Chapter 2

Lora's pov 

“All my perfection”

The cream-colored cardstock burned against my thigh like a lit match shoved deep inside my skirt pocket.

Getting away from Kellan after the final bell took a tactical precision I had spent months perfecting. I claimed an emergency meeting with Mr. Vance about the upcoming biology project, kissed Kellan’s cheek with the trophy case, and slipped down the B-wing stairwell before he could offer me a ride. My fake Prada bag hit my hip in a rhythmic, bruising cadence as I practically ran off the campus grounds.

I didn't let out a real breath until the manicured lawns and sweeping oak trees of the hillside gave way to the cracked, salt-stained concrete of the lower harbor.

The transition was always brutal. It was a geographic line drawn in the sand of Crestwood. Up there, the air smelled of eucalyptus and expensive car exhaust. Down here, the wind off the Atlantic carried the heavy, suffocating stench of diesel fuel, low tide, and rotting kelp.

My spine, held rigidly straight for eight hours, finally curved. I pulled my hair out of its perfect blowout, twisting it into a messy knot at the nape of my neck. I kicked off my loafers, carrying them in one hand as I navigated the broken glass and overgrown weeds sprouting through the sidewalk. With every block I walked, Auden the queen dissolved, leaving behind a sixteen-year-old girl who was so terrified her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

The crown looks heavy, Auden.

I pressed my thumb against my pocket, tracing the rigid outline of the paper. Who could have seen me? I always parked the rusted Toyota three blocks away from the school when it was working. When it wasn't, I walked through the wooded trails behind the athletic fields, specifically to avoid the main roads. Someone had to have been watching closely. Someone who knew my real name.

The rusted iron gate of my apartment complex groaned in protest as I pushed it open. The Harbor View Apartments hadn't actually seen the harbor in twenty years, not since a massive concrete fishery blocked the view. Now, it was just a towering block of peeling gray paint, flickering yellow porch lights, and the perpetual sound of screaming toddlers and domestic misery.

I dragged myself up three flights of concrete stairs, the soles of my feet aching. I paused in front of apartment 3B, pressing my ear against the chipped veneer of the door.

Silence.

It was the bad kind of silence. The heavy, pressurized kind that followed a storm.

I slid my key into the deadbolt and turned it as quietly as possible. The door stuck, requiring a harsh shove with my shoulder before it gave way.

The inside of the apartment was suffocatingly small. The worn brown sofa took up half the living room, pressed aggressively against a milk crate that served as a coffee table. The air was thick with the smell of stale cigarettes and cheap frying oil. But it was the kitchen counter that made my stomach drop.

A fresh stack of envelopes sat next to the sink. Some had red ink stamped across the front. FINAL NOTICE. URGENT.

My mother sat at the tiny two-seater dining table, a half-empty mug of cold coffee between her hands. Her blonde hair, usually pulled back, hung in limp strands around her face. She looked up when the door clicked shut, her eyes bloodshot and carrying a weariness that looked ten years older than her actual age.

"You're home," she said, her voice completely hollow.

"Where's Dad?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

"Out. Trying to get an advance from the docks." She let out a dry, humorless laugh that ended in a cough. "The transmission on the car is totally shot, Lora. Two grand to fix it. We don't have two grand. We don't even have two hundred."

I dropped my bag by the door, the fake leather slumping pathetically against the linoleum. The urge to fix it, to somehow magically pull thousands of dollars out of thin air, clawed at my throat. I spent my days surrounded by teenagers who dropped two grand on a weekend trip to Aspen without blinking, yet I had to watch my mother age a decade in an afternoon over a broken car.

"I have a shift at the diner on Sunday," I offered quietly, stepping forward. "I can pick up more hours next week. Maybe night shifts".

"You need to keep your grades up," she snapped, a sudden, desperate sharpness in her tone.

 "Your grades are your ticket out of here. If you lose that academic scholarship, you lose everything. I will not let you get stuck in this rot, do you hear me?"

She didn't mean to be cruel, but the words hit me like a physical blow. The pressure was a physical weight on my chest, pressing down until my lungs burned. I had to be perfect at school to keep the illusion. I had to be perfect on paper to keep the scholarship. I was a structural column holding up a collapsing building.

"I know," I whispered.

I couldn't stand the sight of the red-stamped envelopes for another second. I retreated to my tiny bedroom, a closet-sized space that barely fit a twin bed. I didn't turn on the light. I walked straight to the small window, shoved the warped wooden pane upward, and crawled out onto the rusted fire escape.

The cold evening air hit my face, and I finally let out the sob I had been holding in since I opened that locker. I pulled my knees to my chest, burying my face in my arms as the first tears spilled over. I was so incredibly tired.

A loud, metallic crash from the alley below made me jump.

I wiped my eyes frantically, leaning over the iron railing. A large, beat-up moving truck was backed into the narrow alleyway between my building and the adjacent complex. The apartment next door had been empty for months after the previous tenant got evicted.

A guy was standing on the hydraulic lift of the truck, wrestling a vintage, matte-black motorcycle onto the pavement.

He looked about my age. He was tall, dressed in worn denim and a faded black T-shirt that clung to broad shoulders. His dark espresso hair was a messy, unruly mop, and even from the third floor, I could see the rigid, coiled tension in his muscles as he maneuvered the heavy bike with ease.

He kicked the kickstand down, letting the bike settle.

Then, he stopped.

He didn't look around the alley. He didn't look at the truck. He tilted his head back and looked straight up.

Directly at me.

I froze, my breath hitching in my throat. The fading street lamp caught his face. He had intense, slate-gray eyes and a small, distinct scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He wasn't surprised to see me sitting on a rusted fire escape in the poorest district in town. He didn't look confused.

He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and slowly pulled out a small, folded piece of cream-colored cardstock.

He tapped it once against his thigh, his eyes never leaving mine, and the faintest, cynical smirk touched the corner of his mouth.

I couldn't breathe. The ground beneath me vanished.

He wasn't just a new neighbor. He was the one who left the note.