Chapter 3

Getting Lena to come to dinner turned out easier than I'd expected.

Because I cleverly invited her boyfriend too.

Funny thing.

When I went to knock, he was standing there with a takeout box from the campus dining hall, in the middle of a fight with Lena.

I knew exactly which counter that food came from.

Because it was the cheapest one.

And a girl raised with money like her could never stomach that kind of thing.

So I rattled off tonight's menu on the spot.

An hour later, four people were seated around the table.

The mood was strange.

I fussed back and forth, serving dishes and hunting for something to talk about.

Almost no one at the table paid me any attention.

Samuel's eyes kept circling back to the two across from him, and he ate without tasting a thing.

Every so often Lena curled her lip and shot me a mocking look.

Her boyfriend was the only one who played along, praising my cooking, saying science majors were sharp.

He even offered to wash the dishes for me after we finished eating.

The smile froze on Lena's face.

"What are you doing? It's not your place to be washing dishes—"

"It's fine, I've got it—" I jumped in to smooth things over.

He didn't buckle under the pressure at all.

"A person should be grateful."

Lena's voice was shaking now.

"One meal and now you owe me gratitude? Then I suppose you owe me for the roof over your head too—"

"I never wanted to live there in the first place."

"Morris Winfield! Can you stop being like this all the time?"

"I told you. If you think we don't work, then we break up."

...

I watched, stunned.

I never imagined the two of them would start fighting like that.

Or that a man could actually live off a woman and still hold his chin that high.

In the end Lena slammed the door on her way out, and Morris didn't stay to wash any dishes for me.

By all rights, the two of them fighting should have made Samuel happy.

But he sat at the table, and at some point he'd lit a cigarette.

He rarely smoked.

The last time was the day I found Lena's photo.

Back then he'd blown the smoke right into my face without a second thought, laughing, asking whether I minded.

This time there was no winner's pleasure on his face. His eyes settled on me, dark and unreadable.

"No one to wash the dishes for you. Disappointing, isn't it."

I froze for a beat, then shook my head hard.

"I like washing dishes."

The young master really was impossible to please.

Anyone could see he'd been driven half out of his mind.

And still he had to find some petty way to take it out on me.

There was nothing I could do but eat it.

Luckily his phone rang and pulled his attention away.

A voice came through it, thick with crying.

Samuel was out the door almost without thinking.

Afraid something had happened next door, I jogged a few steps after him.

And saw Lena, flung against his chest, sobbing until she could barely breathe.

I looked for a few seconds.

Then I turned away.

Back in the kitchen, I broke a bowl by accident.

A sharp edge of porcelain sliced my finger, and blood welled up at once.

It didn't hurt, and I didn't reach for the first-aid kit.

I just crouched on the floor, staring blankly at the beads of blood that kept seeping out.

But my mind was still on what I'd just seen.

Until a scream came from behind me.

Then a man's furious shout.

"Zoey, you think you can pull this on me?!"

I looked up, lost. Samuel had the woman shielded in his arms, and the fury in his eyes was enormous.

When had they come in?

I asked him quietly,

"What is it?"

The man was so angry he laughed.

"You've got the nerve to ask what it is?"

"You knew the door was open, so you smashed a bowl on purpose to get my attention. Do you have any idea how badly blood makes Lena faint?!"

I glanced at Lena, who couldn't even stand steady in his arms, and opened my mouth.

"I didn't know. And I didn't do it—"

He cut me off, his voice cold as frost.

"Zoey, the worthwhile thing about a person is knowing where they stand."

"Don't try these cheap little tricks in front of me again, or I can't promise I won't take back what I've given you."

I went rigid.

After a long moment, I found my voice again.

"All right. I'm sorry."

He looked down at me from where he stood.

"Clean this up, then go outside first. You can come back in once Lena's recovered."

With that he didn't spare me another glance, and carried Lena into the bedroom.

I wrapped my still-bleeding hand in a tissue and cleaned everything up.

Then I pulled on my coat and stepped out the door.

The empty hallway was brightly lit.

Late autumn was nearly here, and when the cold wind came through, I leaned against the wall and slowly sank down.

Then I took the vocabulary book out of my pocket.

After a long while, in all that quiet, I heard myself sniff.

The polished floor tiles faintly mirrored the way I looked right now.

I smiled at the me down there.

It's fine.

Samuel and I were only ever a deal between two parties anyway.