Chapter3

On the other side of the door, they were still pounding and shouting. I didn't care. I wasn't her mom. I wasn't her dad. I'd spent four years treating it like my job to feed her, house her, and make her life easier. I was done.

I picked up the room phone and called the front desk.

"Hi, this is room 1902. There's a group outside my door that won't leave. Could you send security, please?"

Two minutes later, the hallway went quiet.

I walked to the window. Nineteen floors down, a little cluster of people dragged their rolling suitcases along Collins Avenue, looking lost.

I pulled the curtains shut, leaned back against the window, and slid down until I was sitting on the carpet.

That was when I noticed my hands were shaking.

I opened my camera roll and scrolled back. Freshman orientation, the two of us in matching hoodies. Sophomore winter, a lopsided snowman she'd built outside my dorm door, with a sign stuck in it that said "Claire's Bodyguard." Our senior photos, her arm hooked around my neck, laughing so hard her eyes disappeared.

Four years. I'd honestly thought she was family.

I cried for maybe ten minutes. No sound. I just couldn't stop.

Then I wiped my face, opened my thread with Ethan, all those hundreds of messages Paige had polished word by word, selected every single one, and hit delete.

I turned off the light and went to bed.

The next morning, I slept in, packed, and caught the first flight home to Boston.

Which meant I missed the best part. Since nobody could afford a last-minute Miami hotel in peak season, the whole group spent the night in a booth at a 24-hour diner, nursing coffee refills until sunrise.

When the plane landed, I turned my phone back on.

The group chat, "Miami Grad Trip," was on fire.

Tyler: Claire Bennett is genuinely the worst. She left us on the street.

Brooke: Paige, please cut her off. She's toxic.

And then, right on cue, Paige the martyr:

Paige: Guys, don't blame Claire. It's my fault. I should have double-checked the house.

I kept scrolling, and found the message that really mattered.

Tyler: At least Paige came through where it counts. Meridian interviews tomorrow at 10!! A Fortune 500 company, Paige, you're a legend.

I smiled at my screen.

If they were that excited about Meridian, I'd make sure they got a welcome they'd never forget.

At eight the following morning, I drove to Meridian's headquarters on State Street and asked my father for a seat on the new-graduate hiring panel.

I'd spent four years refusing to set foot in the building, so he looked like I'd handed him an early Christmas present. He called in Dana Whitfield, the VP of Talent, and told her I'd be leading the morning session.

"Same rubric as everyone else," I told Dana. "No favors."

She nodded, approving.

I flipped through the day's candidate list, and Paige's magic trick made sense in about thirty seconds.

Every summer, Meridian runs an open hiring day. Any new grad who applies through the careers site and passes the first screen gets a first-round interview. Every one of Paige's friends had submitted an application on the same day, the day she announced in the group chat that her uncle would take care of everything.

There was no uncle. She'd just had everyone click "Apply."

And I could guess how she'd planned to wrap it up. She and Ethan would walk in through the two spots I'd saved. Anyone who didn't make it, well, HR was just so strict, and she'd tried.

Too bad those two spots were gone.

We got through six candidates before ten. Two were excellent, and I said so. Then the door opened, and today's main event walked in.

Paige. Ethan. And four of the classmates who'd spent the last thirty-six hours calling me toxic in the group chat.

Ethan saw me first. His jaw went tight.

"Are you kidding me? What are you doing here? Since when does Meridian let people like you in?"

Paige went pale and grabbed his arm. "Ethan, don't, just leave it."

But he was already furious, and he shook her off and turned to Dana.

"Excuse me. What exactly are your hiring standards? Because she's here on somebody else's connections, and that's not fair to the rest of us."

The others jumped right in.

"Yeah, she only got in because of Paige's uncle."

"That's so messed up."

Dana stared at them like they'd started speaking another language.

"Connections? This is Claire Bennett. Her father is Richard Bennett, our chairman. She's leading this panel."

Ethan's face froze.

"Her... father?"