Chapter 3

Howard's parents, on the other hand, were dressed much more plainly and appeared much more timid. They simply tagged along with the other parents, wiping their tears constantly while mumbling, "Oh, Howie… My dear Howie."

All of a sudden, total chaos befell the already-crowded room.

Zane's mother, Mrs. Lawson, wailed for some time while she scanned the entire room. Finally, her death stare landed on me. She pointed straight at me with her finger, around which she wore a massive diamond ring.

"It was you! It was you, wasn't it? You're Bradley Graham, Zane's poor roommate, right?"

Her sharp voice really hurt my ears. I remained silent, watching her icily.

"Spill it! Was it you? Did you lure Zane out and set him up because you were jealous of him?" she questioned. Out of nowhere, she pounced at me, as if she were about to rip me to shreds.

"Calm down, Mrs. Lawson!"

Ms. Watts and one of the school's administrators rushed forward to hold her back.

"No way I'm calming down! Like you said, he was the one who booked the tickets. He made the reservation but did not show up. Meanwhile, my son and the other two students have vanished.

"How could something be so coincidental? It must have been you, you vicious moron!" she cussed, hurling the vilest insult at me while she thrashed about.

"Darling, don't!"

Thankfully, Mr. Lawson, Zane's father, still had some sense in him. But though he pulled his wife back, he still stared at me with the same cold and suspicious gaze.

"Mrs. Lawson, please allow me to reiterate—I wasn't the one who booked the tickets," I enunciated clearly, meeting Mrs. Lawson's gaze.

"The tickets cost five thousand dollars each. Three tickets would come to a total of 15 thousand dollars. If I were the one who booked it, would I—a student who had to worry about her own school fees—be able to afford 15 thousand dollars to treat your son to a light show?

"Do you think I did that all because I was jealous of him?"

The questions I threw back made everyone else in the room fall silent instantly.

Exactly. This all did not make any sense. Why would a poor student give up everything they had and spend 15 thousand dollars to set their roommates up? What would they hope to get out of this?

Mrs. Bass, Timothy's mother, chimed in suddenly, "What if someone actually paid you to do so? Poor students like you are willing to do anything for money."

Those words of hers left me trembling with such fury that I almost let out a laugh of exasperation. In their eyes, poverty was the root of all sin. The fact that one was poor meant that they would do anything for the sake of money. It meant that they had terrible characters, that they were vipers.

"Excuse me, ma'am. That's quite imaginative of you. That said, I'd suggest you direct your attention toward finding out your son's whereabouts rather than berate my character for no reason."