Villain’s Favorite 56

 

Chapter 56 Phoebe Pearson 

Maya denied it immediately. “I wasn’t leaving. I was just going to get some water.” 

“You don’t have a cup.” 

Maya smiled. “I can drink straight from the dispenser. Want to watch?” 

Phoebe said nothing, her eyes still red as she kept wiping at tears. 

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Maya let out a breath and sat back down. 

“Are you going to the dining hall?” 

This girl had never seemed to go to lunch. 

“No.” Phoebe’s voice was very small. “They’ll be mean to me.” 

“Who’s being mean to you?” Maya scratched her head. 

Phoebe didn’t answer. She just kept crying quietly. 

Maya tried again. “What about your friends?” 

“I don’t have any.” 

“Oh.” Maya stumbled over that. She was somehow making this worse. 

“Honestly, the greatest ones are always alone,” she told her with complete seriousness, like she was passing down hard-earned wisdom. “Solitude is completely normal.” 

Maya herself didn’t have many friends either. 

Phoebe’s crying cut off. She looked at Maya sideways. 

Is this girl serious right now? 

Maya looked at her, thin and small and genuinely pitiful, and decided she’d do one good deed. She dug through her bag, found the bread Alfred had brought her that morning, and held it out. 

“Have something to tide you over. And if the dining hall isn’t working for you, you can just bring your own food and eat in the classroom from now on.” 

Phoebe got anxious around crowds and had developed a habit of retreating to quiet corners. Skipping lunch entirely had become her default. 

Maya understood it. Being singled out and isolated meant every visible moment, whether alone in the dining hall or standing by yourself during free periods, became its own kind of weight on a young person. 

Phoebe hesitated for a moment and reached out gently to take it, her fingers briefly closing around Maya’s hand in the process. She thanked her in a whisper. 

Alfred came back from lunch just in time to see the exchange. 

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Chapter 56 Phoebe Pearson 

He recognized the bread immediately. That was the one he’d brought for Maya this morning. 

The corner of his mouth dropped by a noticeable margin. 

Maya spotted him and waved him over. “Hey.” 

Alfred stepped forward and said flatly, “That was my bread. You gave her my bread.” 

Maya deflected with immediate energy. “You stuff so much into my bag every morning, I’m running out of space. I’m basically a storage unit.” 

He didn’t let it go. “You actually gave her my bread.” 

Maya manually pushed the corners of his mouth upward with her fingers into a vague approximation of a smile. “I’ll buy you another one after school.” 

“Two,” Alfred countered without blinking. 

He never came out of anything at a loss. 

“Fine, two.” Maya ruffled his head, and for a split second she got the feeling she was dealing with Lawrence all over again. 

Alfred’s mouth finally curved upward, fractionally. 

Phoebe listened to the two of them go back and forth, her fingers pressing tightly around the bread wrapper, her head tilting down so her bangs covered most of her face. 

She thought with cool precision that he was an absolutely shameless little food hoarder, asking for two when one wasn’t even gone yet. 

Harmony International School ran exams early. Even at the elementary level, the students dealt with in- class tests and monthly assessments. 

The children of the wealthy had been competing since preschool. When results came back, Maya landed just above the middle of the rankings. 

She had no particular attachment to academic performance. Somewhere solidly unremarkable was exactly where she wanted to be. 

Five students scored perfect marks. Alfred was one of them. 

Nobody was surprised. 

Jenny had scored somewhere close to Maya, solidly middle of the pack. She was already chewing her lip and spiraling before the sheet was even fully read. 

“I’m done. They’re going to cut my allowance for this.” 

She kept flipping the results over in her hands. “And the parent conference is coming up.” She let out a low, pained sound. “My mom is absolutely going to tear into me.” 

Maya wasn’t worried about the grade itself. A different part of the situation was occupying her entirely. 

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Chapter 56 Phoebe Pearson 

“Parent conference?” 

She’d never attended school in her previous life, and she’d nearly forgotten this was a thing. 

“Yeah. 

Fairhed 

“Every exam cycle comes with one. Though honestly, it’s almost beside the point because most parents are too busy to come. Usually it’s whoever manages the household showing up instead.” 

Jenny was planning to send the family’s housekeeper. 

Jenny had that option. Maya was stuck sending actual parents. 

She looked at the results sheet in her hand and placed it over her face, her expression serene. 

“I’ll be withdrawing from school that day.” 

“What? A parent conference is going to destroy your whole world?” Jenny covered her mouth, laughing. 

“Pretty much.” Maya stared distantly at nothing. 

Thomas had never missed one of Kaia’s school events from the time she was small. He’d been consistent about that much. 

Maya could only send her mother. 

She didn’t even want to imagine what would happen when her mother and Thomas ended up in the same 

room. 

Thomas wasn’t unobservant. If he took a close look, he’d pick up on how much she and Lawrence resembled each other. And if he actually bothered to look into the adoption records, their family’s peaceful existence would be over. 

The possibility settled into her chest like cold water. 

With that quiet, reluctant dread pushing her forward, Maya got up and went to find Kaia herself, which was something she would never ordinarily do. “Is your dad coming to the conference next week?” 

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This Time. III Be the Villain’s Favorite Daughter