PROLOGUE #2
When they’d first arrived at the dorm months ago, Arlowe must have noticed that Violet had needed a little help with the social stuff, so she’d taken her under her wing, and they’d picked up Enya and Sarai, too, making their foursome complete.
Since that moment, they’d been fairly inseparable, but Violet had had to miss out on some nights out in the city in order to study to keep up with Stella Ross.
She supposed that was what had been pissing her off the most. She hadn’t expected someone to challenge her for the role of best student in the program, and that challenge had meant that she’d missed nights out with her new friends.
Stella had become her mortal enemy from the moment of that first student meeting the day after they’d all arrived.
Every time Violet had raised her hand with a question, Stella had had her hand up first and had asked the same question.
Violet had recognized her type then, the type A, always-had-to-be-right kind of asshole, and, it had turned out, she was in Violet’s business program.
Sarai was, too, but she was in the marketing concentration, so they only had a couple of classes together.
Stella was in the main business program along with her, and they had been battling the entire semester for who would win out as the top student in the program.
Violet didn’t know much about Stella other than the fact that the woman was pretty annoying.
Well, Violet also knew that Stella was gorgeous, funny, not at all awkward in groups, unlike her, had tons of friends here as a result, and she was obviously smart. To Violet, Stella seemed to have the whole package, while she had always felt like she had the smarts, but not much else.
That was until Violet had met her new friends, who had somehow managed to make her feel like she fit right in.
Arlowe, it had turned out, was a coding genius who had already built several apps for freelance clients as well as one for herself that was making her money.
Enya was a polyglot who could understand dozens of languages and speak most of them fluently.
It seemed like she was always picking up a new one, and now that she’d lived in the Netherlands for a few months, her Dutch was flawless, according to the actual Dutch people whom Enya checked with, which she did regularly.
Sarai was a marketing whiz. She’d helped a friend of hers start her own business, building the brand from the ground up, and it was already turning a profit.
Violet, who had had the biggest head start of them all, felt a little behind after getting to know all of her friends and their accomplishments, but she knew it wasn’t really true.
She would have a job the moment she got her MBA and never had to worry about finding one, whereas the rest of them had to figure out their futures.
There was a blessing with that, but there was also a curse.
She wasn’t sure where she was on that spectrum tonight, thinking it more of a blessing or more of a curse, as she sipped on the beer she didn’t like very much, but Arlowe had bought the drinks for all of them tonight, so she wouldn’t complain.
“Have you ever thought that the reason you hate her so much is actually that you want to fuck her?” Arlowe suggested.
“What? I do not want to fuck Stella Ross. I have a girlfriend,” she argued.
“You can have a girlfriend and still want to fuck someone else,” Arlowe replied.
“Well, I don’t.”
“Did you want to fuck someone else while you were with Eline?” Sarai challenged Arlowe.
“No.”
“Then, maybe you should call her and tell her that you’re in love with her, denying it to yourself, and that you want to be together.”
“Like I said, I’m graduating in May. Five more months, and I’m out looking for a job.
She lives here, and I know I won’t be able to afford to fly back and forth.
She can’t either. And even if I could afford that, it’s not like I’m going to be able to just get time off from work whenever I want to see her.
I’m going to miss her, and yeah, it’ll be hard, but I think it’s for the best. She can find someone here.
I can find someone where and when I’m ready, too.
I didn’t exactly expect to come here for a few months and meet her, you know? ”
They hadn’t known each other all that long yet, but Violet could tell that Arlowe was only putting on a brave face and that she really loved the local woman, whom she’d met not long after they’d all arrived. Still, she felt like she should give this to her and not call her out on it.
“So, can we now pick on Enya for something?” Arlowe asked the group.
“What? Why me?”
“Because you like Briana.”
“Briana is ten years older than me and settled down in Ireland. Oh, and she’s about to marry a man.”
“She’s in Ireland because of him, but she’s an American, at least. So, you can tell her how you feel, suggest she move back home, and marry her instead.”
Enya laughed and said, “As if that would ever happen. It was one week in Ireland. And yeah, I like her, but it’s not like anything happened.
