Chapter 27

Elise had Ethan take Nora home first. By the time she arrived at her own house, it was eight in the evening.

The living room was brightly lit. She stepped inside and found two pairs of eyes waiting for her. Julian had brought his laptop downstairs and was working in the living room, which he almost never did. Adrian was curled up on a sofa with his phone; at the sound of her arrival, his head came up at once.

“Why are you home so late?” Julian asked, frowning.

Something felt odd between them. They were sharing a room, but they had put as much distance between themselves as possible. Neither looked interested in acknowledging the other.

“I went to the bookstore with a classmate.”

Julian's expression softened. “You've made a friend already?”

Elise nodded. She had put the rest of the class's treatment of her out of her mind. It really didn't bother her much. Studying deserved more of her attention.

Adrian sprang off the sofa and came over to her.

“I bought a motion-control game console. Want to play with me for a while?”

She shook her head. “I need to study.”

Her homework wasn't done, and she wanted to finish two more practice papers tonight.

His face fell. “All right.”

Julian raised his eyebrows. Her grades might be poor, but she clearly wanted to learn. She wanted to do better.

The thought dimmed his pleasure a little. Perhaps she had always been this eager, and he had simply never noticed because, in their previous life, he hadn't paid attention to her.

“What if I find you a tutor?” he asked. “You might get more out of the time you spend studying.”

“Oh.” Elise paused.

She wanted to get into her dream university, but hiring a tutor hadn't occurred to her. Now that he mentioned it, the idea was tempting. Essay writing was still her weakest area. In her other subjects, she kept coming within one or two big questions of a perfect score, and she had been stuck there for quite a while.

The higher her scores got, the harder it became to improve them. Perhaps a tutor could help her get past that point.

“Yes. I'd like that.”

Julian's mouth curved. He gave Adrian a discreet glance.

Clearly, his sister felt closer to him. He had offered her a tutor, and she had accepted straightaway. If she had to choose which of them should represent her at school, she would certainly choose him.

Adrian caught the challenge in his eyes. With a quiet huff, he turned his head away.

Their argument over the parent group had ended without either brother agreeing to leave. Ms. Parker had been at a loss. Removing a parent herself would only offend them, so she had approached each of them privately and tried to talk them around.

In the end, Julian had made a concession: Daniel, who had been handling Vivian's school matters, could leave the parent group. Julian and Adrian would both stay.

Neither brother, however, would change his display name. The group was left with two members calling themselves Elise Whitmore's parent.

Vivian now had no representative in the chat. Ms. Parker was relieved that the girl herself didn't know. She made a mental note to contact Vivian directly whenever she posted another class notice.

Adrian still felt he had lost this round. After everything he had tried, Elise hadn't completely forgiven him. Her voice remained polite and distant.

He would have to try harder.

As she started toward the stairs, he called, “Ellie, wait a second!”

He hurried upstairs before she could ask why, leaving her looking after him in confusion. A moment later, he came down carrying a bulky, tightly wrapped package.

He set it on the table and quickly tore away the shipping material. Once all the outer wrapping was off, the item inside was much smaller.

Julian and Elise came closer.

It was a backpack.

Adrian enjoyed her look of surprise. After bringing her home from the spa, he had started wondering what to give her for the new school year. A backpack had seemed perfect.

Unfortunately, shipping it from overseas had taken time. Even after paying extra to hurry it along, he had only managed to get it delivered today.

The internationally known luggage brand made very few backpack styles. This one had an ergonomic design intended to ease the strain of carrying heavy books and keep the weight from dragging the wearer forward. It was beautifully made and much more comfortable to carry than an ordinary schoolbag.

“A back-to-school present,” he said. “What do you think? Do you like it?”

He sent Julian a triumphant look. He had remembered a present for her first day. Julian hadn't even thought of one.

And this man called himself Ellie's oldest brother?

Julian's eyes darkened. He had thought arranging a tutor had pleased her rather nicely. Then Adrian had produced a gift.

Elise pressed her lips together. Her current backpack was only a year old and hardly worn. She could keep using it.

But Adrian had gone to the trouble of choosing this for her. She hesitated, unable to bring herself to refuse.

Afraid she would turn it down because it was expensive, he hurried to explain.

“I'm the brand's ambassador in Asia. I got it directly from them at a discount. It practically cost nothing.”

He really was their ambassador. That part was true. The backpack, however, was produced in such small quantities, and cost so much, that he'd had to call in a favor and spend a long time persuading someone to find him one. He had still paid the full price.

Elise felt much better about accepting a backpack that had practically cost nothing.

“Thank you, Adrian,” she said, with quiet sincerity.

His expression softened completely.

“You... you're welcome.”

Presents worked. She liked presents from him.

