Page 68 of The Bad Boyfriend Curse
I end up spending the rest of the day in my room taking pictures of Rosie and editing them on my computer, which is actually more engrossing than I thought it would be. Photography has always been my favorite way to calm my worries, and pet photography requires a lot of focus. But I was able to get some great pictures. Heck, if my architecture dreams fall through because of this mess, I can probably make a living as a pet photographer. I feel nauseous at the thought of giving up my dreams. This curse really is ruining my life.
Mom doesn’t call me down for dinner, but when I smell spaghetti, I go downstairs. She and Jason are eating at the dining table, but she doesn’t say a word to me at all. Jason glances at me, but Mom ignores me completely. I make myself a plate of food and take it up to my room. I check my email, and Sadie has messaged me, but only to tell me that Noah hasn’t responded. He leaves all her texts on read.
Maybe his dad took his phone? Or his brother did? Or maybe he wants nothing to do with me anymore. Maybe he decided that my family and I are too much to deal with. Ormaybe he never really loved me andwasusing me. A prickle stings behind my eyes.
No, I’m spiraling. I trust him. He wasn’t playing me. That’s not who Noah is.
Sunday is pretty much the same as Saturday. No word from Noah. Mom and Jason don’t speak to me. Sadie emails a few times, telling me to hang in there. She’s been talking to her parents, hoping they’ll convince my mother to let me out of this house arrest. She has also asked around for any gossip about the Jacobs family but hasn’t heard anything. She and Liv even went to Donut Den for me, but no one there—including Clara—had seen or heard from Noah all weekend.
By Monday morning nothing has changed. Mom doesn’t say a word to me when I go down for breakfast. She’s wearing her tennis clothes, so I assume she has a lesson at the club. I wonder how long we’re going to keep up this silent treatment. And I wonder why she doesn’t send me home to Toronto if she doesn’t care at all if I’m here or not.
But I can’t go home now. Not without talking to Noah. He’s probably at CROP right now. What are they all doing? Are they finishing the decorative painting on the bandstand? Maybe planting some perennials around the base like we planned. Is he goofing off with Ash? Is Kennedy in one of her excitable moods, or is she grumpy? It’s officially the last week of CROP, and I hate that I’m missing it. Which is funny, considering how much I didn’t want to be there in the first place. I wonder if any of them miss me.
I pick up Rosie, and she starts purring right away. “You’ll actually miss me if I leave, won’t you?”
She purrs louder, and I bury my face in her soft fur.
Later in the afternoon someone knocks on my door. “Meera!” Mom yells.
I open the door, holding my cat.
“Sadie’s here to see you,” Mom says before turning and walking away.
“I thought I was grounded,” I say. “You said no one was allowed to come see me.”
She doesn’t turn around as she walks down the stairs. “I said no friends. Sadie isfamily. She’s in the kitchen.”
Maybe Noah finally responded to Sadie?
Still holding on to Rosie, I rush down the stairs and go straight to the kitchen. Mom’s at the stove, cooking something. Sadie is sitting at the breakfast bar, and she looks upset. Worried.
“Hey, Sadie. Want to go up—”
“You can only talk to her with me in the room,” my mother says. “Since I know how much you love hiding things from me.”
I exhale. I guess talking to her with my mother here is better than not talking to her at all. I put Rosie down and sit on a stool.
“Meera, I’m so sorry,” Sadie says first. “I had no idea she was doing this.”
I frown. Who the heck is she talking about? “What do you mean? Who did what?”
She gasps, her eyes widening with realization. “You haven’t seen it.” She glances at my mother. “It’s Kaitlyn. She and her father wrote an op-ed inThe Cherrybridge Daily.About… you. And Uncle Jason. It was posted this afternoon.” She holds out her phone.
“What?” I say as my mother drops her dishcloth and rushes to my side so she can see the article too. I take the phone from Sadie and read the article, while Mom reads over my shoulder.
“Trusting the Un-Trustable” is the headline, and it’s written by Stuart Chambers and his daughter Kaitlyn. The whole article is about how ridiculous it is that the town is rallying behind Jason LeClair as a mayoral candidate. After a few paragraphs about Jason LeClair having no idea how to run a city because he doesn’t work full-time at LeClair Industries (what does that have to do with anything?) and how the family is too liberal to look out for the town’s interests, it starts talking about Mom and me.
Basically it implies that Jason married my mother only for virtue signaling, and that my mother and I are as duplicitous as Jason is. It states that I have a criminal record and have been spending my days in Cherrybridge with other juvenile delinquents completing court-ordered community service. And it goes on to say that I’ve beenpretendingto date a troubled local boy to upset my family. It gives Noah’s full name, says he also has a criminal record, and says he comes from a family of drug addicts. They then say they’ve heard that Noah is following in his father’s and older brother’s footsteps when it comes to substance use.
Then it goes on to ask how anyone can trust a LeClair to guide this town, and essentially calls us exploitative grifters who will turn Cherrybridge over to criminals and drug addicts.
“Stuart Chambers has a lot of nerve,” Mom says. Her voice is shaking. “He’s made it clear many times that he doesn’t think I belong here.”
Suddenly I remember the name.Stuartwas the old white man who wanted to stop me and Noah from going to that first party at the club. The one who wasracistabout Mom’s name. That was Kaitlyn’s father? Bile rises from my stomach.
“I’m sorry, Meera and Aunt Neelam,” Sadie says. She sounds like she’s about to cry. “I had no idea Kaitlyn would do this.”
“But… why?” I ask, voice shaking. “Kaitlyn’s dad is racist, but why does Kaitlyn hate me so much?”
