She laughs.
“What’s your major?” she asks in a tone that reflects her appearance: distant and above things.
“Neuroscience and Behavior,” I say. “You?”
“Economics, my father thinks I will take over his businesses one day, stupid fucker. As if I’ll ever work.”
“You’re telling me,” I say out of no reason at all. But it somehow seems the right choice to appear likable to her.
Idiot,I tell myself.You want to find yourself and start with a fucking lie.
“What did you want to study?” I ask.
“Wanted to become a surgeon,” she says, and adds with a sardonic tone, “Cardio. But my father thinks I am not bright enough for that.”
“Telling you, fathers are the worst,” I say. “They should take their fuckton of opinions, and fuck off.”
I mean, I get her. My father decided my path for me, too. I was never asked if I wanted to or not. I had to, end of story. Leaving my life in a complete mess.
“Yeah,” she says and scuffs.
“Amelie,” I say, holding out a hand. “Amelie Degard.”
“El,” she says, and takes it. “At least you can call me that. To the others, it’s Elise Victoria Whitney-Morgan.”
What a name,I think to myself. It shouts money from far away. Whitney-Morgan is a name almost everyone on this planet must have heard of. They’re an old-money family, best known for the bank and equity firm Whitney-Morgan, which has cast its net over the entire planet, into almost every government and many, many businesses.
No wonder she feels beyond any of this here, who wouldn’t if your father’s business is so influential and well-known?
I don’t care about it, so I don’t show any recognition.
“Is he here?” I ask her.
“My father?” she asks.
“Yeah, who else?”
She laughs. “Of course not, much too busy. I think he sent his assistant to move my stuff here.”
“You’re staying on campus?” I ask incredulously. Not because I judge it, but because I expected her, of all people, to have other accommodations—like me. I’ll never sleep in a dorm ever again.
“Yeah,” she scoffs out and purses her lips. “He thinks it is a necessary character-building experience.”
“I could never,” I say.
“No father telling you what to do?”
“Not anymore. Died. Luckily,” I say. My father did, of course, not die, but it’s the cover story for me having a shit ton of money at the age of nineteen. That’s how old I am officially. In reality, I am twenty-five, my father lives somewhere in the Bahamas now and the job I did by being a friend and protection to a very important girl made me a multi-millionaire. But no one here knows who I really am, and no one ever can.
“So you’re not staying on campus?”
“Nah, could never. Bought a studio in Tribeca. Let’s have some drinks there later and escape these minions.”
“Bet,” she says and grins. “I have zero interest in community building anyway. Look at them talk as if this is the most precious moment ever, it’s just framed crap to make you believe you belong, so they get more money.”
A smirk spreads over my face because sitting next to El was the best decision I could have made. It even makes me ignore the slick guy with his brushed back, wavy blonde hair and strangely empty, yet intense eyes, sitting next to me. His perfume rolls over me like a tsunami, and I’d really like to vomit from it. I give him only a quick glance, but something about him gives me the ick.
Maybe because he’s a man,I think to myself.
