Chapter 4

"Since you won't learn from what I teach you, I'll let the law teach you how to be a decent person."

Something inside me went hollow.

I knelt on the floor, begging without pause. "Mom, if I go in, my whole life is ruined. Just drop the case. I'll do anything you want, anything. Please don't do this to me."

I moved too hard, and fluid seeped from my ear again.

Red blood ran down the curve of my ear and dripped onto the floor. The officer shot up from her chair. "Why is your ear bleeding?"

She reached to pull me up, but I didn't dare stand. I kept knocking my forehead against the ground.

My mother's eyelid twitched, and her foot lifted forward, half a step, before she caught herself.

Just when I thought her heart might be softening, she smiled instead, as if she'd seen right through me.

"You thought I was going to help you up?"

"Jasmine, so you'd claw your own ear open to make me pity you, just to dodge your punishment? You've dragged our shame all the way to the Police Department. Are you trying to disgust me on purpose?"

Her face was cold as she turned to the officer, her tone leaving no room to negotiate.

"Officer Dawson, wrong is wrong. If every mistake could be forgiven with a few pretty words, then what would be the point of the law?"

"I'll say it plainly right now. If you don't convict my daughter, I'll file a complaint against all of you for deliberately shielding a criminal."

The officer had no choice. She picked up the statement and walked out.

My mother left, and I was told to wait in the main hall.

While I sat there, officers passing by couldn't hold back their sympathy.

"A state valedictorian, a 2380. What kind of mother sends a daughter like that away over one glass of mango juice grabbed by mistake?"

"Right? A daughter that outstanding. Why couldn't she have been born to me? I'd treasure her like the apple of my eye."

The officer who'd taken the statement came back and brought me a boxed meal packed full of meat.

"Sweetheart, eat something. Don't worry, it'll still be a few days before the case is officially filed. Go home and talk to your uncle and your cousin, and try to work things out with your mother. As long as they're willing to step forward and explain for you, the case can still be withdrawn."

I didn't take the meal, but I thanked her.

On the way home, I dug out of my pocket the silk scarf I'd bought for my mother.

It was the one she'd stopped in front of again and again at the department store, unable to look away.

I'd bought it with every cent I'd saved and every dollar from my summer job.

I clutched it tight in my hand.

I remembered that line. "You are the greatest pride of my life."

And that faint, tiny sliver of hope rose in me again.

But I never expected that the moment I got home, my mother would be standing there with a kitchen knife pressed to her own throat.

My uncle and his family had arrived at some point, their faces drained white with fear.

"Sis, what are you doing? Put the knife down!"

My cousin was young, and she'd already burst into frightened tears behind my uncle.

My mother didn't budge an inch.

"If any of you dare go to the police station to explain and get Jasmine's case dropped, I'll cut my throat right now."

My uncle stared at her, stunned, unable to believe what he was seeing.

"Sis, have you lost your mind? Jasmine is your own daughter. You're threatening us with your life just to send her to prison?"

"What good does it do you to have her locked up?"

My mother smiled, sure of herself.

"I'm her mother. As if I'd ever hurt her."

"Lock her up a few days to reflect, then I'll go withdraw the case and she'll be out. Do you really think I'd let her serve time?"

"Why can't a single one of you understand the good I mean for her?"

My uncle was nearly out of his mind, realizing for the first time just how ignorant of the law his sister truly was.

"Once a case is filed, it's not so easy to withdraw. Sis, if Jasmine goes in, that's a stain for life. It leaves a record. Any path into public service is gone the moment it hits her background check, and Ashford University would never take a criminal either."