They Chose Their Adopted Daughter, So the Real Heiress Walked Out novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Forty-One Dollars

Talia takes a cot in Caleb's garage gym, refuses Clark's polite deal, and learns the Weatherfords have defunded her class.

Caleb's garage sat behind a row of rented storage units on the east side of Marlow.

He rolled the door up with one hand and turned on a string of work lights.

Inside there were two heavy bags, a strip of blue mats, a row of folding chairs and a cot with a gray army blanket.

"My grandfather ran a boxing gym here for forty years," he said. "I keep it open on Saturdays for kids. The rest of the week it's empty."

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you said you don't know where you're going, and I have a cot."

I stood in the doorway holding a plastic hospital bag with my torn clothes in it.

My ribs hurt every time I breathed in.

"I can't pay you."

"I didn't ask you to."

"I'm not taking a cot for free."

He looked at me for a moment, and then he looked at the bags.

"Saturday morning I have eleven kids between nine and fourteen, and I'm one guy. I box. I can't teach them to fall."

"I can teach them to fall," I said.

"I thought you might. You walked out of that hospital like someone who'd been taught how."

"Then that's the rent. Saturdays."

"Deal," he said. "Not this Saturday. You have three cracked ribs."

"They're not cracked."

"The scan says three."

"Fine. Next Saturday."

He nodded and handed me a clean T-shirt from the shelf. It said Devlin's Gym in cracked letters across the chest.

I slept on the cot for eleven hours.

When I woke up, it was Sunday, and there was a man in a navy suit standing in the garage door with the sunlight behind him.

Clark had never looked comfortable in a place with oil stains on the floor.

He looked at the cot, at the shirt I was wearing and at the mats.

"Talia. You can't live in a garage."

"I've lived in worse."

"In the mountains, with that old man. Yes. That was a different situation."

He said it gently.

"I'm not here to fight. I want to fix this."

"Okay."

"Come home tonight. Dinner at seven. You say a few words to Chloe, nothing long. She's been crying since yesterday and Mom wants it settled. Then the cards come back, and your tuition, and your room."

"A few words."

"An apology."

"For what?"

He checked his watch.

"For making a scene in a hospital hallway in front of staff. For frightening her. Nobody is asking you to say you were wrong about the blood."

"Because I wasn't."

"Because it doesn't matter anymore."

I sat up on the cot and put my feet on the cold floor.

"Clark, I want you to say it. Say Eli chose Chloe because Chloe is more family to you than I am."

"That isn't what happened."

"Then say what happened."

He was quiet for a second too long.

"A decision was made in an emergency. It was one unit of blood."

"And it didn't go to me."

"Talia."

"No," I said. "I'm not coming to dinner, and I'm not apologizing. Tell Mom."

He nodded slowly, which with Clark does not mean yes.

"You'll want to think about it," he said. "Mom doesn't like to be told no. She's already pulling things, as a courtesy to you. I'd hate to see it spread."

"What things?"

"I'd rather she told you herself."

He left. Caleb had been standing behind the second bag with his arms folded the whole time, and he hadn't said a word.

"You heard that," I said.

"I did."

"What would you do?"

"I'd go to class tomorrow," Caleb said. "Whatever she's pulling, that's the first place she'd reach."

I almost laughed.

The Bridge Cohort is the only reason I'm in college at all.

There are twelve of us, tested below the line for freshman classes.

We get one extra year and one instructor.

The scholarship that pays for it has the Weatherford Foundation's name on every page.

I borrowed a coat and a bus pass from Caleb and went to class on Monday morning.

I had three cracked ribs and a bad feeling.

A sheet of paper was taped to the classroom door.

The dean had signed it.

At the end of this term, the Weatherford Foundation withdraws its funding for the Bridge Cohort.

The program closes unless the cohort passes the proficiency exam.

Below that, in pen, someone had written a name.

Mine.

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