Chapter 50 Lucas
Lucas
I start my story four weeks ago, when I got a text from Emerson Butler asking me to meet him “for a coffee.”
But here was Emerson, asking to meet up for coffee. He picked Café Culture, a coffee shop that seemed to have more white walls, glass displays, and blue branded cups than it had seats. When I took a sip of the latte Emerson had ordered for me, I almost spit it out. It tasted like ass.
“The flavor profiles here are super unique,” he told me. Yeah. If “unique” is synonymous with “sucks.” But I didn’t say that.
“I have a proposition for you,” he told me. “An opportunity that I believe you’ll find mutually beneficial.”
And he explained. He was pissed because the valedictorian and salutatorian spots had been “stolen” from him at his previous prep school.
Those two had apparently “gamed the system” by taking local college classes.
So he’d switched to Coastal Canyon, believing that, it being a public school, he’d easily outrank whoever our valedictorian and salutatorian were.
He hadn’t anticipated Avery Winslow and Caulder Grant or their GPAs, which—even if he pulled straight A’s during senior year—would easily outpace his.
Now, he said, he found himself “at a crossroads.” He couldn’t go back to his private school. He’d burned bridges. He needed to figure out a way to stand out in the pool beyond just GPA.
“Everyone wants DEI applicants,” he said, then held up his hand. “No offense.”
A lot of offense, actually. But I let him keep spinning. I’d figured that out a long time ago, when I started doing interviews on my channel: Give people time to dig their own graves, and eventually, they will.
“I need to stand out. I need to do something that will make it so no college can ignore me.”
“So, what are your ideas?” I asked. “And…what the hell do you need me for?”
I wondered if maybe he was going to try to do some kind of video essay. It was the only thing that made sense.
But then his lips curled in that way rich guys’ do. And he laughed, then looked around before leaning forward and saying, in a conspiratorial whisper, the most insane shit I’d literally ever heard.
“I’m going to survive an attempted murder.”