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“You’re paid.”

“No, ma’am, I’m behind. That’s what I’m saying. Like nine hundred behind, and I…”

“Baby.” She finally looks up. “You’re paid. In full. This year, next year, and housing. Somebody prepaid your fees through graduation.”

I just stand there.

“Anything else?”

“Who paid it?”

She looks at her screen. Then at me, with her eyebrows all the way up, like girl, you don’t know?

“Private payment,” she says. “Next.”

I walk outside and sit down on the steps in the sun with my bag in my lap.

Forty-something thousand dollars. And he didn’t say a word. This morning he ate me while I was asleep, fucked me against a door, and sent me off to class, and the whole time he’d already paid for the rest of my life like it was a light bill.

I don’t know if I wanna cry or cuss.

I text Tasha.

he paid my tuition

AND next year. AND housing

bitch

BITCH

ok are you mad or happy bc you sound mad

he didn’t ASK me. he didn’t TELL me. i went in there begging like a fool and the lady looked at me like i was slow

ok but are you SURE you’re not happy

tasha

i’m just saying some of us got sallie mae calling us at 8am

I’m typing back this is not funny when another text comes in on top of hers.

Sasha: You’re not at the library.

I stop.

I look up. Bruin Walk. Students everywhere. Skateboards, backpacks, some dude handing out flyers for a poetry slam. Nobody’s looking at me. No black Escalade. No big Russian.

Sasha: Misha’s out front at 5:30.

I didn’t tell him I was going to the library. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t at the library. I didn’t tell him I had a bursar’s office, or a bench, or a Tasha.

My stomach drops all the way into my shoes.

Last night my phone sat on that nightstand all night. This morning there was a text from me to him that I never sent. And Jordan’s been blocked out of my life like he never existed.

He didn’t just go through my phone. He did something to it.