Chapter Four

As if he could read my mind, Jamie patted my head. "Come on. Let them have this spot. We'll go be in love somewhere else."

He was turning to go when Pearl called out behind him.

"Jamie." She said his name, but her eyes were on me, and she seemed to agonize for a long time before going on. "I'm really glad you've found someone you like. But you've had it easy your whole life, so it's easy for people to take advantage of you. Some people… you really need to see them clearly."

The comments came flooding in.

[The female lead is so kind.]

[Our girl is the best. She saved the male lead from a gold digger, and now she's looking out for the second lead too so he doesn't get played.]

[Seriously.]

In the sea of praise, one comment stood out like a sore thumb: [If I remember right, the female lead was hooking up with the male lead before he and the side character broke up? You call breaking up someone else's relationship "saving" him?]

It lasted about a second before it drowned under a flood of [since when does a gold digger get to be the real girlfriend] and [defending the side character? are you a gold digger too?]

I lowered my eyes and pressed my lips together out of habit.

Whatever. It wasn't the first time I'd been called names. From the day I started seeing Alexander, those words had followed me everywhere. It was just that before, they came out of people's mouths.

Then Alexander spoke.

"Fifty thousand."

"What can I do for you?" It came out of me almost by reflex. And then I met the mocking amusement in his eyes.

He held my gaze and said, word by word, "I'll pay you fifty thousand dollars to leave my brother."

"Alex, why would you give her money?" Pearl gave him a reproachful look, then curled herself around his arm again and shot me a look of triumph. "People like her come from nothing but think they deserve the world. If you keep feeding them, they'll never be satisfied."

As her sleeve slid down, I saw what was on her wrist: the same Casio Alexander was wearing.

I remembered what the comments had said. The female lead was currently wearing a "poor, pure-hearted girl" disguise to draw Alexander in. Once he was hopelessly hooked, but scared of being used again, she'd reveal that she was really an heiress.

The tough, unbending little flower was nothing but a costume.

I almost laughed out loud.

So that was how she'd reeled Alexander in.

I remembered the day I was thrown out of the Quinn house. Pearl had stood at the front door to see me off and thoughtfully handed me an old suitcase she didn't want anymore.

"Here, sis," she'd said. "This suits you better."

"Class isn't something you get from blood. I was raised with every advantage. Mom and Dad poured so much into me to make me who I am. But you, Holly Quinn—you've missed your chance for good. Instead of racking your brain trying to squeeze into rich people's circles, why don't you go back to your little Kansas town and do community college? There'll be a fifteen-dollar-an-hour job waiting for you there."

Back then, she'd told me that someone poor to the bone could never pass as rich, no matter how much luxury they put on. And now look—the rich girl was playing poor.

The world was a ridiculous place.

I looked up at the black sky, took a deep breath, and then said quietly, to both of them:

"What the hell business is it of yours?"

"Are you sick in the head?"

Jamie and I said it at the same time.

The genuinely confused one was his. The aggressive one was mine.

We looked at each other, and both our eyes lit up.

My chin went up.

I stepped forward and let Alexander have it. "F-fifty thousand dollars—you say it like it's five million! I have fifty thousand too! I've seen fifty thousand before! Who are you trying to impress?"

Then I raised a slightly shaking finger at Pearl and pushed on before I lost my nerve. "And you—so above it all! You took someone else's parents, and being the princess of the house wasn't enough for you, so now you're pretending to be the small-town girl you used to look down on. You get to walk every road there is—the easy one and the hard one. You're just so amazing."

By the last word, my voice had cracked from nerves. My nose stung, and my eyes went red again.

The truth is, I'm not a brave person.

But nobody can take being humiliated over and over. I'd already left, and they were still chasing me down to finish me off.

Besides, I could tell by now that Jamie wanted to back me up. He was the Sullivans' favorite child. Even Alexander couldn't do anything about him.

If I wasn't going to latch onto that now, when would I?

If I didn't get my revenge and vent everything right now, then once I got home I'd just end up hugging my blanket till midnight, running all the brilliant comebacks I could have said over and over in my head, getting angry all over again with every replay until my chest was so tight I couldn't breathe. Better to have just said you're both idiots to their faces and been done with it.

