After my dad and I parted ways, I fled upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom to FaceTime with Zac. He picked up right away. His face lit up the moment he saw me. "Hey, babygirl! I was just about to call you... I miss you."

Seeing his handsome smiling face on the small rectangular screen of my phone comforted me. Despite everything weighing on my mind at the moment, I couldn't help smiling back. "Hey, baby! Miss you, too."

My happiness waned as I recounted all of the not-so-pleasant news I needed to share with him.

His brow wrinkled. "Oh, no. Did something happen?"

"My dad... didn't go to DC. He was waiting for me when I got home."

Zac's face grew pale with worry. "Fuck! I knew I shouldn't have let you go home alone today."

I tried to calm him down. "It's fine. My dad was upset, as expected, but I'm okay. I survived the interrogation."

From the phone screen, I saw Zac stand up and start moving around his studio. He grabbed his car keys. "Do you want me to come over and get you?"

"Right now?"

"Fuck, yeah."

I wanted nothing more than to run into Zac's arms, but I also didn't want him to come over while my dad and Trick were both home. I was afraid for Zac's safety.

"No, don't be silly. Please sit down, baby. You're making me nervous. I just wanna talk to you. Is that okay?"

Zac pouted unhappily. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive."

Reluctantly, he sat back down. "Okay."

"A fair warning, though, it's probably gonna be... a lot... to take in. Please try not to freak out, okay?"

Zac grimaced and raked his fingers through his brown hair in restless motions. "You're scaring me, babygirl."

I chewed on my lip and stared at him through the screen with an apologetic expression. "I'm not trying to."

He offered me a small, tender smile. "I know, baby, I know. Go on, then. Lay it all on me. I'm ready."

"My dad wants me to transfer to a school in DC next semester."

Immediately, Zac's face buckled with agitation. "The fuck? What about our plans? This whole time I've been trying to work over my mom. To convince her to let me stay in Wellesley."

"I know, I warned you it wasn't gonna be pretty," I mumbled.

"Can't you talk him out of it? I'm sure there's a way we can—"

I shook my head regretfully and interjected, "No, baby, you don't know my dad. Once the guy makes up his mind about something, you'd probably have to kill him first before he'll change his decision."

That—and the fucker was dying of cancer.

How could anyone argue with a dying man?

Zac groaned, "Oh, no! Your dad figured out that I was with you today, didn't he? I bet you he's doing this on purpose to get you away from me!"

"You know, that was what I thought at first, too, but now I wonder if he might actually have something else on his agenda."

"What do you mean?"

"For one thing, he wants to withdraw Trick and Bea from Ashton Wellesley as well. Why would he touch them if he was only trying to target me? Not to mention, I think he's planning to sell all of our houses here in Wellesley."

Shock flared across his face. "What? No fucking way! Really?"

This seemed like the right time to drop the C-word on Zac. Yet, my heart and mind were still struggling to come to terms with my dad's illness, so my tongue stumbled over the words as I told him about the tragic situation.

"My dad revealed that... that he was diagnosed with... cancer. It's... bad, like, really bad. Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Last stage. The doctors... they don't think he'll make it... past... a year."

Granted, maybe I was jumping the gun in sharing this news with my boyfriend. After all, I was still waiting on Andrea to email me copies of my dad's medical diagnosis forms, but a part of me—call it a daughter's intuition, if you will—sensed there had to be some truth to his claims. That strange-looking lump on his neck, most likely a swollen lymph node, that I saw with my own eyes was proof enough that something was seriously wrong with my dad's health.

Zac fell silent. A pensive look passed over his features for several moments before he spoke up, "I'm so sorry to hear that, baby."

I shrugged. I felt sad, jaded, and deflated. I didn't know how to respond.

Zac attempted to crack a joke to lighten the mood, though, there was a heaviness in his tone that sucked all the humor from his delivery. "Damn it! Your dad outplayed us on this one. We'll look like a pair of assholes if we go against a cancer patient's last wishes."

"Yeah, my dad checkmated us, for sure," I replied with a shaky sigh, "and, you're absolutely right, the genius of his strategy is that I can't even bring myself to argue with him. He said that he wants to spend more time together, as a fam, in DC before he... before, you know, he..."

