Chapter 3

The rain started before I reached my street. By the time I saw my house, I was soaked to the bone.

But the cold water didn't matter. What mattered were the two gray suitcases sitting on the porch.

Dad stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. Marianne hovered behind him, a shadow with sharp edges.

"The school called," Dad said. His voice was flat. No anger, which was somehow worse. Just finality.

"Dad, it's a lie. Brielle set me up."

"Marianne found more of the sketches in your room, Lena. The ones you copied from Brielle."

I stared at him. The sketches Brielle had stolen from my desk. She'd already used some of them as 'proof' at the exhibition. Someone had put the rest back in my room for Marianne to find.

"She's fragile right now," Dad continued, looking away. "The cheating, the public scene, and now this? Marianne thinks it's best if you stay somewhere else for a while. Just until things calm down."

He was choosing them. Again. But this time, he was locking the door.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I just picked up the handles of my suitcases. They were heavy, packed with a careless, frantic rush.

"Where am I supposed to go?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I had no car, no savings, and my phone battery was already bleeding down to twelve percent.

"You're eighteen. You have friends," Marianne said from the shadows, her tone dripping with fake sympathy.

I turned around and walked down the driveway. The wheels of my luggage rattled against the wet pavement, loud and hollow.

I made it three blocks before my legs gave out. I sat on the bench of a covered bus stop, the rain drumming a relentless beat on the plastic roof. I didn't know the bus schedule. I didn't even have a destination.

A pair of headlights cut through the gray afternoon, slowing to a crawl before stopping right in front of me.

The passenger window rolled down. Mateo.

He looked from me, to the suitcases, to the rain. He didn't ask what happened. He didn't offer pity.

"You weren't answering your phone. I was on my way to your house." He jerked his chin at the passenger seat. "Get in."

"I don't have anywhere to go."

"I didn't ask for your itinerary. Get in the car, Lena."

I was too cold to argue. He loaded my bags into the trunk, the water plastering his dark hair to his forehead. Ten minutes later, I was sitting on the edge of a leather sofa in his apartment, wrapped in a towel, staring at a mug of tea he'd shoved into my hands.

"You can take the spare room," he said, leaning against the kitchen counter. "My little sister's at our grandmother's this week, so it's quiet."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because my scout flies in for the semifinal, and my fake girlfriend dying of pneumonia doesn't look great for my stability."

It was a lie. A gruff, convenient lie. But I held the warm mug tighter and let myself believe it.

Three days later, I was a ghost haunting my own life.

Barred from campus, suspended, and homeless. But tonight was the Spring Exhibition Gala, the biggest donor event of the year. Professor Hale would be there. If I could just get five minutes with her, away from Brielle's tears, I could explain the brushwork. I could prove Still Water was mine.

I slipped through the catering entrance in a black dress Mateo had borrowed from a teammate's girlfriend. The gallery was a sea of champagne flutes, string quartets, and wealth.

I stayed near the edges, scanning the room for Hale.

Then I heard it. A voice ringing out over a microphone near the center of the room.

"The blue isn't just a color to me," Brielle was saying.

I froze. I pushed through a cluster of men in tuxedos, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Brielle stood on a small raised platform in front of Still Water. Caleb was beside her, looking like a proud prince. A crowd of wealthy donors hung on her every word.

"It represents the lake where my mother used to take me," Brielle said, her voice trembling with practiced emotion. "Before she got sick. Before she passed away. Painting this... it was my way of keeping her memory alive."

The air left my lungs. The room spun, the crystal chandeliers blurring into streaks of harsh white light.

Brielle's mother was alive and well. She was standing ten feet away in pearls, clapping.

My mother was the one who died. My mother was the one who took me to that lake.

She hadn't just stolen my painting. She had stolen my grief. She had packaged my dead mother into a tragedy to sell to rich strangers.

The careful, methodical girl inside me snapped. The lists burned. The composure shattered.

"Stop it!" I screamed.

The string quartet faltered. Heads snapped toward me.

I rushed the stage. I didn't have a plan. I just needed her to stop talking. I reached the platform, tears blurring my vision, and shoved Brielle's shoulder. "Stop lying! That's my mother! That's my painting!"

Brielle gasped, stumbling backward with perfect, theatrical terror.

Before I could take another step, a heavy weight slammed into me. Caleb.

He grabbed my wrists, twisting my arms painfully behind my back. He was a foot taller and pure muscle. I thrashed against him, sobbing, but he held me in a vice grip. His fingers dug into my bruised skin.

"Get off me!" I choked out, kicking at his shins.

"Someone call security!" Caleb yelled, playing the heroic protector.

Brielle cowered behind him, hands over her mouth. "Lena, please! Why are you doing this to us?"

Two security guards in dark suits pushed through the crowd, grabbing my arms and pulling me away from Caleb. I struggled, my borrowed dress slipping, my hair wild. I was crying hysterically, the grief and rage making me look exactly like the monster they claimed I was.

"She's obsessed," Caleb said loudly, his voice carrying over the shocked whispers of the donors. "She can't accept that I broke up with her. She's been stalking us."

"I haven't!" I screamed, my voice raw.

Caleb pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. A second later, a collective chime echoed through the gallery as fifty iPhones received an Airdrop.

A woman near me gasped, looking at her screen.

I caught a glimpse of it. A black-and-white security camera still. Me, standing outside Caleb's apartment door at 2:00 AM, looking desperate.

It was from four months ago. I had accidentally left my studio keycard inside his apartment and needed it for an early session. I waited an hour for him to wake up and let me in. He never did. Later, he swore he couldn't find the card.

But out of context, in the harsh grain of the security footage, I looked like a deranged stalker.

"Get her out of here," Caleb said, his voice dripping with disgust.

The guards dragged me backward. The last thing I saw before the gallery doors swung shut was Brielle, safe in Caleb's arms, smiling as the crowd looked at me with absolute horror.