3. Amiyah
Chapter three
Amiyah
Iam vertical before my alarm has the chance to commit its violence, my hand already on the phone screen sliding the alarm into oblivion. Last night's job ran later than expected, so now I’m surviving on four hours of sleep and a sheer force of will.
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, accepting a hit the night before the last day of the semester, but here the fuck we are.
Dragging myself out of bed with the grace of a newborn giraffe on roller skates, I trudge to the kitchen and press the button on the espresso machine and watch as it sputters to life.
While it works, I scroll through my phone, flipping through notifications that don’t matter and emails that can wait until I’ve had at least three ounces of caffeine in my bloodstream.
The espresso finishes with a final, satisfying hiss. I pour it into my favorite mug—the one with the little pink hearts that says “Hot girls object” and I add coconut milk and a squirt vanilla syrup and a squirt of brown sugar syrup, stir, then take my first sip.
It’s perfect. The kind of perfect that makes my eyes flutter shut for exactly one second before reality kicks back in and I make my way to the bathroom for my eleven-minute skin care routine that is a non-negotiable.
Cleanser first.
A dollop of something French and expensive that smells like nothing because fragrance is for amateurs and my pores are like federal employees—they don’t get holidays.
I work it into my skin in small, circles, the way my mother taught me before she died.
Before the job went wrong. Before the phone call that completely rearranged my entire universe.
I push the thought back into its place, tucked away in the back of my brain. Now is not the time for grief. Now is the time to rinse.
After I rinse with lukewarm water, I pat my face dry with a towel that is not the fluffy one—that’s for evenings only. The fluffy one is sacred.
Toner next.
Two cotton pads, doused. One for each cheek, one swipe down the center of my forehead, one across my chin. The cotton comes away clean, which means either my skin is immaculate or I’m lying to myself, and honestly, this early in the morning, I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to determine which.
Serum is the third step.
Three drops on my fingertips, tapped across my forehead, cheeks, jawline.
The bottle is glass and the label is in Korean and I have no idea what half the ingredients are, but it cost ninety dollars and the woman at the counter swore it would make me “glow from within,” which is marketing speak for “we have successfully separated you from your money,” but whatever. I’m glowing.
Or I will be.
Or I’m a sucker.
The jury is still out.
Lastly, SPF.
The holy grail. Fifty-plus, broad spectrum (because melanoma is real and also deeply un-cute).
The clock reads 6:25. Right on schedule.
I step back from the mirror and take stock. Skin: doing its job. Eyes: tired but not visibly tragic. Conclusion: good enough for me.
My closet presents itself in its usual gradient of devotion—bubblegum pink through blush through nude, each garment is arranged by category, then by color, then by frequency of use.
The system is not complicated unless you’re the kind of person who thinks alphabetizing spices is “extra,” in which case, we could not be friends and I’m fine with that.
I reach for the bubblegum-pink blazer. It lives in the middle section, third hanger from the left, between a lighter blush number that I wear to professor office hours and a deeper magenta that I save for days when I need the equivalent of armor.
The fabric is a dream. Structured at the shoulders, nipped at the waist, and quite perfect in the literal sense.
I probably paid way more than I should have for it, but to be honest, I don’t regret a single penny.
The white bodycon dress comes next. Its stretchy, forgiving, and the kind of thing that looks effortless because the effort happened at the point of purchase, when I tried on fourteen identical versions of the same dress until I found the one that didn’t make my hip dips look like topographic maps of sadness.
Nude heels. Closed toe, three inches, manageable for a day that includes walking across campus.
I step into the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door and do a little turn. My hair, still damp from the shower, falls in soft waves around my shoulders. The blazer cuts a clean line from shoulder to waist. The dress hits mid-thigh. The heels add exactly the right amount of lift.
The fit does not miss. It does not stumble. It does not leave so much as a single crumb on the floor.
I allow myself exactly three seconds of satisfaction before the clock in the hallway chimes 6:40 and I’m back in motion.
Binder. Tote bag, pink canvas with leather handles that match nothing but make me happy.
Keys, already in my hand because I set them on the counter last night in the exact spot where my palm would find them this morning.