My voice trembled. My eyes watered. I couldn't continue.

Fucking hell, I was turning into such a little bitch. Always crying at the drop of a hat.

Zac stared at me anxiously through the screen. Anguish darkened his amber eyes. "Oh, babygirl. I wish I was there to hold you."

"Me, too, baby, me, too," I sniffled. "Honestly, I don't know why I'm wasting tears on the fucker. It's not like we were ever close. I hate him for the way he treated me when I was a kid, and I resent him even more for trying to separate us."

In stoic tones, Zac reminded me, "At the end of the day, he's still your dad. Blood is blood. You're bound to feel something about a sick and dying parent even if he doesn't deserve your love."

For some absurd reason, this comment drew a bark of laughter from my gut, albeit the sound of it was more bitter than sweet. "You sound like a Pinterest quote."

"Or a fortune cookie?" he supplied.

"When did you become such a smartass?"

He gave me a slight grin. "What can I say? I had to step up my game just now. My girl was feeling down. It's my job to make her laugh and feel better."

I smiled gratefully, pining for him already as I considered my pending move to DC. Fall semester would be ending in a little over two weeks. I didn't know if Zac would be able to persuade his mom to let him stay in town. At this point, it almost seemed to make more sense for him to go back to New York if I wasn't going to be at Ashton Wellesley.

"If I end up moving... or if you go back to New York... I guess... we'll be doing long distance until we figure out a way to be together?"

Zac nodded ecstatically. "Hell, yes! We're staying together no matter what. I dunno what the future has in store for us yet, but... I love you, Cate. And I'll love you whether you're in Wellesley, DC, or anywhere else in the fucking world."

His passionate declaration coaxed another smile from me. "I love you, too, baby. So, so, so, so much!"

We stared longingly into each other's eyes for a sweet, sad moment, feeling confident in our love for one another but also depressed in the knowledge that our days of seeing each other daily in second hour, and then some, would soon be coming to an end.

Two weeks.

Fourteen days.

That was all we had left.

I straightened up and put on a brave face. With what little mettle I had left, I continued to update Zac on the rest of my conversation with my dad. About how he denied procuring those horrific photos of Mamma for Lily. About how he refused to talk about his dad, Timothy Mazur, even when I grilled him.

I grunted in exasperation when I finally finished my spiel. "Honestly, baby, I don't know what to believe. A part of me feels like my dad is being truthful on some matters—like his cancer diagnosis—but I also can't escape the feeling that he's hiding shit from me. I don't know how to separate the truth from his lies."

A thoughtful crease appeared between Zac's brow. "You know, I'm starting to think that this whole conspiracy with our parents is bigger than either of us could've ever imagined."

I raised my eyebrows in alarm. Immediately, the names of our classmates' parents that had been plastered all over the files and documents from Mr. Sinclair's stolen data surfaced in my mind. I agreed with Zac's theory, but I wanted to know if we were actually referring to the same pieces of information.

I prompted him to elaborate, "What do you mean by that?"

Zac didn't answer me right away. Instead, he walked away briefly from his phone and returned with the silver lockbox that we found in the townhouse.

I gasped when I saw that it was unlocked. There was a black flash drive inside of the box. "How did you manage to get it open?"

Zac grimaced. "This was the other reason I wanted to call you. After I got back my place, I did some research online about the make and model of this particular lockbox and figured out that it required a nine-digit combo. I figured I had nothing to lose if I messed around with it before ordering the equipment to reset the passcode."

"How did you figure out the passcode?"

"It was my dad's social security number."

I gasped again. "What? Are you fucking serious? What gave you the idea to punch in your dad's social security number into my dad's lockbox?"

Zac picked up the lockbox. He held up the bottom of the box to his phone camera. I squinted to take a closer look. It appeared someone's name had been engraved there in very small, discrete lettering: T. MAZUR.

My eyes widened with distress. "Oh, my God."

In a quiet, thoughtful voice, Zac murmured, "I know, right? I think this lockbox might've belonged to my dad. The question we need to answer is—how the fuck did it end up in your dad's townhouse?"