Chapter 8 [Wren's POV]

The first time I met Cami Vane was at a country club tea party following an exhibition match.

I hadn't wanted to come, but Mom clutched the hem of my dress and wouldn't let go. "Cole asked for you specifically."

In our household, "Cole asked for you" carried the weight of an absolute command. Every fiber of my being resisted, yet I could only comply.

The girls at the tea party were immaculate—bright dresses, polished shoes, even their smiles seemed deliberately calibrated. Standing among them in a dress Mom had hand-altered from secondhand fabric, I felt like a drab sparrow that had wandered into a hothouse of exotic blooms. The dessert table displayed rows of pink petits fours topped with silver dragées identical to the one Cole carried, and I stared at them in a daze, not daring to reach out.

When I spotted a server passing with a tray, instinct took over and I stepped forward to help—a gesture so deeply ingrained from home that I didn't think twice. But the moment my hand extended, a derisive laugh cut through the air.

"Look at her, trying to help the help."

My hand froze mid-reach, blood rushing to my cheeks. Here, those who dined and those who served occupied two utterly distinct categories, and my reflexive action had become fodder for mockery.

Cami stood at the center of that cluster of girls, her blonde hair groomed to perfection, her pale pink dress obviously expensive at a glance, surrounded by companions who hung on her every word. She locked eyes with me immediately and drifted over with a glass of juice in hand, her smile superficially pleasant but her gaze thoroughly appraising.

"What's your name? I've never seen you before."

"Wren Kelly," I answered quietly.

She rolled the surname "Kelly" around in her mouth as if tasting something unpalatable. "Kelly? Any relation to the building superintendent's family?"

That single question stripped away any pretense about my background, and the girls around her erupted into barely concealed giggles.

I gripped the fabric of my skirt and admitted in a small voice, "Yes."

"I see." She drew out the words, scanning my dress from top to bottom. "That's such an interesting stitch pattern—did you sew it yourself?"

The word "interesting" dripped with condescension, and the laughter around me grew sharper. I looked down at the sleeve where the rough stitching couldn't be hidden—this was the dress Mom had stayed up all night to finish, pricking her fingers countless times in the process. Just last night she'd held it up hopefully and asked if I thought it looked nice, and now that care had become the butt of someone else's joke.

Shame and guilt lodged together in my throat. I wanted to defend her work, but my tongue felt thick and useless, incapable of forming a single retort. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes, and just as I was about to lose my composure entirely, a full plate of warm scones was suddenly pressed into my arms.

It was Cole.

He stepped directly between me and the others, pushing the finest desserts at the entire party into my hands. That single plate of scones created a barrier between me and those girls, but it also drew a stark line of demarcation. From that moment forward, everyone would know I was under Cole's protection—which would only invite more jealousy and scrutiny.

Then he turned to Cami, his expression as indifferent as if she were an obstacle of no consequence whatsoever.

"You're too loud standing there. Move."

The moment those words fell, the entire room went silent. The smile on Cami's face died instantly, her complexion shifting between pale and flushed as her gaze fixed on the telltale bulge of the dragée in Cole's pocket, hatred quietly taking root.

I never touched a single scone from that plate, and the warmth gradually seeped away. After the party ended, Mom took my hand and walked me to the bus stop, then crouched down to carefully smooth the exposed stitching at my cuff.

"Stay away from Cami. Girls like that never accept defeat gracefully."

I nodded as if I understood, thinking at the time that Mom was simply worried I'd be bullied.

It took years for me to realize what Mom truly feared was Cole's unguarded favoritism.

The safest survival strategy for people at the bottom is to remain invisible, unremarkable. But Cole insisted on thrusting me into everyone's line of sight, and under that spotlight, blades waited in every shadow.

That plate of scones, grown cold in my arms, was my first taste of the bitterness that comes with class division and envy.