Wallet, phone, lip gloss—a quick swipe, sheer pink, the kind that tastes like sugar and promises nothing.
I am out the door at 6:46.
Four minutes to spare.
Two minutes fewer than I prefer.
My jaw sets firmly, the muscles twitching with annoyance.
It’s not exactly a catastrophic failure, but it's a deviation. And deviations become patterns, patterns become habits, and habits become the difference between a perfect morning and a morning where you’re sprinting across campus with coffee sloshing down your wrist.
I will not be making this mistake again.
The elevator descends with the smooth, expensive silence of a building that knows what it costs to live here.
The lobby is marble and muted light, the morning concierge already at his post with a cup of coffee that smells better than mine and a smile that suggests he either loves his job or is very good at pretending.
“Good morning, Ms. Lane.”
“Morning,” I say, and my voice is already shifting, warming by half a degree, the edges sanded down into something approachable and bright.
The transformation is automatic.
By the time I push through the glass doors into the morning air, The Obsidian’s valet is already pulling my car around. I slide behind the wheel, set my tote on the passenger seat, and pull out of the circular drive.
Twenty minutes later, the campus appears at the end of the street, a sprawling neo-gothic masterpiece of dark stone and ambition.
What few students actually showed up for the last day, stream across the quad in clusters and solo missions, backpacks slung, coffee cups clutched, the collective energy of people who are either very awake or very good at faking it.
I’m thinking the latter.
I slide into an open space, cut the engine, and snatch my tote from the passenger seat.
My heels click a sharp, rhythm against the asphalt as I cross the lot toward campus.
Ahead of me, a student drifts to a near-stop, thumbs moving across their phone screen, completely unbothered by the concept of forward momentum.
I step around them without breaking stride.
There is no way in hell I’m going to be late for class just because some people can’t achieve a multitasking flow state.
I know what you’re thinking.
Why even go to class at all on the last day of the school semester?
That answer is quite simple.
Because I paid an obscenely large amount of money that could reasonably be classified as extortion for this education and because I am unfortunately, an unwell girly obsessed with perfection and control.
Sue me.
The lecture hall is half-full, which makes sense for a Friday that technically doesn’t count for anything.
Dr. Ellison arrives two minutes early. He’s wearing the same tweed jacket he wears every day, the one with the elbow patches that have been repaired so many times they’ve achieved their own kind of structural integrity.
His glasses are perched on the end of his nose and he is carrying a PowerPoint remote in his left hand.
“Good morning, everyone,” he says, “Today we’ll be wrapping up our discussion on chain of custody protocols before moving into a brief review session for those of you who have elected to take the—”
He stops. Looks down at his notes. Looks back up.
“Well. For those of you who are still here.”
A polite chuckle ripples through the room.
I do not participate. My notes are already open, my pink pen uncapped and resting between my index and middle finger, and my brain is operating at about seventy percent capacity, which is still approximately thirty percent more than most of the people in this room on their best day.
Dr. Ellison clicks through his slides. Twenty minutes in, he lands on a slide titled “Chain of Custody: Practical Applications.”
“Now,” he says, adjusting his glasses with one finger, “while the theoretical framework we’ve discussed earlier in the semester is complex, the actual practice of maintaining chain of custody is fairly straightforward in most jurisdictions.
Documentation, signatures, timestamps—it’s essentially a paperwork exercise. ”
My pen stops moving.
The words hang in the air for approximately two point three seconds, which is exactly how long it takes for my brain to run the calculation: he is wrong, I know he is wrong, and I have the receipts to prove it.
My hand goes up.
Dr. Ellison’s eyes find me. His expression shifts to the kind of look of a professor who recognizes the student who always has the answer and is not entirely thrilled about it.
“Yes, Ms. Lane?”
I smile.
The smile is warm, genuine even. It's the kind of smile of a girl who is about to dismantle your entire argument and would like you to know she bears you no ill will in the process.
“I think there might be some nuance worth exploring there,” I say, “Chain of custody failures, while rare, occur more than some like to acknowledge. Particularly in cases where the evidence is central to the prosecution’s theory.”