Chapter 3

The tear on my face hadn't even dried. When the wind blew, my face felt raw and scraped.

I couldn't stay in that home for one more second.

I quickly opened a rental app, but the prices made my heart sink.

Apartments in Creston cost at least forty-five hundred dollars a month. Meanwhile, I had barely three hundred dollars to my name.

Then I remembered the jewelry my mom had left me.

Before she passed, she had left me the pieces she had saved away and told me to give them to my wife when I got married. They were meant for the woman who would be my wife.

Selling even one piece would solve my immediate problem.

Despite my reluctance, I had been forced into a corner. I truly had no other choice.

I opened the drawer, only to find that all the jewelry inside was gone.

My mind was filled with panic, and I ran to the guest room to look for Bianca.

"A thief broke into the house! All the jewelry my mom left me with is gone! We… We need to call the police!"

Bianca's shoulders stiffened. She pushed up her glasses, guilt written across her face.

"I sold them. Mason needs to study and there will be more expenses later. His family refuses to support him. Who's going to help him if I don't?"

I stared at Bianca in complete shock. If she wanted to support Mason's studies, what did that have to do with selling my mom's jewelry?

With red eyes, I shoved Mason into the corner. I grabbed his shoulders and roared at him.

"If you want to study, ask your parents for money! That was the jewelry my mom left me! Give it back!"

Mason glared at me indignantly, his eyes red as he held back tears. "Alan, you've gone too far! You know exactly what my parents are like, but you're still stabbing me where it hurts. Just because I was born poor, does that mean I don't deserve to study?"

So, people really could laugh when they were furious enough.

"I never said you didn't deserve to study. I just said if you want to study, earn your own money and save for tuition! What does stealing from me make you?"

"You…!" Mason hid behind Bianca in shame and anger, looking deeply wounded.

"Enough."

Bianca grabbed my wrist and looked at me with exhaustion.

"You grew up spoiled by your family and don't lack any of these things, so what's wrong with letting Mason have them this once? Your mom left those jewelry to me in the first place. How I choose to handle them is up to me. Aren't you being a little too possessive over someone else's things, Alan?"

I glared at Bianca in complete disappointment and bit my lip until it bled.

The jewelry was left by my mom for her future daughter-in-law, but Bianca had now become another man's wife. How could she still deserve the jewelry my mom had left behind?

Mason gave me a cold glance, his eyes filled with contempt. "I look down on people who scheme over a woman's belongings."

I was taking back the jewelry my mom had left me. How had that become scheming against Bianca?

Mason's words enraged me completely, so I grabbed a cup and hurled it at him. Bianca instinctively hugged Mason and took the blow for him with a muffled groan.

The blood on her face was so red; as red as the blood that had poured from her forehead the year the school lab exploded, when she threw herself in front of me.

I closed my eyes, no longer having the strength to continue this fight.