"Taking a taxi is not bad enough, but couldn’t you have tried to dress up?"
From the moment I stepped out of the car, their taunts came at me like arrows, sharp and unrelenting. If an outsider had witnessed this scene, they’d think I was their sworn enemy rather than an old classmate.
Thorne strode up with a slow, deliberate air, his smirk brimming with mockery. He clapped a hand on my shoulder, the weight of ridicule pressing down with it.
"Come work at my company," he said smoothly. "I don’t have a good position for you, but I could let you be a janitor. At least then, I’d make sure you finally own a car, just so you can say you’re one of us."
"Or maybe you should track down your ex-girlfriend. Lilith is a Lawson opera master now, rolling in wealth. Who knows? She might just let you drive a luxury car for once."
Rowan, Thorne’s ever-loyal shadow, wasted no time piling onto the mockery.
Lilith…
She was the girl I had admired for three years in high school. We were never officially together, but there had been something, an unspoken understanding, a quiet kind of encouragement. Maybe there had been ambiguity, but more than that, we had pushed each other forward.