Chapter 3

Did Jett say 252,000?

I looked at the two teenagers in front of me. One was the sister I had raised on my own. The other was the boy who kept swearing he would spend the rest of his life with her.

They stood at my front door, fully convinced they had every right to throw me out. They even expected me to pay them rent.

I suddenly laughed. The longer I laughed, the more my eyes stung.

"Do you two even know? This place stopped being ours a long time ago."

After the accident, our parents had been found mainly at fault and owed the other party a huge settlement. The apartment was sold in the second month after they died. It went for 800,000, and every cent went toward the debt.

Hailey was still in school at the time. I was afraid she would worry, afraid she would feel like she no longer had a home. More than anything, I was afraid it would make her insecure and sensitive and leave her unable to hold her head up.

That was why I kept it from her and signed a lease with the new owner, renting the same apartment back.

The rent was 3,500 a month, and I paid every cent of it. All of it was so she could still come home to her old room. All of it was so she could believe that even though Mom and Dad were gone, home was still here.

Yet now she stood in front of me and told me to my face that she was throwing me out.

"What are you talking about?" Hailey suddenly shouted. She looked at me in disbelief, as if I had just told the most outrageous lie.

Jett, however, let out a cold laugh and folded his arms. "Wow, that actually sounds pretty convincing."

He turned to Hailey, his voice softening. "Hails, don't believe him. He just doesn't want to hand the place over to you, so he made up an excuse. People like him will say anything for money."

To my shock, Hailey nodded. When she looked at me again, her eyes had gone cold. "Jake, I never thought you'd stoop this low. You'd even drag Mom and Dad into your lies just to keep an apartment!"

My heart sank completely. I had explained everything and told her the truth, yet she still refused to believe me. All it took was one word from Jett, and everything I had given, everything I had kept from her, and every reason I had for it became some kind of scheme in her eyes.

She pointed at my things in the hallway, her voice vicious. "Get out. Take your stuff and get out right now!"

She was so loud that the neighbors started opening their doors to peek out. Our next-door neighbor, Loretta Grimes, walked over with a frown and took in the mess strewn across the hallway. "What's going on here?"

I took a deep breath, about to explain. Before I could say a word, Jett jumped in to play the victim first.

"Everyone, come look at this. This is my girlfriend's brother. After her parents passed away, this apartment went to my girlfriend, Hailey. She felt sorry for him, so she let him keep living here.

"We never expected him to sleep around and bring home a different woman every other night. We just couldn't take it anymore, so we asked him to move out. Now, he's throwing a fit and refusing to leave. He's even claiming the place is his and threatening to take us to court."

As he spoke, Jett's eyes slowly reddened and welled with tears, as if he had been terribly wronged. He was a good actor. If I had not known the whole truth, even I might have fallen for it.

The others did not know the truth, though. Loretta turned to look at me, and something in her expression shifted. More neighbors poked their heads out, and everyone started talking at once.

"He always seemed like such a decent young man. I never would've guessed."

"You really never know with people."

"His sister's not even an adult yet. That's just awful."

Every word dug into my heart like a knife. I was shaking with rage, and my vision kept going dark.

I could put up with Hailey misunderstanding me. I could put up with her immaturity. I could even put up with her taking everything I had done for granted.

What I could not put up with was Jett standing at my door, twisting the truth and dragging my name through the mud.

"Shut up!"

I lost control and lunged at Jett, grabbing him by the collar. He let out a startled shout and stumbled backward.

Hailey froze for a second before letting out a furious shout.