Chapter 3

Niall frowned. "What did you say?" He was still trying to process when Kendra came sprinting down the hall. "Niall! We've got a problem with Sample Three!" Niall whipped around to her. "What happened?" Kendra grabbed his sleeve. "The readings just blew past the threshold. You need to see this!" He glanced back at Jasmine, his tone even. "The data's urgent. We'll talk after I take care of this." Before Jasmine could answer, he took off after Kendra, striding down the hall. Jasmine stayed where she was, watching them disappear down the hall, her face blank. She wasn't surprised. Niall always put everything else ahead of her, and "we'll talk" was usually code for never. Anyway, he never lifted a finger for the wedding. He just covered the costs. She'd said what she needed to say, and that was as far as her responsibility went. Jasmine had already put their house up for sale, and she'd given up the apartment she'd rented a long time ago. It was only now sinking in that she had nowhere left to go. … Half an hour later, Jasmine stopped outside an apartment. Her mother, Helen Jones, opened the door. The moment she saw Jasmine, her face lit up with a smile that was a little too eager. "Jasmine? Why are you home so suddenly? Where's Niall? Didn't he come up with you?" Jasmine turned sideways and slipped past her into the apartment, her voice flat. "He didn't come." On the couch in the living room, her father, Gary Chetney, and her younger brother, Jay Chetney, were sprawled in front of the TV, feet up on the coffee table. Gary looked up at the sound of her voice, peering over her shoulder. "Where's Professor Shepherd? Parking downstairs or something?" "We broke up." The room went dead quiet. Gary's smile disappeared. He shot up from the couch, his voice rising fast. "What did you say? You broke up? What the hell do you mean, you broke up?" "It means the engagement's off. He doesn't have anything to do with me anymore," Jasmine said, her voice empty. Gary lashed out and kicked the glass coffee table over. The fruit plate and cups crashed to the floor, shattering everywhere. Hot coffee splashed over Jasmine's calf, the heat searing into her skin. A vein pulsed at Gary's temple as he jabbed a finger in her face. "You ungrateful brat! I raised you for nothing. Do you have any idea who Niall is? People would kill for a guy like him, and you just throw him away?" Jay lounged back, ankle over his knee, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he said, "Jasmine, I'm just being honest here. Professor Shepherd is in a league of his own, and everyone around him is top-tier. "And I heard Kendra from his lab is actually his advisor's daughter. Those two are what you'd call a perfect match." He snorted and gave her a once-over. "Seriously, what do you have besides your looks? You getting him in the first place was pure luck. If you had any self-awareness, you'd stop making a scene and just suck it up. "Guys mess around. It happens. Now that you dumped him, who's supposed to pay for my wedding? You're basically screwing me over!" Jasmine took in the three faces in front of her, twisted and ugly now that everything they'd wanted had gone up in smoke. Their words cut deep, and the burn in her calf flared, but it was nothing next to the ache in her chest. So this was the place she called home. She had once hoped for the tiniest bit of warmth from this family, even if it was fake. Most of what she earned vanished into the bottomless pit of her family's needs. It paid for Jay's no-name college, the "retirement fund" Gary and Helen kept asking for, the down payment on a new place for them, and whatever else they suddenly "needed". Jasmine emptied herself until she was numb, hanging on to one last, pathetic hope buried deep in her chest. Then Niall proposed, and her family flipped overnight. They started calling more, their voices suddenly warm, and sometimes they even acted as if they cared whether she was exhausted. She had actually been naive enough to believe love had finally come around and that Gary and Helen had finally realized she was worth something. Now the illusion had finally shattered, and the truth stared her in the face. Her family had never cared about her. All they had ever wanted was what she could get from Niall. Jasmine said nothing. She ignored the burn in her calf, grabbed her suitcase from the wall, and went straight for the door. "Where do you think you're going? We say a couple of things, and you think you're too good for this now? Fine. Go! But don't come crawling back. Let's see who still gives a damn about you then!" Jasmine slammed the door, cutting off the noise behind her. The motion-sensor light in the dingy stairwell flickered on and off. She leaned against the wall and drew in a long breath. All that space in the world, and she still had nowhere to go.