Chapter Three

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Henry scoffs as he lets me in, his voice dripping with an all-too-familiar disdain. I have known for years that my older brother has never really liked me. They couldn't afford college for him, so he had to open an arcade down the street instead. At almost 27, he still lives with my parents, and in his mind, somehow, that is my fault. It is a blame he has carried and wielded against me since the day I received my acceptance letter.

I don’t answer him. I simply walk into the house, my shoulders slumped with the weight of my shame. I came all this way from my university campus because I have no choice. My parents are solidly middle-class and can barely afford my tuition and dormitory at once. Our deal has always been clear: they pay for my tuition, and I live at home to handle the rest.

But living at home isn’t an option. I need to escape the suffocating silence and blame I know will be waiting for me. I need to escape Henry's constant resentment. So, I took on multiple jobs in the first three months of my first year just to afford a room of my own and the basics. That was until my relationship with Dante began. He made me stop working, got me an apartment off campus, which I turned down to avoid suspicion. Still, I came over to his place whenever things got too rough, which was often. He practically changed my life, or at least, I thought he did, right before he ruined it.

I can hear my parents’ familiar banter back and forth as I walk into the living room. The sound is a distant comfort, a stark contrast to the storm brewing inside me. But the comfort shatters the moment I see the headline on the television screen, and my feet go cold.

[SALVATORE'S MISTRESS REVEALED: IMOGEN DARCY, OXFORD SECOND-YEAR STUDENT]

Tears roll down my cheeks, a silent, hot stream of disbelief and humiliation. The reporter on a panel reads out the report, her voice shrill and judgmental. “Isn’t this a shame? I mean, what is the next generation turning into? This girl, I hear, is barely twenty years old, and she's sleeping with her professor?”

“Back in my day,” her colleague starts with a scoff, his tone dripping with self-righteousness, “we studied hard for grades instead of sleeping through them. It’s clear she’s merely a fling, look at her…”

They display a censored photograph of my bare body on the screen. My heart stops. I feel a surge of nausea so strong I think I might be sick. I've been exposed on national television for millions of people to see. The humiliation is a physical ache, a burning in my gut.

“And now that Salvatore’s heir has cast her aside, what do you think is next for the Salvatore group?”

Henry turns off the TV, and the sudden silence in the room is deafening. I slowly look away from the blank screen to see the angry gazes of my parents, their faces twisted with disappointment and fury. My body starts to tremble, a violent, uncontrollable shaking. My head is spinning, my thoughts a frantic, jumbled mess. I can't process anything. Why would he do this to me? Why would he abandon me like this?

“And what do you have to say, Imogen?” my mother asks, her voice dangerously calm.

I push back strands of my brown hair that are blocking my sight and sniffle, trying to hold back the tears that are now coming in a torrent. “I… I… I don’t know,” I stammer, the words catching in my throat.

A sharp, stinging slap greets my cheek, and I wince from the pain. “You don't know!” she yells, her voice breaking. “Imogen, what do you mean by that? After everything we've done for you, you embarrass us like this by sleeping with that man! How old is he again?”

“Thirty,” Henry answers from the side, his voice a cold, cruel echo.

“He's twenty-nine, he turns thirty on Thursday,” I blurt out, the words tumbling from my lips in a desperate rush to defend him, to defend myself. “It isn't what it looks like. I'm not sleeping with him for grades, we… we were a couple, and we had plans, and…” my words fumble, and the reality of the situation crashes down on me. What am I even saying? He has left me. He has exposed me.

“A couple?” my father sneers, his lip curled in disgust. “You think that bastard loves you? You're stupid. I don't know how you managed to get into Oxford.”

“I know he loves me, he told me—”

“Imogen, wake up!” Mother yells, cutting me off. “Where is he, huh? If he loved you, why isn't he here to defend you?”

“I... I don't know, but he'll call me soon, I know he will. He can't just leave me like this,” my voice is in whispers, like I'm talking to myself, slowly losing my grip on reality. The world is spinning, and his name is the only thing I can hold on to.

My mother grabs a fistful of my hair, her grip tight and painful, and pushes me against the wall. My back meets the family picture frame, and it falls to the ground, crashing into a thousand pieces as I break into sobs.

“You're a fool! I hate you… I regret ever birthing you, you worthless wench! All you’ve done is bring me pain!” she screams, her own tears now streaming down her face. I can't say anything; her words are like daggers, and I let them sink in, crying as I slide down the wall to the floor. “You had one last chance to redeem yourself. You just needed to bloody graduate, Imogen. That man is gone, he never really loved you. He just wanted to get into your pants, and you let him!”

“Whoring yourself around, is that the only professor you slept with? Which other professor did you give yourself to?” my father asks, his voice low and menacing as he takes off his belt.

“None... it's just him, I swear,” I choke out, my voice barely a whisper, my eyes wide with terror.

Just as he raises the belt, the doorbell rings. The sharp chime is a lifeline, a temporary reprieve. Henry rushes to get it, and he returns moments later, his face a mask of shock. He is holding an envelope which he has already opened. “It’s Oxford's Disciplinary Committee. They want her to show up to see the panel tomorrow.”

I feel like my heart stops beating then. My body goes completely numb, my mind a blank slate.

“Good Lord,” my mother breathes, her eyes darting between me and the envelope. She furiously grabs a mug from the coffee table and shoots it at me. I cover my head immediately just as it crashes on the wall behind me, shattering into pieces.

“If you get expelled, consider yourself not a part of this family, you hear me?!” my father yells, the words echoing in the silent, shattered room.