Even if I was crying while I said it.

I fought back the sting in my nose, turned, grabbed Jamie, and walked.

"Let's go. We're not talking to them." I was hiccuping through the words, and I choked a few times from breathing in too hard, coughing until my lungs ached.

But even so, I kept my back ramrod straight, trying to leave the two of them with a proud and haughty exit.

Clearly, though, no one but me could see the haughtiness. To them, I just looked kind of pitiful.

The comments certainly thought so.

[Why does it feel like the side character is actually heartbroken? Did she really fall for him?]

[Right? Everyone's been calling her a gold digger all this time, but did you notice she didn't even take the money?]

[Hello? Did you not hear her say "five million" first thing?]

[Is it possible she's doing this on purpose so the male lead will let her go?]

[Who plays hard to get while crying so hard their nose runs? I think she means it.]

I didn't dare read the rest. I just put my head down and charged forward, mortified.

"Holly Quinn!" Alexander's shout cracked behind me.

I'd almost never heard him sound that rattled.

But I didn't dare stop. Jamie, hearing it, broke into a run. "Ignore him, ignore him! Not listening, not listening!"

He scooped me up and ran full tilt until he'd stuffed me into his car, buckled my seatbelt for me, and floored it.

"Stupid wheels, go!" He kept muttering as he gripped the steering wheel.

I wanted to tell him that no one was actually chasing us. But he was so into the performance that I didn't have the heart.

…

Late that night, the little rich boy drove me home.

Jamie took one look at my tiny one-bedroom rental and was suddenly possessed by the urge to perform. He folded his arms with great snootiness and pouted from the doorway. "What a tiny place. Does your apartment only have a bedroom?"

I was busy carefully checking whether the twenty-dollar bill I'd tucked under the shoe rack before I left had moved. At that, I glanced up at him.

When I was with Alexander, I hadn't spent much time around Jamie. It was just that whenever Alexander mentioned him, he sounded exasperated, like Jamie was a lost cause.

But looking at the slightly childish man in front of me, I couldn't help thinking he was a lot better than the rich kids who hung around Alexander.

Maybe I stared too long and made him self-conscious. Jamie raked a hand through his hair, scratched his cheek a couple of times, and then deflated and crouched down next to me. "I thought you'd be like Pearl. You know, You can be rich, but you can't insult my dignity. I think that's exactly my brother's type."

I gave him a puzzled look. "But it is small. I rented a studio. It really is just a bedroom. You're telling the truth—why would that make me lose it? Normal people aren't crazy."

Jamie seemed to think that made sense. He dropped the theatrics and helped me check every corner of the apartment. The neighborhood hadn't been very safe lately, and now that I had a little savings, it paid to be careful.

Afterward, we each opened a cup of the cheapest yogurt from the grocery store and sat on the window seat, looking out at the city at night.

Jamie copied me and licked the yogurt off the lid, leaving a white mustache on his upper lip. "Holly," he asked, "what are you going to do now?"

I didn't answer for a long time. When Jamie turned to look at me, he saw that my eyes were red again. He instantly fell apart. "You're still thinking about him, aren't you? All that back there was just you putting on a brave face. Here—you can lean on my shoulder."

He patted his shoulder. His hand crept toward me, like he wanted to put his arm around me, then stopped at the last second.

"Is that okay?" he asked carefully, watching me.

"I want to raise chickens."

"…?"

I had finally gotten over the drop from thirty thousand here, fifty thousand there to probably about to start making fifteen bucks an hour, and I was ready for a new beginning.

But when I looked up, Jamie's hand was frozen in midair, and he was staring at me with a stiff expression.

I touched my face without thinking and replayed the conversation in my head. I'd answered the question he asked, hadn't I?

"So… so why do you want to raise chickens?" Jamie recovered quickly and started discussing it with me very seriously.

"Because the chicken farm back home burned down."

"Who burned it down? Who would be so evil they wouldn't even spare the chickens?"

"My grandma."

"…"