Chapter 29
twenty-nine
LILIANA
I’ve finished my first crochet project in the last few years. It’s nothing big—a pencil pouch I plan to give to my mom. She’s my mother, so she has to pretend to like it no matter how deformed it is.
Still, I’m proud of it. It’s a hobby that makes me happy, and if I work hard enough, I’ll get better. If I hadn’t already signed up for classes in a few weeks, this is what I’d do all summer.
For now, I’ll enjoy my free time. I don’t have to stress over exams like other students. Thankfully, I’ve finished one, and my romance writing class opted to leave my entire grade up to the short story. I can relax until I have to turn it in tomorrow.
Grant finished his finals yesterday, and I contemplate asking him to spend time with me tomorrow night, once my semester is over. Texting him small life updates kept me focused this week, but I’m dying to be next to him. It’ll be the cherry on top of a surprisingly smooth ending to the school year.
Rosie, on the other hand, is struggling. Her messy bun is not a fashion choice, but rather an exhibition of the third near sleepless night this week. It’s rare that she gives herself a break, so I cherish sitting next to her at the rickety dining table.
“I’m dying, Lil.” She chews through her veggie platter. I point to the drying ranch stain on her torn t-shirt, but she dismisses it with a wave of her hand. “Can’t be bothered. Too stressed.”
“Which class?”
She whines in between bites of carrot. “Hedge funds.”
“What’s that?” I ask, and her eyes go wide.
“Don’t get me started. It’s too fucking complicated, that’s what it is.
Like, okay, fine, I made the choice to go into investment and stocks.
Yeah, I chose that.” She rolls her eyes.
“But I didn’t know there were going to be so many business tools and investment strategies I’d have to memorize. Too many!”
I’m listening to her, but I have no idea what she’s saying. I never do. Rosie has rambled on about her financial engineering degree more times than I can count, but it never gets easier for me to understand. I let her rant, though, and give her my attention.
“And then, to make things worse, my professor said closed notes for our final!”
“Closed?!”
“Yes!” Her hands go up in the air and another drop of ranch lands on her shirt. “I’m already memorizing formulas. Now I need to memorize this shit too?”
She continues her rant. And when she’s done complaining about her difficult exams, she tangents off on how the finance bros still give her dirty looks in class but try to flirt with her by insulting her intelligence.
Once Rosie has gotten it all out of her system, it’s nearing dinner time. The alarm she set to send her back to studying went off at least thirty minutes ago.
“Sorry I talked your ear off, Lil.”
“Don’t even worry about it. That’s what friends are for.” I smile at her, and I mean it. With a friend like Rosie, I’d never complain about being there for her. It’d be hypocritical for me if I did, too, with how much she consoled me through this semester.
“Enough about me. What about your classes? How are you feeling?”
I shake my head and toss the empty platter in the trash. “Honestly, one of my calmest final weeks in a long time. I told you I finished my projects.”
She shrugs. “Yeah but you never know. You didn’t want to change anything?”
I’ve thought about that, too. I asked Kam how he felt when he finished his story, and he had an endless amount of positive descriptions. Proud was what he kept going back to, though.
I didn’t feel that way at all. Instinctively, I questioned myself. But after checking over the curriculum, I’m sure my story fits the assignment’s criteria.
Instead of opening the document and stressing myself out, I’ve decided to practice happiness. Indulging in hobbies. Relaxing myself before new classes start. What I produced should be enough to get me through the year.
“I think it’s fine the way it is. Besides, it’s due tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? And you haven’t let me see it yet?” She holds her hand out and makes a gimme motion. “Hand it over.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Girl, don’t be embarrassed!” Heat reaches my ears. Despite knowing my story lives up to my peers’ expectations, I squirm at the thought of someone else reading it. Rosie will undoubtedly be kind, but the thought of her unraveling my words in front of me unsettles my stomach.
“It’s just an assignment.”
“If that’s the case, then you shouldn’t care if I read it.” Her nose turns up triumphantly. I pretend to dust off the table to ignore her. “Let me read one page, please? I know it’s going to be so cute.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do!” She claps her hands together and bends to look up at me with large brown eyes. “Please, Lil. Please please please please please please-”
Repetition is my weakness. She knows that better than anyone. I groan. “Okay, fine! But only one page!” Rosie jumps up, high fives herself, and I go to search through my tote bag.
When I reach into the zip pocket where my USB is kept, it’s empty, and my eyebrows furrow.
