Blood rushes through my ears, and each thud grows louder as my nerves race. His schedule aligns perfectly with mine. I stand up, ready to take the final step in sealing my fate for the rest of the semester by telling Amelia the good news.
Anxiety still courses through me after talking to Amelia, so I decide to start a small group chat with Levi and Jake. I prefer to leave Kami to enjoy her birthday and sex anniversary in peace.
Me: I need to get drunk, no questions asked.
Levi: Bar or my place?
Me: Bar and please bring Stevie.
Levi: I gotcha -Stevie
Stevie doesn’t drink due to her medical condition, and Levi only gets tipsy. I’ll be a handful for them tonight.
Jake: See you in King’s Wolf in two hours, Ems. Tequila shots are on me!
Chapter Thirteen
EMMA
Walking to the building where Professor Hayes’s lecture is, I keep my sunglasses on as my hangover continues to kill me.
We celebrated Kamila’s twenty-first birthday at the Kappa house and then moved the party to King’s Wolf last night, where I got drunk once again. It was ladies’ night, meaning two-for-one drinks for women.
I’m officially taking a break from getting drunk. The mix of watery beers at the Kappa house and the vodka shots at King’s Wolf really took a toll on me and my poor stomach.
Ugh. Just thinking about it makes me shiver.
Pushing the front doors open, I head to the bathroom to take two ibuprofen and make sure I don’t look like complete shit.
The professor and I may be keeping things professional, but that doesn’t mean I want to look bad when I see him.
Adjusting my light brown V-neck long-sleeved shirt, I thank Mother Nature for making the past two days feel like fall instead of summer at the end of September, as it usually does. After adjusting my black belt around my light blue jeans, I take off my sunglasses, forgetting I was still wearing them. My headache has finally begun to subside.
“Jesus, Em. Get ahold of yourself,” I mumble while taking my lip gloss out of my purse.
As I smack my lips together and fluff my layered hair, including the curtain bangs, I lower my hands and frown.
My grandma’s words echo in my head. The words she started saying when I turned eight.
“It’s important for you to always look clean, poised, and composed.We’re Haywoods, darling. Your appearance must reflect that.”
My mom would then wait until she was gone and tell me to ignore whatever she said and to wear whatever I wanted. My dad’s parents never judged me as a child before they passed away, and they were older and richer than my other grandparents. I would much rather honor my dad’s parents’ last name instead of my mom’s parents’ last name, and so would my mother. But she has to maintain her own identity for her family’s company and fortune, and I want to stay as unknown as possible.
Having my father’s last name would never allow me that. The Haywoods, aka my mother’s parents and the last name I’ve taken on, are more like a secret partner of their own corporation. The name is nowhere near the brand itself.
My dad’s money and last name, however, are old. The one word carries a lot of power, similar to Jake’s, but my father’s family has its stamp all over New York City. In old buildings, skyscrapers, hotels, and other commercial properties. The hotels are the one thing that continues to expand.
My friends might think Jake is the wealthiest in the group, and yes, he is, but he and I are the only ones who know how similar our wealth is; I just don’t make it as obvious as he does.
He has the black Amex; I carry the platinum.
He uses his name to get what he wants; I avoid it at all costs and find another way.
He has a driver at home; I take cabs.
He wears designer clothes, and I…actually, that’s something we share: a love of fine clothing.
By no means do I think that Jake flaunts his money poorly or that we’re better than him and his family in that regard, I just have a different approach. It’s different lifestyles with similar statuses, and we’re fortunate to have what we do.
