Chapter 4

"I can make my own money too," I said, my voice dull.

Jason laughed in disbelief, his frustration barely hidden. "Isn't 100 thousand dollars enough for you? To you, making money is betting with me and flirting with the other guy. You don't even care about that scandalous video.

"And you didn't bother to deal with it. Alright, let me help you. The school administrators just said they got through to your mom. I bet she doesn't want to see you end up like this for money."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What did you say?"

Lily smirked. "By now, your mom probably knows everything. Can you imagine how disappointed she must be? Her straight-A daughter, doing something like this."

My head was buzzing. I felt my whole body go limp, almost losing my balance as I used the coffee table to push myself up.

I tore off my ID badge, stumbled toward the door, and jumped into a cab, heading straight for the hospital.

My mind was a mess the whole way there.

One second, it was Jason, telling me to seduce the guy everyone thought was untouchable.

Next, it was my mom's rough, cracked hands and how she scraped together every dollar for my tuition so I could settle down in Capitala City.

And finally, her pale, sickly face as she lay in that hospital bed.

I braced myself for the worst, my mom screaming, throwing things, accusing me of not respecting myself. But that scene never happened.

Instead, she was calm, and she was rarely this clear-headed. "Did I drag you down? Did you have to do something like this to save me?" she asked.

I forced myself to steady my racing heart and tried to act composed. "No, Mom, the video was maliciously edited. I didn't do anything."

She pressed on. "The school administration said as much, and so did your teacher. They said you're not acting right. Iris, you're a girl!"

Back in the day, my mom had gone to college, but life took her to a remote village, and she ended up marrying my dad out of necessity. That was how I came into the world.

She was always at the top of her class in high school. But in the remote village, no matter how bright she was, she couldn't become a phoenix unless she was born one.

"I didn't, Mom. Please, you have to believe me," I pleaded.

She threw off the covers. "I'm not getting treatment anymore, okay? You focus on your studies and never look back." As she spoke, she started pulling the IV needle out of her hand.

I completely lost it, crying my heart out. "No, Mom, please don't. If you stop your treatment, what am I supposed to do?"

The moment I got close to her, my mom slapped me hard across the face. "I wish I'd never raised a daughter with no sense of shame like you.

"I'm living proof of what happens when you make the wrong choices, and you still dare to make the same mistake again? Are you trying to drive me dead with anger?"

That night, my mom was sent back to the emergency room again. The doctor gave us a grim warning. Her organs were shutting down.

She lay in her hospital bed, looking at me, all that usual toughness gone from her eyes. "The biggest mistake I ever made was following your dad into the poor village and getting trapped there for a lifetime.

"I've lived enough. Promise me to live however you want, but never go back there."

I was sobbing so hard I could barely speak. "I won't, Mom. I swear I'll never go back for as long as I live."

My mom spent her whole life teaching me how to leave the poor village, pouring her heart and soul into me. But when I was ready to take care of her, it was already too late.

She closed her eyes, resting peacefully. The heart monitor flatlined.

She was stuck back home for two months, and my dad never bothered to get her treated.

I finally managed to get her here. But she didn't make it a month. I was useless.

Jason rushed over, but it was already the middle of the night.

There was a flicker of panic in his eyes. "I just got the report from yesterday. I never thought things would get this bad so fast. I've already asked my uncle to wire the money over."

I nodded, not crying, and I couldn't say a word.

He crouched down in front of me. "I should've tried to understand more, but you can't keep everything to yourself. Do you realize how much you made me lose face when you said yes in front of everyone that day?

"And you're working a part‑time job in a place like that. What will people think of me?" He kept talking, but everything he said turned into white noise.

I couldn't hear a single word, just looked up at him and asked, "Jason, we should have broken up."

He was the one who said we should be together. And now, with these pathetic words about breaking up and this uncertain love, I held on for three whole years.

He froze for a moment, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What did you say?"

I said quietly, "I assumed that when you told me to go after someone else, we had already implicitly broken up."