something about it makes my chest tight.
Makes her seem more real. More human. More like someone who’s struggling just as hard as I am, just better at hiding it.
Fuck.
The smart play here is to sneak past her and out the door for a run. Keep my distance and stick to the arrangement we’ve fallen into—fucking without feelings, mutual satisfaction without the messy bits, because that’s what she wants and because that’s what works.
And because that’s what lets me buy time with the bet.
Keeping her on the hook, but not closing the deal.
But my feet move without my permission, carrying me to the hallway closet. The door creaks when I open it, but Maya doesn’t stir. She just continues her assault on that poor textbook with her face, so I reach for the blanket before I can stop myself.
The blanket.
Chloe’s blanket.
My hand hesitates on the soft, worn fabric.
I’ve never let anyone else use it. Not even once.
So why am I pulling it off the shelf?
The answer is inconvenient and uncomfortable and absolutely not part of the plan. But I carry the blanket to the living room anyway, draping it over her carefully. In response, she gives a soft, contented sound that shoots straight through all my defenses.
I should feel good about this.
It’s a solid move, right?
Thoughtful. Caring.
The kind of thing that might make a girl think twice about ‘casual’.
Score one for the bet.
Instead, I feel like I just crossed a line I didn’t even know existed until I was on the wrong side of it. This wasn’t strategy. This was... something else. Something honest and unguarded and terrifyingly real. I back away slowly, like she might wake up and see the truth all over my face.
That I’m scared and tired and so lost I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
That she might mean something to me.