Chapter one: The Offer

LENA "Be my girlfriend." The bow slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. Landon Cross stood in the doorway of my practice room like he belonged there, one shoulder against the frame, green eyes steady on mine. He was still in his varsity jacket. Brown hair falling across his forehead the way it always did in every athletics photo the school posted without his permission, or maybe with it, I had never decided which. I had spoken maybe twelve words to this boy in three years. None of them were kind. I picked up the bow. "Wrong room." "It's the right room." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Not aggressive. Just deliberate, the way someone moves when they have already decided how a conversation ends. He reached into his jacket and placed a folded document on my music stand. "Read that." I read it because I needed to understand what I was dealing with. Typed. Clean margins. Terms of Agreement across the top like a school project submission. Six months of fake dati

Chapter Two: Terms

LENA I arrived eight minutes early. Corner table, east wing, facing the door. I put a pen on the table, folded my hands, and was already composed when Landon walked in at exactly eight o'clock. He sat across from me and opened a folder. Fresh contract copy and a handwritten amendments page. I read his additions. Two appearances minimum per week. No social posts without mutual approval. Full confidentiality from both parties. Two weeks notice for early termination. And at the bottom in heavier ink: No real feelings. This is a transaction. "You felt that needed writing down," I told him. "Clarity prevents problems." I pulled the page toward me and wrote my own additions without hesitating, because I had spent the night thinking instead of sleeping. First payment transfers before I wear the jacket. No contact I haven't agreed to first. If your father contacts me directly the arrangement ends and I keep everything paid. My work schedule stays unchanged. No events on Sunday. That is

Chapter Three: The Jacket

LENA The jacket was heavier than I expected. Not the fabric. Physically it was just navy wool with gold stitching, CROSS across the back in letters that cost more than my entire wardrobe. The weight was the other kind. The kind that came from what it meant inside these walls, who you belonged to, which world had claimed you. Priya stared at me from two feet away in the corridor outside the gymnasium. "When," she said. "Recently." "How recently." "This week." "Lena." She stepped closer and dropped her voice. "Three days ago you told me he was the reason the arts program lost its auditorium slot." "People shift their thinking." "In three days." "Priya." I met her eyes. "I need you to trust me right now. I can't explain everything. I just need you to let it be what it looks like." She studied my face. She was looking for the seam and finding it and making the choice to let it go for now. Her knuckles were tight around her phone. "Is this about Leo," she asked quietly. I didn

Chapter Four: Wednesday

LENA The jacket was heavier than I expected. Not the fabric. Physically it was just navy wool with gold stitching, CROSS across the back in letters that cost more than my entire wardrobe. The weight was the other kind. The kind that came from what it meant inside these walls, who you belonged to, which world had claimed you. Priya stared at me from two feet away in the corridor outside the gymnasium. "When," she said. "Recently." "How recently." "This week." "Lena." She stepped closer and dropped her voice. "Three days ago you told me he was the reason the arts program lost its auditorium slot." "People shift their thinking." "In three days." "Priya." I met her eyes. "I need you to trust me right now. I can't explain everything. I just need you to let it be what it looks like." She studied my face. She was looking for the seam and finding it and making the choice to let it go for now. Her knuckles were tight around her phone. "Is this about Leo," she asked quietly. I didn

Chapter Five: Everything

LENA He was already there when I arrived. Fifth level. East parking garage. The same place the orchestra had played in the rain last spring. He stood against the far wall with his hands in his pockets and he looked like someone who had not slept either. I stopped a few feet away from him. "Talk." He talked. Six weeks before he came to my practice room, his father told him the plan wasn't moving fast enough. The merger timeline was accelerating. Cassidy's father was pushing. Richard Cross needed to know what kind of person could actually disrupt the arrangement, what kind of person could hold up under pressure from the Hale family and not fold. So he hired someone to find out. A student. Third year. A girl named Dana Marsh who had sat two rows behind me in chemistry and borrowed my notes twice and once asked me where I got my cello bag. Dana Marsh who had reported back to Richard Cross for four weeks before Landon ever walked into my practice room. "She told him about Leo," I sa

