Page 3 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

Then I’ll give in to Dr. Grier and have the operation.

Or I won’t.

None of it really matters to me anymore.

“You were always going to have to face Lucas eventually.” Brody’s voice is tinged with something I can’t quite identify. There’s an anxious burst of pen-tapping from his end before he clears his throat. “I was waiting for the right time, but⁠—”

I’m in front of Engineering VI, a building designed for interdisciplinary research and which looks like a mishmash of red brick and glass enclosures. Abe fought to get a ground-floor office and then immediately designed it to look exactly like his old space.

“Is everything okay?”

“With me? Of course. This is about you⁠—”

I cut him off because the last thing I want to do is wallow in my own problems—or worse, drag Brody down with me. “Then let’s just talk later.”

And by later, I mean sometime after our sun expands into a red giant.

Or never.

Whichever comes first.

There’s a small pause before Brody asks, a bit cryptically, “You know I’d never share your secrets, right?”

“Of course.”

“And that loyalty has been extended to other extremely close friends as well.”

“Sure?” It’s such a weird thing to say, and not at all like Brody to beat around the bush with me. “And, I’m assuming, every client.”

There’s another pause, another burst of tap-tap-tapping.

“Good luck.” Brody’s tone is strained before he hangs up.

I shake my head and knock on Abe’s door; I’ll text Brody about it later. Hopefully, he’s just stressed about the upcoming wedding. Maybe he needs to check in about coordinating tuxedos or something else his bougie, definitely-going-to-be-covered-by-the-press wedding will likely demand.

“Enter.”

It’s only after I open the door that Brody’s words make sense, that I realize I’m not the only extremely close friend still location-sharing with Brody. Because the man who stands to greet me is not whatever guest speaker we’d initially advertised—someone whose name I’d read and forgotten—but Lucas Sebastian Murray.

Lucas, whose too-familiar lips are spreading into an unfamiliar smirk. Lucas, who looks as unsurprised by my appearance as I am shocked by his.

Earlier, Brody said it had been six years.

I didn’t correct him, even though I knew he was wrong.

It’s been five years, twenty-eight weeks, and three days since I last saw Lucas.

It hurts as much now as it did then.

2

WHAT YOU THINK YOUR SLEEP SCHEDULE IS OR ISN’T

BEFORE

The first month of competitions were online and theoretically anonymous. Still, even though this is the first time the top eighteen have been gathered in person, it’s clear there are preexisting cliques.

I sit with the newbies and outsiders: the only other girl, a guy dressed for the gym, a pale nerd archetype glued to his manga, and an oddly lanky man who’s folding origami as if it’s an arts and crafts camp.