He could keep doing this. A hundred years of presents would be fine.

“It's getting late, Ellie,” Julian reminded her evenly. “You wanted to study. Go on upstairs.”

Of course he was glad Adrian had given her something. He wanted her to have as many presents as possible. But the smugness on his brother's face was making him want to hit him.

After Elise went upstairs, the brothers looked at each other.

Julian turned coldly away. Adrian gave another little huff.

Because of the preparations to get out of his recording contract, Adrian had canceled his original schedule for the past few days. He had considerably more free time now.

Once Elise had gone, he sank back into the sofa, crossed one leg over the other, and scrolled through his phone. He glanced at the new game console by the television without feeling the slightest urge to turn it on.

He had bought it so he could play with his sister. Having fun together might help her forgive him completely. She might even become a little more affectionate.

Who knew she liked studying so much that she couldn't spare any time to play after school?

She was supposed to be having fun with him.

He felt thoroughly abandoned. His sister had chosen studying over him.

There was nothing left to do but browse the parent group and seek a little comfort in his position as her parent contact.

Most of the time, the chat was quiet. When someone did speak, it was unmistakably a group of middle-aged parents. The teacher would praise a student's improved grades, and a string of replies would appear underneath: What a good example for our children! They should all learn from her!

Several parents also shared articles about bringing up children and helping them learn.

As Adrian scrolled, his eyes suddenly brightened.

Upstairs, Elise was bent over a practice paper in the light of her desk lamp. The timer beside her ticked steadily.

Her phone vibrated on the desk. She looked up and opened the messages.

Adrian had sent her several links.

Adrian: [Link] Make Learning Fun!

Adrian: [Link] Ages 0–12: Learning Through Play, and the Stories Every Growing Child Needs!

Adrian: [Link] This Dad Taught His Daughter Math Through Play. She Couldn't Wait for Her Next Lesson!

After sending them, Adrian kept his fingers poised over the chat. Surely she would understand such an obvious hint.

He waited a long time before her reply finally arrived.

Elise: ?

He went on to share several more peculiar links. Elise frowned at them and wondered whether somebody had hacked his account.

At breakfast the next morning, though, he seemed perfectly normal apart from looking a little listless. She let it go. He must have sent the messages to the wrong person.

At school, her classmates were less openly hostile than on her first day, but Nora was still the only one who spoke to her voluntarily. The two of them had effectively been left outside the class. Even during PE group activities, everyone else made groups of four, while Elise and Nora were left as a pair.

Elise didn't mind. Studying mattered more than anything else. The little cliques and squabbles of high school students could carry on as long as they left her work alone.

At the end of English class, the teacher asked everyone to hand in the notebooks they had used to reproduce a passage from memory. A few students from each row were assigned to collect them.

Elise's work on the board had already earned compliments from several teachers, and her handwriting on paper was just as good. Every letter was clear, the strokes clean and assured. Where a letter dipped below the line, it finished in a graceful curve. Each word was pleasing by itself; a whole page of them was even better.

“Your handwriting is so pretty,” Nora said. She had finished her own work and couldn't help looking across at Elise's notebook.

Rich, beautiful, and she could even write like that. Nora was close to becoming a fan.

Elise didn't seem upset about being shut out, either. Nora wished she could manage that. Every time it happened to her, it hurt.

Elise answered the compliment with a small smile.

Logan Reed was collecting the notebooks from the last row, working from left to right. Behind Elise and Nora, he stopped.

The class had silently agreed to exclude these two. Yet he had to admit that, on the first day, one look from Elise had made him want to turn away. He hadn't been able to hold her gaze.

That wasn't like him. He was used to getting his own way in class. The boys gathered around him; the girls liked the way his jokes broke up the tension of lessons. He loved being the center of attention, and even the teachers sometimes didn't know what to do with him.

He couldn't face a girl for one second?

Now, merely looking at her back made him nervous. He stood there with a handful of notebooks, hesitating.

Elise seemed to sense him. She turned a little, gave him a polite smile, and picked up her notebook to hand it over.

His eyes dropped. Heat spread into his ears.

What was wrong with him? She was just a girl. Why couldn't he talk to her?

He forced himself to step forward and took the notebook, still avoiding her face.

“Thanks for collecting these.”

Her voice was soft and pleasant, without a sharp edge to it.

“Mm,” he managed, very quietly. All his usual swagger had disappeared.

He turned at once and carried the notebooks up to the teacher's desk.

Back at his seat, his desk partner stared at him.

“What's going on with you? Your face is red.”

Logan gave him a look that told him to shut up.

Vivian was collecting the notebooks in her own row. On the way back to her seat, she passed Logan and noticed his flushed face. She wondered what had happened.

Kayla Morris leaned over as soon as Vivian sat down, jutting her chin toward Elise.

