by Piper Lawson
“Daniel, this is my roommate Kat.”
“Roommate. As in…”
“At Russell. Yeah.”
I bite my cheek while I watch him process.
Kat, oblivious, grabs my arm. “Come on, get your ass changed. Jules and I are kidnapping you.”
“For what?” I demand, but she won’t say.
Five minutes later, we’re on the bus. “What’s with the hot mom’s PTA meeting getup?” I ask.
She pops a hip before she drops into a seat. “We had oral presentations today. I want to be a therapist, so I’m sure going to dress the part.”
“But you want to be a sex therapist.”
“Oh in that case, let me get my fishnets.”
She pulls me off at a bus stop and I trail her to our usual pub. It’s more than half full despite it being barely dinnertime.
“Hoes Over Brews: All Hoes, No Bros edition.”
Jules is waiting with a table and a gift bag.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“To remind you how awesome you are. That we see you and we love you. You always look out for other people and now, we’re looking out for you.”
I reach for the pink tissue paper, tugging it out.
Inside the bag, my fingers land on soft fabric.
Lingerie? I pull it out, holding it up…
“It’s a sash,” Kat says. “The kind beauty queens have.”
“But it says #1 Roommate.”
“Zero propaganda. You’ve always been there for us. We want you to know we’re here for you, no matter what,” Jules says. “Now put it on.”
I drape the satin over my head, feeling like the biggest nerd ever.
I’ll also fight anyone in this bar who tries to take it from me.
This is what college is supposed to be about. People with different experiences coming together and learning from each other.
“Thank you,” I say and mean it.
“I know it’s been a rough semester, but we got you,” Kat emphasizes. “All we have to do is get through exams, then we have two whole weeks off on the other side.”
She’s right.
“Hey, what’s that?” I nod to a slip of paper sticking out of Jules’ bag.
“It’s a script for a new drama society production. Auditions are next week.”
It helps to catch up with them, to hear Jules talk about the play, and Kat laugh over experiments.
“I need you both to participate in my project as experimental subjects when we get back from the holidays.”
“You can’t cut into my brain,” Jules says evenly.
Kat grins. “All you have to do is show up at the lab for an hour. You get twenty bucks for your time. What do you say, Liv?”
I shift in my seat, slinging an arm over the back of my chair. “What are you testing?”
“Come on, friendship is thicker than blood.”
“I’m not sure that’s the saying. But okay.” My lips twitch.
I’m holding the team together by my fingernails. Sawyer’s in big trouble. But in another week, I’ll do the justification and have exams, then we all have winter break. Time for everyone to decompress.
I have to hang on until then.
Plus Sawyer and I haven’t had a chance to talk since his confession at the party.
“I’m over trying to get through the day without thinking of you.”
My heart feels like it’s going through a blender since he left.
By the time we leave the bar three hours later, I might not be feeling relaxed, but I’m resolved. I know I’ll figure this out, and my friends have my back.
We take the bus to campus, and I look up at the stars as we cross campus to our apartment.
When we head up the stairs and Kat fumbles for her keys for the door at home, my phone vibrates again.
But this time, it’s not Sawyer.
“What the hell…” I pull up.
“What is it?” Jules asks, padding over to me.
“An email from the Stars committee. Confirmation of our presentation tomorrow…” I trail off. “This must be a joke.”
“Ifrtwsnxtwik?” Kat says through a mouthful of toothpaste. She rolls her eyes and spits it out in the sink, returning a moment later. “I thought it was next week?”
“It is.” I read the email again, frantic.
There’s no reason they would’ve moved it. Except…
The department contact copied on the email isn’t Sawyer.
“Son of a bitch.”
26
Olivia
“Livvy honey?” Betty pulls up to the bench outside the dean’s office where I’ve been camped out since seven this morning, a bag and coffee in one hand and keys in the other. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to see the dean. I emailed him last night, but he didn’t respond.”
When he arrives half an hour later, I jump up off the bench. “There’s been a mistake. The Stars competition changed the date for our presentation to today.”
“Oh yes. I reached out to them and requested the change in timeline. Professor Redmond didn’t want the investigation to interfere with your work, and I’m inclined to agree.”
“But Professor Redmond isn’t here,” I emphasize. “We have no supervisor.”
“I’m taking over those duties until further notice.”
When I pictured presenting the justification, I was nervous. This is a big deal to our team, and sets the stage for whether we’re going to have a shot at actually winning.
But I always imagined it with Sawyer at my side.
Not only is he gone, but the man in his place wants us to fail.
The dean checks his watch. “I look forward to seeing you in the presentation immediately after lunch. If you need anything in the interim, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
The smile he pastes on makes me wretch.
I pull out my phone, fingers smashing against the keyboard.
Liv: We have an EMERGENCY. Meet me at the lab now. Skip class. I don’t care what it takes, just get there.
