Chapter 224
“A lifetime pass to The Wolfe Hotel. Anytime you want a weekend in the city. On the house. Room service, spa, everything.”
Mrs. Gable gasped, touching the card as though it were a holy relic. “Oh, honey, I couldn’t—”
“Please. You were the only one who told me I could be more than a sidekick,” Jocelyn insisted, pressing the card firmly into her palm. “You saved me, in a way.”
Mrs. Gable closed her fingers around the card, her eyes filling with tears. “You are a good woman, Jocelyn. Don’t let these vultures tell you otherwise.”
Fiona and the others watched from a distance, their expressions a studied mixture of jealousy and confusion.
“She’s bribing the teacher,” Fiona hissed to Bella.
“It’s called gratitude, Fiona. Look it up,” Bella said, turning her back on them.
Jocelyn felt a sudden, pressing need for air. The memories were overwhelming — the smell of the ballroom, the faces of her tormentors, the unexpected kindness of Mrs. Gable — a cocktail of emotions too concentrated to digest all at once.
“I’m going to step out for a minute,” she told Bella.
аc𝘁i𝘷𝖾 𝗰𝗈𝘮𝗆𝘶𝘯іt𝘆 𝘰𝗇 𝗀𝖺𝗹nо𝘷e𝗹𝗌.𝖼𝘰𝘮
“Want company?” Bella asked.
“No. I just need to be somewhere else for a bit.”
She gave the valet her ticket and drove — not back to the penthouse, but north, toward the familiar, half-dreaded grounds of St. Jude’s. The reunion had stirred up too much. She needed to see the place, to confront the ghost of the girl she used to be on her own terms.
The campus was dark and deserted on a Friday night, the main buildings locked. She parked near the athletic fields and walked toward the old brick courtyard — a secluded spot famous for two things: illicit smoking breaks and the Red Wall.
The Red Wall was a tradition. Decades of students had carved their names into the soft, crumbling brick. Couples. Crushes. Best friends.
Jocelyn moved toward a specific spot near the ivy, half-hidden in shadow.
She remembered the day she had carved it. Tenth grade. She had borrowed a screwdriver from her father’s toolbox. She had spent twenty minutes carving Jocelyn + Kieran into the brick, praying no one would walk by.
It had been her secret wish. A small, pathetic testament to an obsession Kieran never knew existed.
She found the spot. The carving was faint, worn down by ten years of rain and wind — but it was still there. Jocelyn + Kieran.
It looked like a scar.
She reached out and traced the letters with her fingertip. The brick was rough and cool beneath her touch. She didn’t try to scratch it out. She simply felt the indentations, acknowledging the girl who had carved them — a girl so desperate for a love that was never meant for her.
A wave of something like pity rose in her chest, then passed, leaving a quiet sense of release in its wake. That girl wasn’t her anymore.
Dust fell. Red, gritty brick dust. It coated her fingers.
Jocelyn paused.
She looked at the red powder on her skin.
Red dust.
.