Chapter 8 #2
Alex and Ellie. Ellie and Alex.
“The boys are boys,” I say enigmatically.
“Say no more. I can already tell you want out of this conversation.” But her next words make me wish I’d stuck to the topic of boys. “Have you spoken to your sister yet?”
I knew this was coming.
“You know I haven’t.”
“Well… could you? She’s having a hard time at school. Always complaining. I’m sure a call from her baby sister would cheer her up.”
I remember that Sierra hated medical school at the start.
She moaned about it in that way people sometimes faux-complain about their accomplishments: “Oh, it’s so difficult, but also so rewarding.
” Which obviously meant Yes, please make it clear how proud of me you are.
That’s the only reason I’m talking about this in the first place.
But later, when I vented about law school, she made derogatory comments about my work ethic and said that the stress of school didn’t compare to the stress of the “real world,” the years she spent grumbling to me conveniently forgotten.
“I’ll think about it,” I say to appease my mother.
“That’s all I ask. Oh, I almost forgot—I know you’re probably not thinking about this kind of thing yet, but I was discussing internships with Judge Wright the other day, and she said she could make room for you over winter break.
It’s a good opportunity to dip your toes in, and if it goes well, it’ll guarantee you a spot in her summer-internship program. ”
Oh. Shit.
I remember Judge Wright. I hated that internship. The hours were long, it was unpaid, and she loved to yell at me for every tiny mistake I made and a lot of mistakes I didn’t.
The other two interns hadn’t helped. They’d both been in law school and were older, so they treated me like I was their personal intern, someone to do all the grunt work they thought themselves above.
I turned a corner one day to find them muttering about me being a “diversity hire” whose mom got me the spot.
That had stung because, at least in terms of the second part, I knew it was true.
As for the first part—I was eighteen and had worked my ass off at everything I’d ever done, so I was unused to that sort of racist dismissiveness.
Not that I wouldn’t get used to it. I heard variations of it at every turning point in my life from then on.
When I awkwardly admitted that I was at school on a full scholarship, people’s minds automatically went to my ethnicity, even though in reality it was my PSAT score.
How did I get into a top law school? Not my 4.
0 GPA—nope, it was because I was Latina.
How had I managed to sign with a law firm before graduation when some of my classmates hadn’t?
Bingo—it had to be my ethnicity or the fact that I was a woman, and hell, the two together just made my life a cakewalk.
“Yeah. About Judge Wright—can I think on it?”
“What’s there to think about? It’s only a month, with Christmas and New Year’s off.”
“I’m not sure I want to take on an internship during my first break from school.”
“Okay. Well, I already told her that you’d love to do it, but I suppose I can tell her you changed your mind…” My mom sounds like she dreads saying any such thing to Judge Wright, and my heart goes out to her. I’m tempted to backtrack and say I’ll do it.
It’s your life.
Alex’s words from last night come to me.
This is my life, and whatever I decide to do with it, I’m the one who has to live with the consequences—consequences I’ve already experienced once.
Why not try to avoid the bad bits? It’s not like this internship will be the deciding factor on whether I get into law school.
“I won’t say anything to her yet, though. Sleep on it and get me your answer by the end of the week,” Mom says, hopeful.
Great. Now I have to disappoint my mom twice.
Because I’ve already decided: There’s no way in hell I’m doing that internship again.
This is my life. I’m the one who has to live it.
That night, as I’m laughing at another text from Alex, Madison exclaims, “Okay, what the hell is going on?”
She hurls herself across the room and wrenches my phone away, ignoring my protests. She frowns as she scrolls, and I think of how I wanted to keep Alex to myself a little longer.
Emphasis on little, I guess.
“Who the hell is Alex?”
“He’s a guy I met.” I shrug, not wanting to make a big deal of it. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Why haven’t you told me about him?”
“We just met,” I say, ignoring how hurt she looks. “Actually, funny story, Alex was the source of the watermelon I smelled yesterday. Isn’t that strange?”
She looks even more confused. “But you’ve been talking about watermelon for days. Why were you talking about watermelon in the quad on Friday if you just met this Alex guy yesterday?”
Damn. I really need to make a mental note to never forget that Madison is smart and will catch me in a lie if I’m not careful… and this is a huge lie for her to catch. An existence-erasing lie. “That was… a coincidence,” I try. She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“So you stormed outside to find the source of a watermelon smell you’ve been smelling for days, and you met this Alex guy. And now you text about… bugs?”
I consider explaining that actually, the texts she’s referring to are about seafood.
“That about sums it up,” I confirm. It’s too much of a hassle to get into.
“Why’d you let me go on about Ellie when you’ve already moved on to this Alex guy?”
I’m about to protest that I haven’t moved on, that Alex is just a distraction, but I stop myself. We established earlier that Madison has a big mouth when she’s with Patrick. Whatever I say now will probably get back to him and therefore to Ellie.
Didn’t I wonder if part of the reason Ellie fell for Cat was that she dated other guys during freshman year and didn’t spend it pining after him? Maybe it’s time to test that theory.
Maybe the idea that I’ve moved on with another guy is exactly what I need Ellie to think.