“You’re joking. This is a joke. Or a bad fucking dream,” Royce says flatly when I get to the lab.
“I wish.” I pace the room, tugging on the hair I didn’t have time to curl this morning. “We have to do the presentation at one this afternoon.”
“We can’t,” Adam replies.
“We have to pull together,” I tell Adam. “You might not like Sawyer much right now”—he flinches at the familiarity—“but he helped set us up to do this right. If we can just pull together on this, I’ll do whatever you guys want after next week.”
“But we’re not ready,” Madison points out. “And we don’t have any visuals.”
The presentation was supposed to include a demo of the bot.
I need Sawyer. He’s the one who got us into this. He could get us out.
I dial his number, each ring making my stomach flip.
Come on, come on, come on.
No answer.
I force my brain to function, feel the synapses firing as I pace the room.
The photos on the walls aren’t of machinery but of the moon landing, a smiling child in a hospital.
That’s when it clicks.
“We don’t need the robot. This is about what’s possible, right? We can talk to them about our vision.” I pull out my phone and dial my roommates. “Jules, Kat, I need you guys.”
We go to Lancaster’s with a truck, and I use the key under the back door mat to get us in.
“We need to be fast,” I emphasize. “The tank has a backup power supply, but the fish can’t go without the pump to circulate the water for long.”
We have to take the tank off the power supply for the drive over, and I’m counting the minutes until we can get it hooked back up on campus.
If these fish die, I can’t handle it.
I don’t breathe until the pump starts up when we plug it in at the design lab, sending bubbles that rise to the surface. The black ghost knife fish
peeks out from between seaweed near the back of the tank.
My fingers itch to dial Sawyer’s number, but Madison interrupts my thoughts.
“We have to do this. Now.”
The presentation is set up in the lab with Betty’s help, three judges’ video feeds spread across the huge screen pulled down from the ceiling.
The dean watches on from the corner, arms folded. I go over our presentation in my mind.
I squeeze my necklace in my fist before launching into my comments.
“Most engineering is about conquering the world around us. From the advent of the wheel, and fire, and tools used for hunting right up to the microchip, we’ve tried to become better than nature. It’s the easier way—it’s profitable, even if we don’t question it.
“But we can’t stop death, we can’t lift everyone out of poverty. We’re still human,” I emphasize. “So what do we miss while we’re trying to conquer the world? We miss the chance to understand it. To exist as part of it, alongside it.”
I step to the side of the tank.
“Oceans cover seventy percent of the earth’s surface. They’re full of life, more species than on land, and the most incredible diversity. Take fish. There’s research showing they have memories. That they’re social. They even recognize music. If we don’t learn about the world around us, we’re going to change it profoundly and lose all that information forever.
“I understand that most of the projects are about commercially viable technologies. But technology isn’t about conquering, it’s about learning. Working with the systems around us, not crushing them. That’s what we want to build. A robot that helps these ecosystems, not hurts them.”
We finish our presentation and the judges grill us.
It’s not perfect, but I feel alive and free.
After, I cut a look toward the door as if expecting to see Sawyer there because I can’t remember feeling that way without him.
But he’s not there.
“You crushed it,” Kat informs me, wrapping an arm around my neck as I trip up the walk to the Omega house that night.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“She did,” Madison says, coming up next to us. “They can’t possibly turn us down after that.”
“So what happens now?”
“We get feedback from the judges. If they approve it, we get extra funding to help with building our project.”
“Which we’ll need for the tank,” I add. “And to make the robot float.”
We head inside, the party already in full swing.
“What is it?” I prod Madison as she grimaces.
“The last time we were here, I played that video.”
“Yeah, that was pretty shitty.”
She sighs. “You fucked our professor. We’re even.”
I make my way toward the kitchen, where frat brothers are pouring from a keg into cups. “Except I never wanted to hurt anyone or screw anything up. You were trying to do exactly that.”
I take a cup and pass it to her.
“It wasn’t my idea,” she says as she takes it.
A second cup is pressed into my hand, but my attention is on Madison. “Whose was it?”
She looks over the room where Adam’s with a group of guys.
I freeze, cup bending in my grip. “No.”
“How do you think I got the video? One of his friends took it.”
He wanted to break me down, to make me weak and vulnerable.
What I’m doing with Sawyer was wrong, but this kind of backstabbing is acceptable?
I weave through the crowd to my ex and grab his phone out of his pocket.
“Hey. What are you doing?”
The passcode is the same one he’s always had—the day, month, and year the Knicks last won the NBA championship, and well before either of us was born.
Scrolling through his photos, there are a lot that turn my stomach. But I find the video I’m looking for, dated the night from Velvet.
“You took this video.” My voice shakes with accusation.
“It’s not like that. One of the guys did.”
