Chapter 1 I’LL BE THERE

The sound of my tray hitting the floor was like a gunshot in the noisy cafeteria. Mashed potatoes and green peas splattered across my shoes and the pristine tiles. A cold, sticky wave of gravy soaked through my sock.

“Oops. Clumsy, aren’t we?” A smooth, mocking voice said above me.

I didn’t need to look up to know it was Chase Wellington. I knew his loafers, the kind that cost more than my rent. I’d been carefully balancing my tray, my one affordable meal of the day, navigating the crowded tables like a minefield.

He’d stepped out, not even looking, and let his shoulder collide with mine with perfect, practiced timing.

My face burned as laughter rippled out from the table he’d just left. The Table. The one by the floor-to-ceiling windows, reserved for royalty. My eyes, against my will, flickered toward them.

And there he was. Levi Thorne.

He was leaning back in his chair, one arm slung over the back of it, a picture of casual ownership. Even sitting, you could tell he was tall. He had that kind of athletic build that was all lean muscle from hockey—broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist. His hair was the color of dark honey, messy in a way that looked intentional and expensive. He was laughing.

Not a loud, obnoxious laugh like Chase’s, but a soft, shaking laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he said something to the beautiful girl next to him, Sloane. She was practically draped over his arm, giggling into her manicured hand while looking right at me.

That laugh was worse than the spilled food. The food was an accident he caused; the laugh was a choice Levi made. It was a seal of approval on my humiliation.

“Better clean that up, scholarship,” Chase sneered, his friends snickering behind him. “Wouldn’t want you to slip on your own… lunch.”

A fresh wave of heat washed over me. Scholarship. They’d turned the word that was my pride, my ticket to a future, into the worst kind of insult. It was always “scholarship,” whispered with a curl of the lip, or “charity case,” or sometimes, just a loud, pointed, “Wow, they just let anyone in here now.”

My throat tightened. I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the ruin of my lunch, at my gravy-stained shoes. The cafeteria had gone quieter, dozens of eyes on me. I was a sideshow. The daily entertainment. The fat, poor girl who dared to breathe their air.

I dropped to my knees, my fingers clumsy as I tried to scoop the mess onto the tray. My vision blurred. Don’t cry, I begged myself. Don’t you dare cry in front of them. But the tears were a hot, insistent pressure behind my eyes. I felt the fabric of my uniform skirt strain against my thighs, another silent, humiliating reminder. I shouldn’t have taken the extra roll. I shouldn’t have…

“Hurry up, we need to walk there,” someone mumbled from a nearby table, not even bothering to lower their voice.

That did it. A tear escaped, splashing onto a discarded pea. I grabbed my now-empty tray, stood up on trembling legs, and fled. I didn’t look at Levi’s table again. I just pushed through the cafeteria doors and broke into a run, the sound of fading laughter chasing me down the hall.

I didn’t stop until I was locked in the last stall of the girls’ bathroom on the second floor, the one that was always a little broken and mostly empty. I sank down onto the closed toilet lid, dropped my head into my hands, and let the sobs come.

They were ugly, heaving things that tore from my chest. It wasn’t just about the lunch. It was about everything. It was the rent notice sitting on my kitchen table at home. It was the careful calculations in my notebook of how many cans of soup I could buy for ten dollars. It was the way my reflection in the mirror never seemed to match the sharp, slender girls who floated through Kingswood’s halls like elegant ghosts.

I was an orphan. I was fat. I was poor. And to everyone here, those three facts were a crime. They said I didn’t deserve the scholarship, that I’d taken a spot from someone who “belonged.” They said my body was a lazy mistake. They looked at my second-hand uniform and saw a beggar in a palace.

I cried until my head ached and my eyes were swollen. I cried for the mother I barely remembered, who would have hated seeing me like this. I cried for the simplicity of wanting to just go to school and learn, without it being a daily war.

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. I stayed put. I couldn’t face them. I waited until the halls fell silent again, then I crept out. I splashed cold water on my puffy face, avoiding my own gaze in the mirror. I didn’t need to see the confirmation of my misery.

The rest of the day was a blur of ducked heads and hushed conversations that stopped when I walked by. I heard my name—Anya Petrova—paired with “cafeteria” and “meltdown.” The story was already growing. I kept my eyes on my textbooks, on my notes, on anything but the people around me. I didn’t see Levi again, but I felt his table’s presence like a cold spot in every room.

Finally, the last bell rang. I was the first one out the door, my bag clutched to my chest like a shield. The walk to my apartment was twenty minutes of blessed anonymity. No one in the regular world cared about Kingswood Academy’s social hierarchy.

My apartment was a studio, small and dim, but it was mine. The rent was astronomical for what it was, a tiny box with a kitchenette in one corner and my bed in another. But it was clean, and it was quiet. I dropped my bag and went straight to the cupboard. One can of tomato soup left. I heated it up and ate it straight from the pot, standing at the counter. It was comfort and sadness in equal measure.

I was just washing the pot when my phone buzzed on the counter. An unknown number. Usually, I’d let it go to voicemail—it was always a telemarketer or a wrong number. But something made me pick it up.

“Hello?”

“Is this Anya Petrova?” a woman’s voice asked, brisk and professional.

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is Eleanor Vance, from the housekeeping management service. We have your application on file from last semester. A position has become available for a temporary part-time domestic assistant. It’s a live-out role, three afternoons a week and every other Saturday. The client is a private family in the Kingswood Heights area. The pay is twenty-five dollars an hour, cash. The position is to cover a maternity leave for approximately four months. Are you still seeking employment?”

My hand tightened on the phone. Twenty-five dollars an hour. Cash. That was… that was more than I’d ever made. That was rent money. That was food that wasn’t from a can. That was breathing room.

“Yes,” I said, my voice too eager. I cleared my throat. “I mean, yes, I am very interested.”

“Excellent. The family would like someone to start immediately, tomorrow after school if possible. The address is 1707 Crestline Drive. Report to the service entrance at the back at four o’clock. Ask for Mrs. Darnell, the head housekeeper. She will give you your duties.”

Crestline Drive. My brain stuttered. That was in the heart of the most exclusive enclave in the city. The very place my classmates went home to.

“I… I’ll be there,” I managed to say. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t be late,” Eleanor Vance said, and the line went dead.