AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I help you?”
“Um, hi.” I settle into the seat in front of his desk, dropping my messenger bag beside me. “My name is Willow Hayes, and I was hoping… I wanted to talk about the tuition payment I have due. I know that the deadline to pay it is coming up, I was just wondering—”
He holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Willow Hayes, you said?”
I nod, fiddling nervously with the hem of my shirt.
He types on his computer for a bit and then looks up, smiling. That shocks me, because unless he’s just as happy about me getting thrown out of school as April is, I have no idea what he has to smile about.
“Ah, I see you got your tuition issue sorted out,” he says. “That’s great.”
I blink, leaning forward a little. “I… what?”
“It says here that you’re all paid up for the rest of the semester. So you’re good to go.”
“But that—how?”
He looks at me like I’m a bit slow, and honestly I feel like I might be in this moment. My mind is having a hard time processing his words.
“Hold on,” he tells me, and then prints something off on the printer next to him.
Once it comes through the feed, he hands me the sheet, and I stare down at it.
There in black and white is my name and a list of fees and costs for the rest of the spring semester. All the way down at the bottom it clearly says, OUTSTANDING BALANCE: $0.00.
It’s hard to believe, but I can’t deny what’s right in front of me, even if I have no idea how it happened. My stomach churns with a weird mixture of joy and anxiety. I’m glad that I don’t have to stress about this anymore, but also super freaked out by how it happened in the first place. Mostly freaked out.
The man behind the desk looks at me expectantly, and I remember that I’m having this little freak out right there in front of him. I shake myself a little and force a smile.
“Thank you,” I say stiffly. “I just wanted to… check on the status of things.”
“No problem,” he replies, turning back to his computer. “Have a good afternoon.”
I get up and leave the office, feeling like I’m in a daze. Something good happened to me for once, but I have no idea how. Or why. Or what is even going on anymore.
“Hey, Willow.” Colin nods to me as I pass by him and a few of his buddies lounging on the steps to the economics building. “You done for the day?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, barely glancing at him as I continue walking.
As my feet carry me across campus, a thought occurs to me, tickling the back of my mind. I turn and head for the area near the cafeteria, where the closest ATM is located. My fingers shake a little as I put my bank card in the slot and type in my PIN.
My account comes up, and I stare down at the screen.
There’s extra money in it.
Not just a few dollars, either. My account balance usually hovers in the three figures range, dipping down to two figures when things get really tight. But now there are four numbers ahead of the decimal point.
“Holy shit. I knew it,” I whisper to myself, my heart racing.
It’s a payoff. It has to be. There’s no other explanation for it.
The tuition payment, the extra money in my account… it has to have come from the three brothers. And it’s not a kindness, not really. They’re just looking out for their own interests. Making sure I don’t have any reason at all to go back on our deal.
But it’s starting to feel like they control me and my life now.
Like theyownme, and they can play with my job and my education and whatever else they want, whenever they want.
It makes the sour feeling in my stomach even worse, and I stand in front of the ATM, staring at the numbers for several long moments.
