Chapter Forty Five - A Spark In The Dark

Jackson leaned back against the rough bark of the tree, arms crossed tightly, jaw clenched. The wind rustled the leaves overhead, but it did nothing to quiet the storm brewing inside him.

He didn't even need to look up to know Ashley was coming. Her footsteps—soft, steady—always found him, even when he didn't know what he was looking for himself.

She settled beside him without a word at first. "Something's wrong." she said after a pause. "You've got that quiet anger thing going on again."

Jackson gave a dry laugh, but it didn't sound like amusement. "You always know, huh?"

Ashley tilted her head. "I listen."

Silence stretched for a beat. Then he exhaled sharply and said, "I skipped school again."

Ashley didn't react with surprise or judgment. "Why?"

He stared out at nothing, voice tightening. "Because I couldn't face another day of pretending. I couldn't sit in a classroom, raise my hand, do the work, come home, and have no one ask me how it went. No one notices."

He rubbed his palms over his jeans, his movements agitated. "My mom's so obsessed with me getting into the right university when it's time, looking like the perfect kid—but she never actually sees me. Not really. It's all... expectations and schedules and surface-level praise if I check the right boxes."

Ashley remained quiet, letting him unravel.

"I act out, I skip school, I blow off classes... and a part of me hates that I do it. But the other part... the other part just wants her to look up. To notice. To care." His voice cracked. 

Ashley reached out and gently took his hand, grounding him.

"I don't think you want to disappoint her.." she said softly.

"I don't." he said quickly. "God, I don't. I want to make her proud so badly it hurts. I want her to see me and not just the version of me she made up in her head. But... when I try to be that perfect kid, it's like I disappear. So I mess up, because then at least I'm real to her."

His voice dropped into something fragile. "It's like... being punished would be better than being ignored."

Ashley's heart ached at the honesty in his voice. "That's a lot to carry, Jackson."

"I know." He rubbed his eyes. "I don't want to be angry at her. I just want her to give a damn about more than my grades or how we look to people. I want her to ask me if I'm okay. I want her to notice when I'm not."

Ashley moved closer, her fingers threading with his. "You deserve that. And it's not your fault she doesn't give it."

He looked at her, his walls beginning to falter. "I don't know how to stop trying, even when I know it's pointless."

"You don't have to stop wanting it." she said. "You just have to stop blaming yourself for not getting it."

He swallowed hard, her words hitting somewhere deep. "That's... easier said than done."

"I know." she said, voice warm. "But you're not alone in it anymore."

The tension in him shifted—still there, but loosened by the way she saw him without needing him to prove anything. He leaned in, guided not by desperation, but by connection. Their lips met, slow and sincere, the kiss charged with emotion—not a fix, but a beginning.

When they pulled back, their foreheads pressed together, and he felt his heart slow for the first time all day.

Once he arrived home, the front door clicked shut behind Jackson with a dull thud, muffled slightly by the polished hardwood beneath his sneakers. The silence that greeted him was too familiar—sharp, clean, almost sterile. The kind of quiet that didn't comfort, just reminded you that no one was waiting for you. No welcome home, no questions about his day, no warmth.

Just stillness.

The faint scent of lemon polish clung to the air, as if someone had just wiped down the countertops for the third time that day. Everything was in its place. Too perfect, too untouched. As if no one really lived here—just performed the idea of family for the outside world to see.

Jackson wandered into the kitchen, the soft creak of the floorboards the only sound. His eyes landed immediately on the folded note on the island counter. White cardstock. His mother's stationary. Her precise cursive, looped and elegant like everything else about her.

He swallowed.

Jackson — We need to talk when we get home. Please don't go out.

—Mom & Dad.

He didn't need a second guess to know what it was about. The school had probably called again. Another absence. Another missed lecture. Another red flag. He felt it in his stomach—the shame curling tight, hot, like a second heartbeat.

They always talked after the damage had been done. Never before. Never during. Only once things were too late.

He crumpled the note in his fist and tossed it toward the trash. It bounced off the rim and landed on the floor. He didn't bother picking it up.

He turned toward the stairs, needing to escape, needing to get to his room where he could breathe, even just for a moment. But halfway to the second step, a voice froze him in place.

"Why are you home? Shouldn't you be in school?"

His body stiffened.

There, seated in her usual place at the edge of the hallway in an antique armchair that looked like it belonged in a museum, sat his grandmother—. Regal, rigid, and cold as the marble busts she admired in her estate catalogs. Her silver hair was wound tight in a bun. Pearls hung perfectly at her collar. Even her posture was pristine, as if slouching might let a drop of real life in.

Jackson sighed, not turning to face her. "Not now, grandma."

But Cece Rhodes didn't believe in mercy. Especially not for a boy like him.

"Skipped school again, didn't you?" she said, voice cool and lined with disdain. "Do you enjoy humiliating your mother and father?"

He said nothing. Just took another step toward the stairs.

She rose, slowly, deliberately, the clicking of her heels on the wooden floor punctuating each word.

"She works so hard to raise this family's reputation. And you—you undo it all. One reckless, selfish day at a time."

He stopped at the base of the stairs and turned, fists balled at his sides. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough." she replied, coming to stand opposite him. "I know that you're lazy. That you crave attention like a child. That you're dragging this family down with your drama."

His jaw clenched. "I'm not doing this for attention."

"No?" She raised a perfectly plucked brow. "Then why else? You're certainly not trying to succeed. You think this behavior makes you interesting? Deep? Cool?"

"Your mother sees everything." his grandmother said sharply. "You just don't give her anything worth being proud of."

That hit like a slap. He staggered a step back, the air sucked from his lungs.

He'd always wanted to please his mom. He wanted her to look at him the way she used to when he was a kid—like he mattered. Like he was enough. But the older he got, the more invisible he became. Everything he did felt like screaming into a void.

He skipped school because when he did, at least someone noticed. At least someone called. At least someone cared.

"She only notices me when I mess up." he muttered.

His grandmother scoffed. "Because that's all you ever do, Jackson."

Something snapped inside him.

Her expression hardened into stone. "Your mother has sacrificed everything for this family."

There was a pause. And then her voice, sharper than ever.

"You don't deserve to be a Baldwin."

The words hung in the air like poison.

Jackson blinked, stunned.

His voice was low now, shaking. "I'm not broken."

"But you are." she said with cold certainty. "And if you won't fix yourself, we'll send you somewhere that will. A place where they deal with boys like you. Where they teach you discipline. Respect. How to be proper."

Jackson's heart was pounding now. A distant ringing filled his ears. Something primal took over. Flight. That was all he could think. He couldn't stay. Not here. Not with her venom curling into his soul like rot.

He turned and ran upstairs, two steps at a time, slamming his bedroom door behind him.

His room was the only space he could claim as his own. Posters on the wall. Art supplies scattered across his desk. His bed unmade, the blankets messy and real. It wasn't much, but it was his.

Not for long.

He grabbed his duffel bag from the closet and yanked it onto the bed. His hands were trembling as he stuffed it with whatever he could find—hoodies, jeans, t-shirts, socks, his worn sneakers. He dug through his drawer and found the small sketchbook he kept hidden beneath old school papers. That came too. And his phone charger. His headphones. A half-eaten granola bar.

It wasn't enough, but it would have to be.