Page 7 of Chaos at Westbrook High

“Keep walking, Claude.”

Claude chuckles, nodding at me before he leaves and closes the door behind him.

“What was that look for?” I ask the man I came here to see.

“He probably thinks I’m sleeping with you.”

I scrunch my nose, my stomach twisting in disgust. “Ew.”

Silence follows. Elijah looks at me intently, seeming to assess my mood, lifting his palms up as if I’m a ticking time bomb about to go off on him. “It was just a standard meeting about my new son-in-law’s inheritance.”

“If you say so,” I mutter, stepping closer to drop the envelope onto his desk.

“Hailey,” he says, completely ignoring the papers in front of him, his dark eyes assessing my face and the dark circles beneath my eyes. “Are you oka?—”

Before he can finish, I snatch the envelope back up, ripping the papers out to shove them down in front of him. “What is this?” I press my fingertip to the first page, where my name is written at the top.

“What does it look like?” he asks, still not looking at them.

“It looks like you went to my home and stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong. Again.”

“Again,” he echoes flatly.

Yes, again. God, the amount of shit he’s holding over my head should have caved in and crushed me by now. This is the man who’s been controlling what happens to me my entire life. The man who came to my aunt Valerie ten months ago and told her he could save the business that’s been in our family for thirty-seven years. My grandfather named it after her, his youngest daughter. She was just a baby when he built that coffee shop. She didn’t want to take Elijah’s money, but I was the naive little fool who begged her to let him help us. Now my aunt is gone, and he owns everything. My shop, my apartment, not to mention the debt and everything else she left me. His name is on everything I own, everything I care about, and I’ll be damned if I’m about to let him take control over this aspect of my life, too.

“I’m not going to that school.” I sneer. “Not with them.”

“Yes, you are. You got yourself kicked out of Bridgeport?—”

“That was one mistake,” I cut in. “One.”

He continues as if I never spoke. “So now you’re going to graduate from Westbrook High.”

“The fuck I am.” I shake my head. “Why can’t you just pay Bridgeport to take me back?”

He cocks his head at me, and I roll my eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. You’ve gotten your own kids out of deeper shit than this. What I did was child’s play compared to the shit they’ve done.”

Jesus Christ, I’m pathetic. Desperate. Sinking this low and comparing myself to his children like I’m entitled to the same special treatment. I’m nothing to him and I never will be.

He leans back in his seat and studies me while I begin to pace, my heart pounding with anxiety at the thought of transferring to their school. To Kai’s school.

My aunt was paranoid and terrified of losing me, which is why she sent me to school in Bridgeport, the next town over. Elijah never liked it, but it wasn’t up to him. Valerie did everything she could to keep me away from here, to hide me from those who wanted to hurt me.

The first day I went back to school after she died, one of the girls who’s been giving me shit for years pushed me too hard, and I punched her in the teeth. I was immediately dragged away before I could get a second hit in, but that one was enough. It felt good to fight back for once. Really fucking good. But that feeling is gone now, because within just a few weeks of Valerie’s death, I’ve gone and screwed up everything she did for me.

“Elijah…” I trail off, unsure what to say to get through to him, but I have to try. “You can’t do this. You’re not my dad…”

“When you were a baby, Valerie fought me so hard I thought she might beat my ass to get to you. She swore to me she could protect you.”

“She did protect m?—”

“But she also made me promise that if there ever came a time when she couldn’t, that would become my job.”

I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished, swallowing the brick-sized lump in my throat.

“You’re a smart girl, Hailey,” he continues. “Why do you think social services haven’t come to get you yet?”

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