Chapter Six: Cassidy

LENA She found me on a Thursday. Not a phone call from a representative. Not a message through Priya. Cassidy Hale herself, leaning against the wall outside the science building like she had been there long enough to make a point. She was exactly what I had expected. Polished. Composed in the practiced way of someone who had been taught how to enter a room. She was also, I noticed immediately, not as comfortable as she wanted to appear. Her shoulders were slightly too straight. Her smile arrived slightly too fast. She was performing calm. "Lena," she said. Like we knew each other. "Cassidy." Like I was not particularly interested. "I wanted to introduce myself properly. I feel like we've been talking around each other." "Through representatives," I said. "I got the call." "That was my father's approach. Not mine." She tilted her head slightly. "I prefer directness." "Then be direct." She looked at me for a moment. "I've known Landon for two years. Our families have been bui

Chapter Seven: What Richard Cross Does Next

LENA The letter arrived Friday morning. Not an email. A physical letter, sealed, delivered to the Westbrook scholarship office with a reference number and a formal header from a firm I didn't recognize. The scholarship coordinator called me in at eight AM with the look of someone delivering news they didn't enjoy delivering. I sat across from her desk and read the letter she slid toward me. A formal review had been requested into my scholarship status. The grounds were academic misconduct. Specifically, an allegation that I had submitted a theory composition last spring that was not entirely my own work. The review was scheduled for the following Wednesday. Pending the outcome, my scholarship was placed on a conditional hold. Conditional hold meant I couldn't register for next semester. Next semester registration closed in eleven days. I read the letter twice. Then I folded it and placed it on the desk between us. "Who submitted the request," I asked. "It came through a third

Chapter Eight: What It Was Always About

LENA He was already at the table when I arrived. Small place off campus, nowhere near Westbrook eyes. He had two coffees and a closed notebook and the look of someone who had been sitting with something heavy long enough for it to show. I sat down. I didn't touch the coffee yet. "Talk." He opened the notebook and turned it toward me. Dates, names, numbers, written in his handwriting but clearly copied from source documents. Things Elena had given him. "The Hale merger isn't a business arrangement," he said. "Not primarily." He tapped the first page. "Cassidy's father, Marcus Hale, has been managing a series of investment accounts for six years. Accounts belonging to clients who trusted him with significant money. He's been moving funds between those accounts and his own holdings in a pattern that isn't legal." I looked at the page. Numbers. Dates. Transfer records. "Six years," I said. "Yes. For the last two years he's needed a way to legitimize the money before anyone looks c

Chapter Nine: Elena

LENA Elena Marsh was fifty three years old and she had kind eyes and the particular posture of someone who had spent years being careful about everything. She met me at a coffee shop twenty minutes from campus, Sunday morning, no Landon. He had arranged it and stepped back the way I asked. I was at the table first. She walked in, found me, sat down, and looked at me for a full ten seconds before she said anything. "You're younger than I expected," she said. "You're exactly what I expected," I told her. Something shifted in her expression. Close to a smile. "Landon said you were direct." "He also said you've been waiting twelve years for the right person to give a file to." "I've been waiting twelve years for a reason worth the risk." She wrapped her hands around her coffee. "Those are different things." I looked at her. "What makes this reason worth the risk." "Because this time it's not just about stopping a merger. This time there's a boy who finally decided his father is wr

Chapter Ten: Monday

#LENA Landon texts me at six AM. My father knows about Elena. I sit up in bed and stare at the screen. How. I do not know. He called me twenty minutes ago. He knows she met with you. He knows about the folder. I get up. I dress. My hands are steady because I decide they are going to be steady. What did he say to you, I type. He told me to get the folder back. He told me if the folder reaches anyone with legal standing he will make sure my mother's treatment is terminated before any investigation can restructure the trust. I stop moving. He is threatening to terminate the treatment himself. Before we can protect it. Before the trust can transfer. He is not waiting for an investigation to freeze the assets. He is threatening to do it voluntarily. To cut his own wife's treatment to stop us from stopping him. I sit on the edge of my bed and I think about that. This is a man who will hurt his own family to protect his business. I already knew that. Landon has been living insi

All Chapters of Six Months Of You: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Chapter one: The Offer

Chapter Two: Terms

Chapter Three: The Jacket

Chapter Four: Wednesday

Chapter Five: Everything

Chapter Six: Cassidy

Chapter Seven: What Richard Cross Does Next

Chapter Eight: What It Was Always About

Chapter Nine: Elena

Chapter Ten: Monday