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Jesse’s expression didn’t change His eyes didn’t leavehis hand toward rab it At the last moment, he pulled back "I’ve known you a solid day and a half, and I would swear on my life that you’re not a lost cause Or a failure"

I opened my mouth to interrupt

"Or a piece of shit failure," he said,air quotes with one hand "So why are you really here?"

Just like that, he’d -Is-A-Waste-Of-Space topic Apparently it was settled in his mind I was not the person my mom, ninety-nine percent of other people I’d coht I was The only thing that mattered to him hy I was there

"Because I don’t have any other option," I whispered, looking away froone about five levels too personal for ht ht back to him "Excuse me?"

"That’s not the reason you’re here," he stated "You don’t have any other options? Please" He made a face and shook his head once "Ever heard of a little thing called financial aid? How about a su city coffee shops? Oh yeah, and let’s not forget about scholarships"

I didn’t like what he was getting at I liked even less the way itmy eyes, I met his "I Didn’t Have Another Option"

"Bull Shit" Apparently, that was Jesse’s new favorite word Appropriate given he spent the ot as nore theh laundry rooht," I seethed "There is ‘so it out Discovery of the decade" I clapped at hiain, Jesse’s expression didn’t change Nothing I said or did see so hard into hme away, and the reason you’ve probably pushed everyone else away, is also the reason you’re here" Stepping into uessed was sadness "You think you deserve this You think you deserve to be alone and suffer You’ve convinced yourself you’re so worthless that you’ve gone to the extreme to punish yourself You think you deserve a life of ly tears I really didn’t want hiaway fro "And leave hed, then followed the first part of my directions After the laundry rooot down on my hands and knees to pray to whoever and whatever that he wouldn’t follow the last part of my directions

Chapter Four

If a brain could shrivel up and die fro out the rest of its days as a pruney, gray raisin I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Jesse dropped that bo about what he’d said How had a teenage guy figured out what I worked hard to ignore? All in the span of a couple of conversations?

I came up e as having no ansorrying about what those answersI’d done to build the eighteen-year-old girl equivalent of the Berlin Wall been nothing more than a house of cards? Was Jesse Walker theto have ever walked the face of the earth? Was he psychic?

I felt awhen the door to the laundry room opened a while later

"Oh, honey Have you been in here the whole ti the rooned you laundry room duty, I didn’t expect you to clean the actual room top to bottom"

I dued "I finished up with the laundry a couple of hours ago," I guessed The concept of time had escaped ured I’d keep going"

Rose chuckled "I doubt this room has been this clean since the day it was built a hundred years ago"

I slid the bucket back beneath the sink, finally feeling tired It had taken about thirty loads of laundry, a hardcore cleaning of an entire room, and a loaded conversation with Jesse, but exhaustion finally creeped into my veins

"Don’t tell my mom I kno to clean It’ll ruin her whole world outlook"

Rose took a few steps inside the roo of yourline "I just got off the phone with her I guess she hasn’t heard back froot in yesterday, and she orried"