Rosie calls over my shoulder, “What do you want to eat for dinner?”
I move around my notebook, my pencil case, my planner. Nothing. “Uh, I don’t know. Any ideas?”
“Is there anything you definitely don’t want to eat?”
My USB isn’t at the bottom of my bag, either. A flicker of anxiety ignites, but I tamper it down, unzipping my pencil case and looking through the bow pencils and cute figure erasers.
“Um, no. I’m cool with anything.”
It’s not in my pencil case. I throw it to the side and reach into the small inner pocket of the bag. I rarely use it for anything, sometimes cash if I happen upon it, but it’s completely empty. Sweat starts building on my forehead.
“Are you open to take-out?” Rosie asks, but I can’t register the words.
I take every book out my bag, shaking the pages in some chance that my USB has wedged its way inside. Rosie repeats her question when I’ve ripped everything out of my wallet.
“Don’t care.”
Everything is sprawled on the couch at this point and falling onto the floor. My heart is racing, skin prickling.
It’s not here.
“You want to get sushi?”
The bottom of my bag is empty. It’s gone. My USB is gone.
The only copy of my short story is gone.
“What the fuck?!”
“What?” Rosie yells back at me, walking in my direction. “You love sushi. What’s the issue?”
My breathing picks up the longer I stare at the bottom of my tote bag. Shallow, short, quick. My chest feels like it’s about to fall into itself. “Oh my gosh.”
When she reaches my side, she takes in the scene in front of us and grabs onto my arm, voice laced with concern. “Lil, what happened?”
“It’s gone.” Saying the words aloud makes the situation real. I’m shaking now, knees failing me. “My USB. It’s not in my bag. I lost it.”
Rosie grabs the bag herself and checks the inside, as if I hadn’t nearly teared it apart. The color drains from her face.
Worry has me grabbing onto my own elbows. Every sense is heightened in the worse way possible. I’m suffocating on the reality of the situation. On how screwed I am, less than twenty-four hours before it’s due.
“It’s gone.”
All that work, gone.
Rosie nods and starts to put my stuff back into its bag while I stand staring.
“Okay, so the physical USB might be gone. You don’t have a back-up?”
Our professor only accepts assignments via USB. I didn’t think there was any reason to save the file on an online system because he wouldn’t accept that method anyways. It’s a rare lapse of judgement, one that I would never normally make. But I did.
I want to punch myself in the face. It feels like I do.
“No.”
“Okay.”
She mindlessly shoves everything back into the tote, no organization or order to it. I can’t be bothered by the messiness, because I’m too busy being angry at myself.
My best friend grabs onto my shoulders and sits me down onto the couch. “Let’s work backwards. Where do you remember writing?”
I focus on the answer and try not to burst into angry tears. With my lifestyle in the last few weeks, there aren’t many options.
“Grant’s apartment and here.”
“That’s it?”
“That I remember, yeah.”
She claps her hands joyfully. “That’s great! There are only two options!”
“I don’t know where it is, though.”
“You don’t remember the last time you saw it?”
It doesn’t take long for me to rack my brain. For a moment, relief washes over me. I remember finishing it here, at my desk, with the anti-climactic ending.
But then my stomach churns. I remember shoving the USB back into my tote bag afterwards, too.
Another memory reaches me, one that’s filled with gray furniture and green eyes and sage scents.
I grab my phone off the couch with one hand, and Rosie’s arm with the other. “I’ll double check my desk, you call Grant.”
She doesn’t protest when I’ve yanked her into my room and plopped my phone next to her on the bed. Every ounce of success I’ve built up to this point is crashing around me, and I throw the belongings in my desk drawers carelessly.
Amid my chaos, I listen to Rosie’s conversation and hope for the best.
The call is on speaker. Grant answers in two rings.
“Hey, baby.”
I’m too occupied with tossing books and papers aside, I don’t look at Rosie, but I segue for her. “Rosie, tell him.”
“Hey Grant.” She holds the first word for effect. I think she’s trying to lighten the mood, but my hands are shaking the longer I search and find nothing. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Sorry it’s like this.”
It’s instant how his voice changes, panicked and jumpy like I am. “What happened? Is Liliana okay?”
“She’s…” Rosie trails off. I’ve already searched through half of my desk with nothing to show for it, my breath quickening again. “She’s kind of panicking right now.”
Not kind of. I am. This is the worst thing that could have happened.
My parents explained I would still be their pride and joy if I fail this class. Anxiety and dread aren’t piling up because of my need to impress them.