They Sacrificed Me to Avoid Favoritism novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Fairness Award

The school posts a statement in Marisol's name and her father orders her onto the stage at his Fairness Award, so she agrees to come, planning to speak, until Lindsey shows up at the door in his jacket.

My grandmother watched the clip standing up, with a dish towel over her shoulder.

She watched it twice.

"Play me the part with the radio again," she said.

Noemi sat cross-legged on the kitchen chair next to me, still pale from the lunch, her glasses pushed up into her curls.

She played it.

"Unit Two is clear and open at the east gate. We have room for one more."

"Take the board chair's wife. She has a headache, and she's been standing in the sun."

My grandmother set down the towel.

"A woman with a headache," she said.

"She was holding a paper fan," Noemi said. "I saw her. She wasn't even on the grass."

"And you got this from a girl in the back row?"

"She's in my chemistry class. She filmed the whole lawn because her dad is the one who sells the school its sandwiches." Noemi shrugged. "She was scared the lunch was her family's fault."

I took a bite of the sweet bread my grandmother had put in front of me and found I could swallow it.

It was the first thing I had eaten since breakfast.

"Is it enough?" I asked. "For people to listen?"

"It's enough for me," my grandmother said. "I don't know about people."

My phone buzzed on the table.

It was the school's account. They had posted a photograph of me from last spring, smiling in my blazer.

Under it was a paragraph.

It said: I'm so grateful for my school family. My father taught me that nobody is above the line. I'm proud to be his daughter.

It was signed with my name.

I read it three times.

"I never wrote that," I said.

"They write what they need," my grandmother said. "Read the comments."

Eight thousand people had liked it.

Under it, the top comment said: This is what real leadership looks like. I wish my principal had half his spine.

Noemi read it over my shoulder and swore in two languages.

"Don't swear in my kitchen," my grandmother said, not very hard.

My phone rang.

Dad.

I let it ring four times, then put it on speaker so that both of them could hear.

"Marisol," my father said. His voice was warm and rested. "I know you're upset. I'm not upset with you."

"You wrote a post in my name."

"The communications office wrote it. It's a gift. It lets everyone move on." He cleared his throat. "Friday morning the district is giving me the Fairness Award in the gym. They'll have a camera there. I want you on stage next to me in your blazer."

"For what?"

"To stand there. To smile. Your mother will be in the second row."

My grandmother put her hand over her mouth.

Noemi mouthed, He cannot be serious.

"And if I don't?" I said.

"Then I'll tell the district you're still ill and not responsible for what you said on that lawn." He said it softly, almost kindly. "It's the easiest thing. You were hypoxic. Everybody understands."

I looked at my grandmother.

She lifted one eyebrow.

I knew what she was asking me. She was asking if I was going to be a girl who hung up, or a girl who answered.

"I'll be there," I said.

"Good girl."

"I'll wear my blazer."

"Good." He sounded relieved. "I knew you'd come around."

He hung up.

For a minute nobody in the kitchen said anything.

"Marisol," my grandmother said. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know all of it yet."

"Start with what you know."

"I know I have the chart from the doctor," I said. "I know I have the clip. I know the whole school will be in the gym, and the district, and the cameras."

"And?"

"And I know he'll hand me the microphone himself," I said. "He wants me to hold it."

Noemi grinned slowly.

"I'll film from the bleachers," she said. "Three phones. I'll borrow two."

"You're still sick," my grandmother said.

"Not that sick."

My grandmother looked at the two of us, at the clip frozen on Noemi's phone and the hospital band still on my wrist, and sighed through her nose.

"I'll make more tea," she said.

She had just filled the kettle when somebody knocked on the front door.

Three quick knocks, a pause, then one more, polite.

Nobody comes to my grandmother's house at nine at night.

She went down the hall with the dish towel still in her hand, and I heard the chain slide.

"Yes?"

A voice I knew said, "I'm sorry to come this late, Mrs. Duran. I brought Marisol's backpack. She left it on the lawn."

I got up and walked to the hall.

Lindsey Howland stood on the porch in my father's navy jacket, holding my backpack in both arms.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend