“Are you okay?”
“No, no, I don’t think I am. They’re just . . . here. They showed up with absolutely no notice. They knew about last night forweeksand . . .”
It’s old news now, the elephant in the room this whole time, the basis for this entire bullshit lie they concocted, and she’s even angrier than she was last night.
“Do you know thatnoneof them apologized for not coming last night. Not one. They just pretended like it never happened. All they wanted to do was talk about you and all I wanted to do is scream at them. All of them.”
“You could do that. If you want. I’ll drive you back right now.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. I’ll just rage-cry and then it’ll be ‘poor pathetic Bianca, she’s sad we didn’t come to her party’. Idon’t want them to feel bad for me. I want them to get what this feels like, to have the most important thing in the world to you get dismissed like it’s nothing.”
“We could . . .”
“What?”
“We could keep it up.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He shakes his head. “You said you want them to understand how you’re feeling. Clearly they think this is more important than you becoming the preeminent expert in your field.”
“Xavier . . .”
“Don’t argue with me, I’m almost a doctor. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, well, Iama doctor and . . .”
“You’re anexpert?”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s more affection in it than genuine frustration with him. She hopes he’s able to tell the difference by now. They’d found themselves assigned to work on projects together over and over again when their professors realized that they had little patience with most of the rest of their classmates. They tended to just run roughshod over everyone else, but when they worked together, they were both so stubbornly attached to being in charge that it was either figure out how to let go or fail.
They chose the former, but she never gave in without rolling her eyes at him at least once.
As for everyone else in their program, they were more than happy to let them keep banging their heads together rather than have to deal with either of them.
“Come on, boss, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“When I come clean to my family and friends, they hate me forever.”
“You know that’s not gonna happen. Listen, maybe they fucked up, but they clearly love you. They just . . .”
“Don’t understand me.”
“So you do what you do best. You teach them. You’re a great teacher. I’ve seen you.”
“Okay, so if we do this, which I’m still not agreeing to, what’s in it for you?”
“What?”
“I don’t get why you’re agreeing to this. This isn’t just my sister and friends; this would be like . . . public and long-term. I don’t understand.”
“Maybe I just feel like helping out a friend.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine! You really want to know?”
A surge of triumph flutters in her chest. She knew she was right. “Yeah, I do.”
