I glance at her from the corner of my eye. She’s watching the movie, her expression empty, and something sharp and ugly stabs through my chest, twisting in my gut.
The movie ends.Where Is My Mindby Pixies fills the room, and my insides knot into one painfully tight mess.
This issonot going according to plan.
I’ve gotten myself in too deep.
I’m fucking drowning.
She should’ve never seen me the day I kidnapped her. I was supposed to stay dead. But she keeps dragging me back.
Adrien puts on another movie, and they both end up falling asleep.
I can’t. Because I know the moment the sun rises, this day will be over.
Kasien
Age 19
The sky is turning dark outside the window as we sit in a small university study room during our private economics class. I glance at my watch and see it’s barely after four, exhaling lazily.
The room smells of wood and old books. It’s relaxing. My eyelids feel heavy since this is our fifth class of the day and my back hurts from sitting too long, but I keep staring at the board anyway.
Professor Hale—gray hair, tweed jacket, zero patience for stupidity—draws another graph with sharp, irritated movements. The professor’s old rusty voice is so calming that Adrien looks like he’s going to pass out any second now. He’s slouched deep in his seat, legs spread, his whole body melted into the chair like he’s physically allergic to paying attention. He drops his head on my shoulder and mumbles something.
“Speaking of economics, did you send another stash into offshore accounts?” he asks quietly, his curls brushing my neck.
“Yeah, there’s already enough for everything we need,” I assure him, whispering.
“Good,” he whispers back and scribbles something on paper in front of him.
We sit in the back and silently pray not to draw attention to ourselves before the professor decides otherwise.
The marker squeaks. Adrien groans next to me. I suppress the urge to kick his shin.
“Gentlemen,” Hale says, tapping the board so hard the whole frame rattles, drawing a clean X-shaped intersection between MC and MB curves.
“You have marginal cost on one axis,” he says, tapping the line with the marker, “and marginal benefit on the other. Socially optimal quantity of any good occurs where these two curves meet.”
I rest my elbows on the wooden desk and rub the bridge of my nose. My hand smells like gun oil from the training earlier.
“Now,” Hale says, turning toward us, “why is the equilibrium quantity higher than the socially optimal level in the presence of negative externalities?” He looks at Adrien first as he lifts his head up from my shoulder and his soul visibly leaves his body.
My brain kicks back into gear even though it’s drowning in exhaustion.
“Because the private marginal cost is lower than the social marginal cost,” I say quietly.
Adrien adds to my response, “producers ignore the external damage. Pollution, crime, health costs, the market overproduces because it doesn’t pay the real price.”
Hale points the marker at us like he’s awarding a medal. “Correct. Painfully correct, actually.”
Adrien turns his head toward me, whispering to me. “Look at us—brainsandbeauty? Now just pray the dick ratio matches, so we don’t ruin our whole statistic.”
I choke on a laugh before I can stop myself, the sound punching out of me loud enough that Hale actually stops writing for a second and turns around, giving us an annoyed look.
?
I get out of the elevator and take out the stash of hundreds, slamming it onto the little table before the hostess even opens her mouth, so I don’t have to hear that disgusting surname again. I drape the hoodie over my head and step inside the restaurant, but it’s already almost empty. It’s before midnight and they’re closing soon.
