Everythingabout Melanie was expensive. She was the Chief Operating Officer at Neurovance—one of the most innovative biotech companies in the western hemisphere.
I’d actually met Melanie at a networking event in one of my many attempts to get a job after I graduated from MIT.
You would think being a genius with a 4.0 and a master’s in Neurotech from MIT would have made it easy for me to find a job. Unfortunately, it’s true what they say… It’s notwhatyou know, it’swhoyou know.
AndwhoI knew were completeboomerangs. Dylan and his crappy friends had made sure to tell anyone who would listen how much of a loser I was.
Melanie had been the only person in the biotech industry who had bothered to give me the time of day, and for that I’d been grateful.
She’d also been the only person to really try to help me get my foot in the door anywhere when I’d been desperate for some sort of income to help cover medical bills.
Not justmymedical bills, but my mother’s as well. After my father passed, my mother’s mental health took a drastic downturn.
I’m not talking about the type of grieving you would expect from someone who just lost their life partner. Her mind completelybroke.Overnight, she could barely recall who I was, let alone her own name. She didn’t seem to know where she was anymore, and her doctors said she was suffering from something close to early-onset Alzheimer’s.Though, they were baffled at how quickly it had progressed.
When I’d told Melanie I had actually applied for a job at Neurovance a few weeks prior to the N-car accident, she told me she would happily tell HR to review my application.
I’d been so excited at first when they reached out requesting an interview, until I read through the requirements of the job.
Due to Neurovance’s extremely high-profile work and the sensitive nature of their IP, they hadverystrict rules about employee leave.
Most Neurovance employees were asked to, more or less, live on campus, and could only venture out to visit friends and family after filling out enough paperwork to fluster even the most meticulous bureaucrat.
So, needless to say, when Neurovance reached out about an interview, I needed to decline.
With my mother as sick as she was, I couldn’t accept a position that would keep me away from her for so long.
Instead, I’d spent the last two years dealing with my father’s estate and trying to get my mother set up in a long-term care facility.
Melanie, shockingly enough, had stayed my friend throughallof this.
When I told her my reasoning for declining the interview, she checked in regularly, asking about my mom’s health. She’d researched all the best specialists to help with my mother… and she’d even pulled some strings to get her into the home she was living in now. The facility—Synapse Springs—was actually owned by Neurovance, and they had some of the best memory therapy professionals in theworldon staff.
Their waitlist was several years long, and the cost of reserving a spot could double as a down payment on most people’s homes.
Because of Melanie’s connections, my fee had been waived, and my mother had been bumped to the top of the list. I’d just moved her in a few weeks ago, and she’d been settling in really well.
I never would have been able to afford to get my mother into Synapse Springs if it hadn’t been for Melanie.
Before I knew what was happening, I found myself with one of my first-ever friends, and she was a friend with so many high-powered connections that it made my head spin.
I truly don’t know what I would have done without her.
I owed her so much, so the last thing I wanted to do was burden her with yetanotherone of the freaking tragedies that seemed to constantly plague me.
I decided not to bring up the threatening texts or the flowers. There was nothing she could do about it anyway, and I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.
I should have known better.
Melanie tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder as she entered, and she beamed at me, though the smile slipped right off her face when she noticed what I was staring at.
Her brown eyes widened behind her stylish cat-eye glasses, and she bit her lip, frowning as her gaze fell on the periwinkle flowers sitting innocently on my end table.
“Oh my god…” she gasped. “They broke inagain?”
Kicking myself for not throwing out the offending flowers before she arrived, I sighed, nodding. “Yeah...”
Her frown deepened as she helped herself to a seat at my kitchen table.
