Chapter 2 Chapter 2
Mila got off the bus three streets from home and walked the rest of the way under a sky streaked peach and purple.
Her neighborhood was older, quieter, held together by chain-link fences, cracked sidewalks, and people who minded their business unless they had a casserole to deliver. She preferred it to Briar Ridge by a mile.
The Santos house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac with chipped blue shutters and a garden her mother kept trying to revive every spring.
The second Mila stepped inside, the smell of garlic, cumin, and simmering tomatoes hit her.
Her mother looked up from the stove. “You’re late.”
“Bus.”
“Mm.” Her mother narrowed her eyes. “What happened?”
Mila set her books on the kitchen table. “Why does everyone ask that like disaster follows me around personally?”
“Because I gave birth to your face, and right now it’s making one.”
Mila huffed a laugh despite herself and sank into a chair. “Kendra happened.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
Her mother clicked her tongue and turned down the heat under the pot. “That girl needs a hobby. Preferably one involving silence.”
Mila smiled faintly.
Then her mother noticed the bent corner of Mila’s notebook and the dust smear across the front of her cardigan. The softness left her expression.
“She touched you?”
“She shoved my books.”
“Mila.”
“I’m fine.”
But the words came too quickly.
Her mother crossed the kitchen and cupped Mila’s cheek. “Mi amor. Being used to pain is not the same as being fine.”
That nearly did her in.
Mila looked down fast. “I’m okay.”
Her mother let the lie sit for a moment, then sighed and kissed the top of her head. “Wash up. Dinner in ten.”
Mila nodded and escaped to her room.
Her bedroom was small but entirely hers—overstuffed bookshelf, desk under the window, fairy lights she pretended were ironic, stacks of coding manuals beside well-loved romance novels she would never admit to reading in public.
She dropped onto her bed and pulled out her phone.
Three texts from Naomi.
I reported Kendra.
I may have used the phrase “pathological menace.”
Also why did Jaxon Reed help you? Is the moon falling?
Mila stared at the last message.
Good question.
She typed back:
Because the universe enjoys mockery.
Naomi replied instantly.
Be serious.
Mila set the phone aside without answering.
Because she didn’t know.
Because it had felt strange, seeing him kneel in the parking lot and gather her papers like she mattered.
Because it had felt even stranger realizing she was angry not just at Kendra—but at him for making one decent moment feel dangerous.
She changed clothes, did homework at her desk, and tried very hard not to think about the expression on Jaxon’s face when she told him the truth.
At seven-thirty, there was a knock on her bedroom door.
“Come in.”
Her mother stepped inside with a folded flyer in hand. “Mrs. Delaney called.”
Mila sat up straighter. “The counselor?”
“She says there’s a paid after-school position available. Starting immediately. Babysitting.”
Mila blinked. “Babysitting?”
“Live-in some afternoons, evenings if needed. Good money.” Her mother handed over the flyer. “She says you were the first student she thought of.”
Mila took it and scanned the details. Temporary. Reliable transportation included. Homework time allowed. Competitive pay.
Her stomach twisted.
College application fees. A new laptop before graduation. Maybe enough to stop taking weekend shifts at the coffee shop.
“This could help,” her mother said gently.
“I know.”
“Call tomorrow.”
Mila nodded, but she was only half reading now.
At the bottom of the page, under contact information, was the family name.
Reed.
Her pulse stopped.
Then kicked back twice as hard.
“No,” Mila said aloud.
Her mother frowned. “No what?”
Mila looked up slowly. “This is for the Reeds?”
“I suppose so.”
“Jaxon Reed?”
“I don’t know the boy’s first name.”
Mila stared at the flyer like it had personally offended her.
There had to be another Reed family in Briar Ridge. There had to be.
But there probably wasn’t.
Her mother watched her carefully. “That bad?”
Mila let out a disbelieving laugh. “You have no idea.”
Her mother sat on the edge of the bed. “Mila, the pay must be very good for the school to call students directly.”
“It is.”
“And?”
“And I would rather eat drywall.”
That earned a smile. “Noted. But drywall does not pay for engineering school.”
Mila looked back down at the flyer.
Temporary, it said.
After-school childcare for one younger sibling.
Her mind flashed unexpectedly to Jaxon in the parking lot, crouched by her papers, saying Here in a voice that had sounded almost careful.
No.
Absolutely not.
Still… the money was real. Immediate. Necessary.
And Mila had been forced to learn, years ago, that life rarely offered choices that preserved both dignity and ambition.
Her mother stood. “Think about it tonight.”
After she left, Mila lay back on her bed and held the flyer over her face like it might burst into flames.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered.
Outside her window, the neighborhood was settling into evening—distant barking dog, television noise from next door, the hum of a world that didn’t care whether her life had just taken a sharp and deeply unfair turn.
She looked at the name one more time.
Reed.
If this was some cosmic joke, it wasn’t even subtle.
Mila dropped the flyer onto her chest and stared up at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, she’d call Mrs. Delaney and tell her no.
Probably.
Maybe.
Unless engineering school cost more than pride.
Which, annoyingly, it did.
And somewhere across town, whether he knew it or not, the boy who had never defended her was about to become impossible to avoid.
