CHAPTER 8

Elena sat on the edge of her bed and counted her money for the third time.

The numbers did not change.

After paying Mrs. Park for the first month, she had enough left for food, paint, and a few bus rides. That was all. Her school fees were paid through Scholarship,but art needed brushes, canvas, and good paper. And life needed rent.

She pressed her hands to her face and breathed out slowly.

She was not afraid of work. She had worked before. Small art jobs, late nights, saving coin by coin. But in Adrian's house, she had never needed to count anything. Mrs. Carter had put food in front of her every day. The bills were always paid. It had been a quiet kind of comfort, but it had made her small. She had forgotten what a coin felt like in her own hand.

Now every coin was hers. Every coin was hard. And somehow that felt better.

She looked around the little room. The cracked paint by the door. The window with the red roofs. The pencil sketch of the pigeon pinned above her desk. It was not much. But nobody in it was waiting for her to be smaller.

"Okay," she said to the room. "Work."

The next day, she told Chloe.

Chloe was lying on the grass in the courtyard with a sketchbook on her stomach. She sat straight up. "You need a job? Why didn't you say so? Daisy's Café needs a night girl. It is five minutes from here. The owner is an old man named Mr. Bell. He cries at sad songs, but he pays on time."

"Am I too old to carry plates?"

"You are twenty five, Elena. Stop it."

Elena laughed. It felt strange in her mouth. It had been a long time since she laughed without thinking about who might hear.

"Come on," Chloe said, jumping up and dusting off her red boots. "I will walk you there. If he says no, I will cry on your behalf."

That evening, Elena stood in front of Daisy's Café in her cleanest dress. It was a small place with yellow walls, crooked tables, and a chalkboard menu with a drawing of a coffee cup in the corner. Warm light poured out of the windows. The air smelled like cinnamon and fresh bread.

Mr. Bell was a round man with white hair and kind eyes. He looked at her hands first.

"You paint," he said.

"How did you know?"

"There is blue under your nails." He smiled. "Can you carry three cups at once?"

"I can learn."

"That is the right answer. Start tomorrow. Six to eleven."

Elena almost cried right there in the doorway, but she held it in. She said thank you three times, and Chloe pulled her out into the street before she could say it a fourth.

The first week was hard.

Her feet ached. Her back ached. She dropped a spoon on the first night and a whole plate of toast on the second. A man at table four told her she was slow. A woman at table two forgot to say please, and forgot to say thank you, and forgot to leave a tip. But Mr. Bell never raised his voice. He only said, "Again, slowly. Like you are painting."

So she tried to work like she painted. One careful movement at a time. One cup, then the next.

By the fifth night, she could carry four cups at once.

At home, she fell onto her bed too tired to think. And that was good, because when she thought, she saw the big dining table, and Sophia's smile, and Adrian's silent eyes. When she worked, there was no room for that. There was only the next order, the next table, the next small thing she could do well.

On the sixth night, the door opened and the little bell rang.

Elena looked up with a smile that stopped halfway.

Vanessa Reed walked in with two friends. She wore a white coat and heels that clicked on the wooden floor. Her hair shone under the yellow lights. She looked around the café as if it smelled bad.

Then she saw Elena.

Her mouth curved slowly. "Well, well. Look who works here."

Elena held the menu tight. "Good evening. Table for three?"

"That one." Vanessa pointed at the table by the window, the tiny one with the wobbly leg. "And I want it cleaned first."

"It is clean."

"I said clean it."

Elena took a cloth and wiped the table. She did it slowly and kindly, the way Mr. Bell had taught her. When she was done, she pulled out the chair. "Please sit."

Vanessa sat down like a queen. Her friends giggled behind their hands.

"Three hot chocolates. Extra cream. And make sure it is not cold this time."

"This time?"

"It is a figure of speech, Hart."

Elena went to the counter. Her hands were warm from the cups, but her face felt hot. Mr. Bell looked at her from the back.