“And he sent it to you. And you gave it to Madison to post.”
His jaw flexes. “Liv, come on. I thought if people gave you a hard time, it might make you realize it was better when we were together.”
“It was better when I was with someone who lied to me and cheated on me?” He lunges for the phone, still hampered by the sling, and I hold the device away. “You’re unbelievable. I can’t believe I felt badly for you.”
I shove through the crowd toward the door.
I always appreciated that Adam understood our families and the pressures to fit in, and admired how the scheming and manipulation seemed to roll right off him.
But evidently he was taking notes the whole time.
When I’m making my way out to the porch, my phone jumps in my pocket.
The name on the call display has my heart leaping. “Hi,” I answer, breathless, as I crane my neck to make sure Adam’s not behind me. “Where are you?”
“On my way back into town.”
His voice is so familiar, I ache.
There’s unresolved stuff between us, but I want to see him, want to crawl into his arms and feel his hair tickle my forehead when he leans over me.
“I need to see you.” His words have the knot in my chest loosening, a breath whooshing out.
I look around the frat party. “I’m outside the Omega house. We are—were,” I amend, “celebrating. I can be at your place in half an hour.”
He hangs up and I’m left standing, my jaw on the concrete walkway.
I glance across the road and do a double take.
His car is there.
“What the hell are you doing?” Adam demands, appearing out of nowhere.
I spin to face him. “You were right. There are some mistakes you can’t take back. And there are others I’d make again, exactly the same way.”
I toss his phone at him. He lunges for it, twisting and falling onto his injured arm.
I don’t stick around.
Sawyer buzzes the driver’s window down and I sprint across the street to meet him. His hair is wild around his face, and there are dark circles under his eyes. His firm mouth is pursed but his eyes leap when they lock with mine, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
“Get in.”
Adrenaline surges through me and I round the hood, one last look over my shoulder at the party. A dozen people are standing on the lawn staring and pointing. Adam is slack-jawed on the ground.
“Hope your day was better than mine,” Sawyer says as I shift inside.
I lower my window, adjusting the passenger side mirror. “Everyone accused me of sleeping with my professor to get ahead.”
“And did you?”
I reach for lip gloss in my bag, slick it on, then recap the gloss and tuck it away. “Not to get ahead.”
“Then why?”
He accelerates down the street, the Mercedes tearing down the road in a combination of power and elegance.
“Because every second I’m not with him, life’s not as good as it could be.”
Sawyer exhales heavily and I glance over at his profile. If there’s a more beautiful man in the world, I’ve never met him. I’m getting high on his scent and our proximity.
But his next words halt all thoughts of making up with him.
“You gave the fifty-thousand dollars from my father to Russell’s engineering department.”
I play with the strap on my bag, my stomach tightening. “Surprise…?”
“It was impulsive and doing it behind my back was duplicitous.”
“I can’t tell which one you’re mad about.”
“Both,” he grits out.
“It was me making a decision for myself. I wasn’t about to lose this project,” I go on as familiar neighborhoods pass.
When we get to his place, my attention is captured by the SOLD sign on the lawn. “What’s
with the sign?”
“Accepted an offer this morning.”
Wow.
“Where will you live when you come back after the winter break…” I trail off, because I’m an idiot.
Of all the times I wanted to be mature, to make my own decisions and think about my future, I never understood what that meant. Not really.
But he does.
“You’re not coming back.”
His dark eyes search mine. “No.”
My stomach falls through my feet, the earth tilting.
I want to be sick. Or to scream. Or to rewind until the second before I saw that awful sign, when the world was crashing down but we still had each other.
I’m out the door before he can grab me.
“Olivia…”
I head up the walk to the steps, not sure where I’m going, but standing still is impossible.
My knees give out and I sink to the sturdy porch, the one Sawyer built with his bare hands this fall.
He silently sits next to me and pulls me into his arms.
“When do you leave?”
“Next week.”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
I hate that I can’t think about existing without him. I hate that he made me into a person who wants more out of life, and now he’s walking away and I don’t know where to find that.
He lifts my chin, cupping my face in his large hands and forcing my watery gaze to his. “Come to New York with me.”
Disbelief slams into me. I search his face, because there’s no way he said that. “Are you serious?”
“Transfer schools. You have good grades, we can get you into NYU. Hell, maybe even Columbia. None of this will follow you.”
My lungs expand until I think I might burst. Like a dream, the future paints itself behind my eyes. “You’re actually crazy.”
“We’ll start over. We can get a place in the city. Bring Captain Jack and every one of those damned fish. We’ll find somewhere for you to dance. Tell me you want to.”
“I want to,” I whisper. “More than anything.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to wake up without you.”
He drags me into his lap and traps my mouth with his.
He’s heat and fire and the acceptance and admiration I’ve craved my entire life.
