Page 6 of Old Money

“Thirty-three students and staff members were killed,” he whispers. “The gunman…he killed himself in the middle of the quad. Police are still searching campus for students and staff who were locked down and didn’t get word of the all-clear. They’re also still searching for…victims. So far, classes are canceled for the next week.”

I bite my lip, then I look down at my phone. No new messages.

“I’m so sorry I have to go,” he says as he steps toward me. I force a smile and wave him off.

“Please,” I say, “you have done so much for me. You don’t owe us any of this, seriously.”

He reaches out and gently takes my hand in his.

“Please stop saying that, Sawyer. Please,” he says. I swallow again. “Have something to eat, and then go get your mom. I’ll be in touch.”

I smile faintly back at him, but as he turns away, I feel myself reach out and grab his hand. He freezes, looking down at them for a moment, then our eyes meet again before he walks to the elevator with Tyler behind.

An hour later,I’m waiting anxiously at the gate at JFK for my mom’s flight. I’ve tracked it every five seconds, watching the flight number pop up on the screens over and over again. And then finally, when I see her walking through, I melt. I run to her and let myself become a puddle again while she holds me. I take in her familiar touch, her smell, the way she cradles me like I’m a baby.

I don’t care who is around. I don’t care who’s watching. I just care that my mom is here.

Finally, I get it together enough that we walk out the doors toward the car. Tyler is behind us, carrying her bag, and he opens the door for us. I don’t have anything of my own, just a bag packed with the clothes that Julian bought me.

My mom and I hold hands the entire way from the airport to the hotel.

We get to the hotel, and Tyler walks us in and checks us in at the desk. We say our goodbyes, and then Mom and I go up to our suite—another penthouse, I might add—change into the robes, and lie in bed, watching movies. She scratches my head as I lie in her lap.

“I can’t believe he paid for us to stay here,” she says. “He’s so kind.”

I sigh.

“I know. I feel so guilty about it,” I say.

“I know, honey. But I would have done anything to get here as fast as possible.”

My phone has pinged sporadicallyall day. Spencer is with his parents back in New Hampshire. He knows that the rugby team also made it, because they were off campus at a match.

Maddie called me around noon. She had been locked in a weight room with some of her friends for six hours before the police came to clear them. She’s back in New Jersey with her family. But there’s one more thing.

She heard that the gunman had gone into Lex Hall. My dorm. Where I live with Lucy.

Lucy.

Maddie hasn’t heard from her either.

We tell each other we love each other. We say our goodbyes.

I hang up the phone, and then I collapse back on the bed, tears endlessly streaming down my face.

I don’t know, but I do know.

I’m never going to see her again.

JULIAN

It’s been three days since Tyler dropped Sawyer and her mom at the hotel. And it’s been three minutes since I’ve last thought about her.

On the outside, she looked and seemed so helpless. Nothing to her name. Completely traumatized.

But then when I spoke to her mom, I realized how fucking tough she was. She was going to go through one of the biggest mass murder events in recent history and carry on with life as usual. She told her mom not to come because she knew she couldn’t afford it. She didn’t have her purse, her wallet, her phone, but she told me not to pay for anything.

And it made me want to do it all that much more.

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