“Oh, really? You’re joking. All I’ve ever wanted to be is a statistic.” I blink at him, wide-eyed and naive.
His eyes narrow. “Come in the front. I’ll leave it unlocked for you so you’re not fumbling with your keys in the dark at night. You can bring your bike in, too. I have to mop the main floor tonight anyway.”
“Yes, Father.” I salute as my phone’s second alarm rings. “I really have to go now, if you’re finished giving me safety tips a kindergartener would know? Believe it or not, I’m not actually a moron.”
“I didn’t call you a moron,” he retorts, crossing his arms.
“No, you just treated me like one,” I snap, buckling my knee pads on, then the elbow ones. “You know, I am capable of reasonable thought, despite what you think.” I plop my helmet on my head, glaring at him.
He frowns. “I know that.”
Right. Sure. “Whatever, Roman,” I mutter, mounting my bike and silencing my third and final alarm. “I have to go. I’ll be back in two hours.”
“Elodie, wait—”
I don’t, putting my feet to the pedals and swerving around him. I don’t even run over his toes as I do it.
And I thought Ruby had the lock on character growth.
Chapter Two
Not Roman being inspiring. Gross.
Elodie
Lights flicker in the Iferous Tech hallways as I walk down them toward the classroom I call home for two hours every Wednesday, and I wonder what sort of safety lectures I would get if Roman could see this place after they close most of it down for the day, leaving only necessary lights on for those of us attending evening or night classes.
Probably I wouldn’t even get a lecture. Probably I’d just get thrown over his oaf-like shoulders and taken off the premises, caveman style.
He’s such a high-handedjerk.
A high-handed jerk who isn’t in front of me right now, though, which means I can take a breath, zen out, and look on the bright side. The very many bright sides, even.
For one, I’m at the beginning of my second semester of business school, and I only have one in-person class this time. Last semester there weren’t as many courses offered online, so I had to be physically present at three classes a week, which is hard to juggle when you have a full-time job and aren’t telling anyone you’ve enrolled in college at the ripe old age of 28. I wouldn’t call it embarrassing, but I would call it not something I want to admit to or talk about, especially when I’m surrounded by genius-level mathematicians and genius-level chefs and genius-leveleveryone, basically, who all went to college in their early twenties, got degrees in their chosen fields,and immediately put them to work.
I know most of the people around me don’t seem bothered by my…me, but I also know what I present as: ditzy blonde girlie pop flitting from hobby to hobby, kissing boys and falling for scams and having not a care in the world as she does it.
And, sure, that’s me. Except for the “not a care in the world” bit. I’mhappy, not carefree. I give strangers my money if I think they might be in a tough spot, and then I go home to stress about whether or not I’ll be able to pay rent. I kiss boys that I think might bethe one, then cry into a pint of ice cream when they are decidedlynot. I try new things, new hobbies, new pastimes, in the hope of filling the thing in my chest that longs forsomethingto fit just right in me, balancing the things that fall too far on the side of “oh, Elodie, that ridiculous girl." Spoiler alert: nothing balances that scale.
I’m just… me. Who I am. Happy, yes, but not stupid enough or smart enough to be content with that happiness. Instead, I’m somewhere in between—in the space where I know I needmore, but I don’t know what thatmoreis.
Which is what brought me here. Totally of my own accord and not because some idiot jerkface boy walks around his kitchen with so much confidence and surety, educated and experienced in a way that put me in reluctant awe and made me think,I want to be like that.
Because I would never ever, ever, ever, ever (and on for eternity), think like that aboutRoman Cameron Vann, of all people.
Except for, you know, maybe that one time.
Not important.
What’s important is that something sparked in me one day, all on its own, with no outside influence—ahem—and that night I locked myself in my room, pulled out my laptop, and emailed the owner of Sweet & Salty about the education program they boaston their NOW HIRING flyers.
“You wanna go back to school?” Cordelia had asked, eyes sharp on me. “Not to be mean, honey, but… are you sure?”
I was, obviously, sure.
“We cover 75 percent of tuition if you go to Iferous Tech,” she told me. “And you get a pay raise for every semester you complete. I can get you the paperwork that lays all that out, if you’re absolutely positive you want to go through with this…”
I assured her I was absolutely positively going to go through with it, and she got me the paperwork. I signed what I needed to sign, wincing as I dug into my savings for the last 25 percent of tuition, then before I knew it, I was at my first day of school.