“That's disgusting. One look, and Logan turns bright red. Is that what guys are into now?”

Kayla had been looking around since the bell rang and had seen the whole thing. Watching Logan approach Elise so cautiously had made her deeply uncomfortable.

Vivian's face darkened. So that was it.

On the first day, Logan had shouted more loudly than almost anyone about standing up for her. As one of the most popular boys in class, he could have got the others behind him. A crowd of students protesting to their homeroom adviser would have made a scene, even if it didn't get Elise transferred out. Elise would have been humiliated.

Instead, one encounter with Elise had been enough to make him back down.

There could only be one reason: he liked her.

“And he used to say he liked you,” Kayla said scornfully. “What a jerk.”

Vivian pressed her lips together and straightened the books on her desk.

“What can you do? With Elise being so...”

She stopped. “Never mind.”

For the past few days, she had felt invisible at home. Both brothers looked straight through her. She had taken to eating in her room.

The household staff had changed their attitude, too. They were colder now, bringing her meals with impatient looks or openly unpleasant expressions. Even the food was different. She had secretly looked at Elise's meals: those were prepared by the chef hired especially for her. Vivian got whatever a member of the staff had casually cooked.

The DNA results were expected tomorrow. She kept hoping they would show no parent-child match. At the same time, she wished her other two brothers would hurry home.

Two of the four had already taken Elise's side. Theo was in Russia for closed esports training, unable to use his phone. She couldn't reach him at all. School had started, and Miles still hadn't returned from Antarctica. She had checked the flight information; services there had yet to resume.

Her eyes stung. She was going to be thrown out.

She had lost to Elise completely.

Kayla saw her fall silent. Vivian had been much quieter lately, barely talking at all.

“What is it with you?” she asked quickly. “Tell me. We're friends. You can talk to me.”

Vivian paused with a textbook halfway into her desk. Hesitantly, she described how the staff treated her now, and how her brothers had changed.

Kayla was outraged.

“You're both their real sisters. Why do they get to treat you like that? That's awful!”

Vivian's face stiffened, but she hid it almost immediately.

“I must have done something wrong. They just suddenly stopped liking me.”

Kayla paid little attention to that suggestion.

“She gets back into the family and immediately starts turning your own brothers against you. That's so sneaky. And yesterday! We got yelled at by Mr. Wallace because of her. So she read a few chapters ahead. What's there to be so pleased about?”

Once she started, she couldn't stop. Yesterday, she had stood up to protest, only for Mr. Wallace to humiliate her in front of the whole class. She had already decided Elise was her enemy. Vivian's account of her troubles fed all that anger.

Watching Kayla get worked up made Vivian feel better. Hearing someone insult Elise was a wonderful cure for a bad mood.

The more people hated her, the happier Vivian would be.

The bell rang.

“Class is starting,” Vivian said. “We should stop. If Logan and the others hear us talking about her behind her back, they might start hating us.”

“Then let them,” Kayla snapped. “Am I supposed to be scared of him?”

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Then an idea came to her.

Elise needed to be taught a lesson.

Kayla's expression relaxed, and a smile slowly appeared.

The first class after lunch was PE. When the lunch break ended, students began drifting out of the classroom.

For Nora, group activities had always been the worst part of PE. Every time, she had to face the embarrassment of nobody wanting her in their group.

She had always been near the bottom of the class academically, and she was shy around people she didn't know well. When a teacher called on her, her answer came out so quietly that people could barely hear it. Her classmates had laughed at her for it many times.

Being laughed at made her even less willing to speak to them. Gradually, no one wanted to spend time with her at all.

Elise had changed that. Nora liked her, and she had gathered enough courage to start a conversation. For the first time, she had a friend in the class.

She couldn't remember being happier.

As soon as the break was over, she caught Elise's arm and drew her outside.

PE began with laps around the field, followed by group activities. After several laps, sweat covered Elise's face. Nora was panting, too. She looked at Elise, reached for a tissue, and discovered she had none left.

“Let's buy some at the school store.”

“I have some in my backpack,” Elise said after a moment.

While the PE teacher wasn't looking, they slipped back to the classroom.

Sounds from the basketball court carried in from outside. The classroom itself was quiet.

Elise glanced at her desk and stopped. Something was wrong. The textbooks she had left on top before class had disappeared.

Closer up, she saw that it was more than that. Both desks had been emptied. Her backpack and Nora's were gone, along with every textbook.

Nora's expression froze. She looked around, making sure they had come to the right seats, then turned helplessly to Elise.

Elise's face had gone very still. Without their textbooks, how were they supposed to get through the rest of the day's lessons?

And that backpack was the present Adrian had given her only yesterday.

