I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 09

I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 09

I left Northridge and transferred into the Pacific Coast University Launch Camp, out in Portland, Oregon.

The new program sat far from Medina, but the dorm was loud in the best way.

The girl next door snored, someone upstairs dragged furniture around every single day, and the RA hollered through the halls during every nightly room check.

For the first time in my life, I thought a little noise was actually kind of nice.

Mom texted me daily.

[Did you take your meds on time today?]

[Does your leg still hurt?]

[Can I come visit?]

I only wrote back what was strictly necessary.

[Yes.]

[No.]

[No need.]

Theodore stopped by one day. He brought the friend notebook with him, mended, every page glued carefully back together.

I flipped through it page by page. Noah’s peanut allergy note was still in there. Cooper’s back injury note hadn’t gone missing either.

I nodded.

“Nice work.”

His eyes lit up.

“So, can you unblock me?”

“No.”

Later on, I caught up on the latest with Charlotte’s case.

She’d admitted to swapping the route card, and to deliberately covering up my whereabouts through both headcounts.

Given how badly I’d been hurt, this wasn’t just a school discipline matter anymore.

Three years I gave him my blood to heal his legs. He used them to walk to her.

It wasn’t until Child Protective Services flagged that I’d finished high school and was about to age out of the foster system, needing an address and an emergency contact confirmed for adulthood, that she finally brought me back to the Sinclairs.

Theodore’s eyes went red as he spoke.

“Give us one more shot, okay? We’ll change. This time we mean it.”

I put the voice recorder back in his hand.

“I’ve given out plenty of chances before. Ninety-nine messages, ninety-nine chances. That’s enough.”

Mom clapped a hand over her mouth, unable to get another word out.

I turned and headed back to my dorm.

Nobody chased after me this time.

This time, they’d finally learned to respect my no.