"Friends of yours?"

"Classmates."

"Hm." He rubbed his chin. "Kind classmates?"

"Not really."

"Then be kinder than they are. It is the best revenge, and it costs nothing."

Elena nodded and carried the tray over.

She put the cups down one by one. When she reached Vanessa, the girl lifted her elbow just a little. The cup tipped. Hot chocolate spilled over the edge of the table and down Elena's apron.

"Oops," Vanessa said sweetly.

The café went quiet.

The heat soaked through the cloth and burned a little against her skin. Elena stood very still. She could feel every pair of eyes on her. Part of her wanted to throw the tray on the floor. Part of her wanted to run out into the night.

But a small, steady voice rose inside her.

She had been humiliated at her own dining table for five years. She had survived worse than a spilled cup.

"I will bring you another," she said calmly.

Vanessa blinked. She had expected tears.

"That is it?" she said. "You are first in class and you carry my cups. Does it not bother you?"

"Everyone starts somewhere," Elena said. "I would rather carry cups than take what is not mine."

A strange silence followed. One of Vanessa's friends looked down at her lap. Vanessa's smile slipped.

"What did you say?"

"I said I will bring you another chocolate."

She turned and walked back to the counter. Her hands were shaking, but her back was straight. Mr. Bell gave her a small nod and pressed a clean apron into her hand.

"You did not even blink," he whispered.

"I was blinking inside."

He chuckled. "That is the only kind that counts."

Vanessa finished her drink in silence. She left a single coin on the table and a look that said this was not over. The bell rang as the door closed behind her.

Elena let out a long breath. Her knees felt like water.

"Go and sit for five minutes," Mr. Bell said. "I will watch the floor."

She sat on a stool near the counter and rubbed her wrist. The café went back to its soft evening noise. A couple shared cake in the corner. An old man read his newspaper. A girl was drawing on a napkin and showing it to her little brother. Above the counter, a small television played the late news with the sound turned low.

Elena was not watching it. She was too tired.

Then she heard a voice she knew.

She looked up.

On the screen, Adrian stood at a podium with a row of microphones in front of him. He wore a dark suit and a plain grey tie. His face was calm and cold, the face he used for the world. Behind him, the words Blackwood Group glowed on a large blue wall.

Mr. Bell turned up the sound. "Big man in the news tonight."

Nobody in the café looked at Elena. Why would they? To them, she was only the tired girl in the yellow apron.

A reporter's voice filled the room. "Mr. Blackwood, there are rumors that your wife has left the country. Can you confirm this?"

Adrian did not blink.

"My wife is resting overseas for her health," he said. "She is the most important person in my life. I ask everyone to respect her privacy."

Elena's fingers went cold around the cloth in her hand.

Resting overseas.

He had not said she left him. He had not said she asked for a divorce. He had turned her into a sick woman in a faraway hospital, so that nobody would ask why Adrian Blackwood's wife was gone.

And the most important person in his life? In five years, he had never said it to her. Not once. Now he said it to the whole country, and he said it as a lie.

"Poor man," Mr. Bell sighed, wiping a glass. "A sick wife. That must be hard."

Elena said nothing. She could not.

The reporter spoke again. "And Miss Bennett, you were seen beside Mr. Blackwood at the charity dinner last night. Can you tell us about your relationship?"

The camera moved to the right.

A woman stepped up beside Adrian in a soft cream dress. Her hair fell over one shoulder. She smiled shyly at the cameras, as if she did not want to be there at all.

Sophia.

"We are old friends," she said gently. "Adrian has been so kind to me since I came home."

She lifted her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

A thin gold bracelet slid down her wrist and caught the light.

Elena stopped breathing.

She knew that bracelet. She had held it in a small black box. She had left it in the back of a wardrobe, in a room she thought she would never see again.

And now it sat on Sophia's wrist, in front of the whole country.

Elena's lips moved without a sound.

"He gave it to her.”