She’s engaged and didn’t tell me that she’s into women, too, when I told her I was gay, so there’s also that.
It was, like, two months ago, and we haven’t talked since, so I don’t even know that we’re going to be friends. ”
“Eline and I haven’t talked since it ended, either. I think that’s probably a good thing. Cut the cord, you know?” Arlowe said before she finished her beer. “Another round?”
“I’m good,” Sarai replied. “I just got a text from Gabi. She wants to know if she can come back to Amsterdam for a weekend and hang out.”
“She’s got a crush on you,” Enya teased.
“She’s eighteen. I’m twenty-two. Seems like not a big deal, but it is. She’s sweet, but I’m not into dating someone who’s just out of high school. Besides, she lives in Paris.”
“Yes, but you and Enya both seem to be forgetting that the women you met while here are both Americans. Gabi is only in Paris because her dad is some kind of big shot diplomat or something. She can move home whenever, and you two can be at least friends and hang out,” Arlowe noted.
“Because the US is such a small country,” Violet joked.
“Yeah, but neither of them would need a visa or have to become citizens or something,” Arlowe replied.
“True,” Sarai said. “But again, she’s eighteen. I showed her around here for the weekend, and it was whatever. I think she just forgot that we’re all leaving this week.”
“Maybe she wants to see you one more time before we go,” Violet suggested.
“Maybe.” Sarai shrugged. “Oh, well.”
“So, this is it,” Enya said. “We’re all about to go home, and we won’t be able to hang out like this.”
Then, no one said anything at all because it must have hit them at once that this was the last time their group would get to hang out together before they all went home.
Violet was leaving the following afternoon, wanting to get home to have as much of the winter break as possible before she had to go back to school for the spring semester.
Enya would leave the day after. Arlowe was heading out then, too, and Sarai would be leaving the day after them. Tonight was it.
“Hey, what are you all going to do after you graduate? I was thinking about maybe taking a short vacation or something; like a week before I start whatever job I can get, if I’m lucky.
If not, I’ll keep doing freelance stuff for a while.
Maybe we could all get together somewhere and celebrate graduation before we join the workforce officially? ” Arlowe suggested.
“I’ll be working already,” Violet replied. “I have a summer internship. Then, I’m back in school.”
“What if we did something before you started your internship?”
“It would have to be a four-day quick thing over a weekend or something because I start right away.”
“Okay. Anyone else?” Arlowe asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know,” Sarai said. “Can we talk when it gets closer?”
“Sure,” Arlowe replied, looking down at her empty beer bottle.
Violet could tell that Arlowe was hoping for something that she could look forward to, given that she’d just ended her relationship, and she decided to help her friend out because she understood and felt similar.
“Hey, I like the idea,” she said. “I’ll make it work, whatever you plan.”
“Yeah?” Arlowe asked, looking back up at her.
“Yeah. We all will. Right, Enya? Sarai?”
“Uh… Yeah,” Enya said, nodding along with Sarai.
“Cool,” Arlowe replied.
◆◆◆
About five months later, they’d all gotten together for a long weekend in New York City, which was a place that they could all get to somewhat easily and where Violet’s family had a house that they could all stay in.
That weekend, they’d talked about how they’d been about to start jobs that they’d been grateful for but also not all that excited about.
Sarai had had an entry-level marketing analyst job lined up.
Enya would be translating legal paperwork for an international law firm.
Arlowe had gotten an engineering job at a tech company.
Violet had had her family business where she’d been about to start from the bottom as an intern before continuing to go to school, unlike the rest of them, but that night had been when it all had changed.
After that night, they would all tell the story differently each time because they were a little tipsy and no one remembered who had come up with the idea originally, but the last night of that trip, someone had said it, and the next morning, they’d all woken up and talked about it again, completely sober.
“So, we’re really going to do this?” Arlowe asked. “Start our own company, with Violet in school full-time and being our CEO?”
“I think so,” Enya said. “We need the start-up money.”
“I can help with that,” Violet offered before she thought about what she was saying. “And yes, this is what I want.”
“Then, let’s do it,” Sarai said.