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She turns to me to look me in the eye, and I continue, “What is she talking about?”
“Can we talk in private?” she asks with an embarrassed smile.
“Of course.”
She guides me to her bedroom, where she locks the door behind her. She immediately tells me, “This is something I told Sophia and she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. She thinks she’s helping me.”
Her giggles, this time, are sorrowful and sad.
“It’s okay. She’s yet to develop a filter,” I say, waving it off. “But tell me what is going on, and maybe I can help.”
Joyce sits on her bed and taps the mattress by her side to get me to sit next to her. Once we’re together, she shrinks in place, and I put my arm around her shoulders to let her know she’s safe.
“I spent all my savings on this new immunotherapy for mom. It worked, but now I don’t have a dime to pay for the next semester of school, and I don’t know how to tell mom and Gabby.”
I frown and shake my head, amazed at how such a straightforward problem can be easily resolved with so little effort when you have the money to do so.
“It’s your last semester, right?” When she nods, I say, “I can pay it for you.”
“No, no, no, no!” She pulls away from me, waving her hands and creating a barrier between us. “I feel weird enough dating you as it is, and with you paying for my college, it would only get worse.”
I join my hands in my lap and look at my feet. This is going to be difficult, but nothing I can’t make a detour around.
“What if I give it to you as a loan?” I ask. “You would pay me back as you can.”
She sighs audibly and appears to think for a second. “The answer is still no, Logan,” she says with a heavy heart. “I would feel weird owing you such a large amount.”
“Then what are you going to do?” I ask with concern, gently playing with her hair.
“Find a way!” She shrugs. “I always do. I’ll save money over the summer and try to have it by the fall semester. If not, then I’ll just have to push out graduation by another semester…”
I want to help her, but I also realize that nothing I say right now will change her mind.
“You will. It will all work out.” I lean forward to give her a kiss.
From the way her body responds, she likes the kiss very much.
“Is the door locked?” I whisper, looking over my shoulder.
“U-huh!” she says, jumping in bed to lie on her back, waiting for me to take the reins.
Chapter Twenty-Three
JOYCE
Ifeelhappy.Morethan I’ve ever been before in my life.
It’s all very new and very scary, but I also want to dive head-first into this feeling and never let go.
I could be happier, though.
If my friends still talked to me.
Michelle said she would be busy all summer preparing for her Master’s and said she would call me when she was free. Kathy traveled abroad and didn’t leave a number, and Kathy… She just ghosted me.
But nothing compares to Jane. As if blocking me everywhere wasn’t enough, she also went ahead and bad-mouthed me to everyone.
I’m losing my social life because of her, but I’m trying not to feel angry about it. Instead, I’m trying to understand her side, but all I see is that she’s wrongfully labelling me a gold digger who has set her claws into her brother.