As Nora's disbelief gave way to distress, Elise patted her shoulder.

“Let's look for them.”

Two backpacks couldn't simply vanish. Somebody had taken them. She had a suspicion, but she wasn't certain yet.

They eventually found both bags in a trash can beside the school restrooms. Whoever had put them there hadn't even bothered to hide them. They lay right on top.

Dirty water had soaked into the fabric until the original colors were barely recognizable.

Nora crouched beside Elise and pulled out her bag, wiping at the tears she couldn't hold back.

“Why would they do this? Was this really necessary?”

She had been excluded before. Nobody had ever thrown her backpack away.

Elise bit her lip. Her own bag was covered in filth. Across it, someone had added a message in black pen.

YOU STUPID BITCH. GET OUT!!

She stared at the writing, her brows drawing together. Then she opened the backpack.

Dirty water had reached all her textbooks. The print was blurred and unreadable. They were ruined.

Her anger flared.

Of all the things they could have chosen to destroy, they had destroyed her textbooks. That was something she would not put up with.

Was that what her refusal to argue had meant to them? Had they mistaken her indifference for weakness?

She lifted out her bag, took out the tissues inside, and began wiping the dirty water off it. She offered some to Nora.

Nora was still crouching on the ground, looking at her bag and rubbing her wet face with her forearm.

Elise thought of all the times Nora had been left out in class. There was little point trying to talk her out of crying. She needed to let it out first.

Elise took Nora's backpack from her and carefully wiped that one down, too. Only when the crying began to subside did she help her to her feet.

“Come on.”

A few minutes later, they were back in the classroom.

The notebooks collected that morning were still on the teacher's desk. Elise tossed her backpack to Nora and began opening them one after another.

“Elise, what are you doing?” Nora asked. Her voice was still thick with tears.

After being treated like this, she had thought of asking her parents to move her to another school. But she couldn't bear to leave Elise. What if they kept bullying her when Nora was gone and she was all alone?

Elise looked back. The smile had left her face, and there was something cold in her expression.

“What do you do when someone bullies you?”

Nora stared at her.

Elise kept working through the notebooks. She moved quickly, turning each to a page filled with writing, studying it for a moment, then reaching for the next. Soon she had looked through more than a dozen.

Watching her, Nora ventured, “...Get them back?”

“Exactly.” Elise's mouth lifted slightly.

Nora tightened her grip on the backpacks. She wanted to get them back, too. She just didn't dare. What if they retaliated? What if it ended up in front of a teacher? What if the class hated her even more afterward?

What if...

Elise opened another notebook. Her eyes sharpened.

“Found it.”

The handwriting, right down to the way the letters were formed, matched the message on her backpack. She turned to the cover, ran a finger over the name, and narrowed her eyes.

A little later, running water filled the empty restroom. Elise had found two buckets left by a cleaner and was filling them at the tap.

She wasn't especially strong. She put in as much water as she could manage to carry, stopping only when the buckets were almost too heavy to lift.

Nora watched, bewildered.

“Elise, what are you going to do?”

“If we get back at someone without evidence, we're just causing trouble,” Elise said as the water ran. “If we have evidence, they're getting what they deserve.”

Something stirred in Nora as she watched her friend's determination. She might be less brave than Elise, but she could still get angry.

Alone, she probably would have gone to a teacher. Without evidence, though, how would the teacher find out who had done it? At most, there would be a few comforting words and a warning to the class, aimed at the culprit without naming anyone.

Whoever had done it would still be free to enjoy herself.

With the buckets filled, Elise looked up.

“Are you brave enough?”

There was an edge in her eyes Nora had never seen before. She had always looked so gentle.

Nora took a deep breath and clenched her fist.

“Yes.”

The organized part of PE had finished, and students had scattered to spend the remaining time as they pleased. Several boys had picked up a basketball and started a game.

Kayla and a few other girls had decided against going to the school store. They stood beside the court instead, their cheeks pink as they watched. When Logan scored, Kayla jumped and screamed.

She was the loudest of them all.

Her friends laughed and nudged one another.

“Kayla, have a little dignity.”

She gave them a smiling glare. She was in an excellent mood. Today, she had finally paid Elise back.

The thought of Elise's and Nora's faces when they found their backpacks made her want to laugh. Elise deserved it.

Kayla had waited until everyone was out of the classroom before going back. She wasn't worried about them telling a teacher. They had no evidence. Who could prove she had done it?

Complaining wouldn't help them.

She watched the boys running across the court. Logan had both the face and the body to stand out, even among them.

The truth was, she liked him a little. Even Vivian didn't know. She knew he liked Vivian; he had told Vivian so. Because Vivian was her friend, Kayla had swallowed her jealousy and kept quiet.

Still, Vivian had never said yes to him.