Page 18 of Best In Class
“You’ve been brooding,” she corrects, sliding a pan off the burner. “And chasing that girl like you’re still seventeen and full of mistakes.”
I drop into a kitchen chair and grin. “Iamstill full of mistakes.”
She gives me that look—the one that could stop a freight train.
“Dom,” she says, sitting across from me. “I don’t know why you both broke up, but you were both so young, and sometimes things don’t work out. Now, you’re sniffing around her, and she behaves like she doesn’t like it,” Mama pauses for effect, “but she does.”
I grin. “Yeah?”
Mama rolls her eyes. “You know all that riding a motorbike and badassery is genuine, but beneath, she’s…soft.”
“I know, Mama.”
“She gets hurt easily.”
I take a deep breath. I can’t tell Mama about what happened with Nathaniel. She’d blame herself, feel terrible that she became a liability for me. I’ll cut a limb off before I make my mother feel like that. No, she doesn’t need to know about the threats Luna’s father made with regard to her.
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I say quietly.
I’ve done enough of that for a lifetime.
“Good! Because if you hurtmygirl, you’ll answer to me.”
I nod, my throat tight. If Mama ever found out what I did, she’d be so disappointed, but she’d understand. I know she will once she gets past the guilt. She knows how hard it’s been for me to become the man I am today, how impossible this life was a decade ago. I was told not to dream too big.
“Cornell?” My school counselor arches an eyebrow like she’s misheard me.
“They have one of the best architecture programs,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
She offers me a tight smile. “Getting in is hard. Getting a scholarship—especially a full ride—is even harder.” She folds her hands, her tone tipping just past concern into something more like pity. “I’m just being realistic with you, Dominic. Maybe think about two years at community college, save some money, build your resume. Then see where you land.”
“I have a 4.8 GPA,” I tell her. “Near-perfect SATs. I took every AP class they’d let me register for. I’m captain of the math league. I play varsity soccer. What else am I supposed to do?”
She sighs, like I’m a lost cause trying too hard. “I’m not saying it to be mean, sweetheart. I’m saying it because I’ve seen kids set their hopes too high. Just…don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work out.”
I left her office that day and never went back. She didn’t even know me. Just saw my zip code, my skin, my mother’s job title—housekeeper at the Steele estate, and decided I was aiming out of my league.
But I got in.
I applied for every damn scholarship I could—federal, state, private—and pieced together enough to cover tuition. One year. Then another. And another. I worked two jobs to pay for rent and books, lived in a subsidized dorm with cockroaches and thin walls, but I made it.
It was a pressure cooker. I lived afraid that one crack would undo it all.
So, when Nathaniel Steele cornered me with his poison smile and quiet threats, I was primed to break.
I didn’t tell anyone about what a struggle it all was. Not Luna. Not Lev. I didn’t want them to know how close I was to slipping. I didn’t want pity, didn’t want anyone to see how much of my life was stitched together with fear.
I thought it was pride. Strength.
Now, I wonder if it was arrogance, and my silence cost me everything.
Maybe I didn’t lose Luna because I wasn’t good enough. Maybe I lost her because I wouldn’t let anyone help me believe I was.
But that’s hindsight. The truth is, I made my choices. I built my own armor. Now I have to live with what it cost me.
Mama comes up to me and kisses my forehead. “You’ll stay for dinner?”
“Yes, Mama, I will.”
