A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

36

Eleven days later

“All right, that’s it. You’re getting up.”

Bright sunlight smacked me in the eyes as my weighted blanket was ripped away. I shriveled into a ball against the sudden bout of freezing air.

“What the hell!” I rasped, squinting up at my attacker. The complaint grated against the sandpaper coating my throat. “Close the window! It’s like minus ten out!”

“Get in the bath,” Jamie ordered with a bossy snap of her fingers. She pointed at the door. “Now.”

“Why haven’t you left for work yet?” I grumbled, pulling the tip of my fleece hood down to shield my eyes.

“Ria, it’s almost six p.m. Work started ten hours ago. I just got back.”

“Oh,” I said. “Almost bedtime, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I grabbed the edge of my blanket again and rolled it on top of me. Then I curled my knees back up to my chest, shut my eyes, and let the fuzzy darkness consume—

Something gripped my ankle and yanked.

I kicked, trying to get her to let go. “Stop that,” I demanded.

“Absolutely fucking not. I’ve given you ten days to mope. It’s more than enough.” She was using both her arms now.

“Why are you doing this?” I whined, scrambling for purchase against the bed sheets as my body was slowly pulled from the mattress. I managed to hook my fingers around the edge of the bed frame but didn’t have the strength to hold on for longer than a few seconds.

“Because you’d do the same for me,” Jamie responded as I belly flopped onto the carpet with a dull groan. “Though you wouldn’t be nearly as nice about it.”

And then my—officially former—best friend dumped an entire fucking pitcher of ice water right on top of my head.

I gasped as the shock of the cold pierced my skin, my spine bolting upright as my mouth hung entirely open.

“You did not just do that to—Jamie! Holy shit—stop!”

She was holding the second pitcher above me like a madwoman, the spout tilted just enough to be a threat.

“Have you eaten anything today?” she asked, frowning down at me like I was a misbehaving school child.

I peeled my soaked hood away from my hair as the gears in my brain groaned to stiff motion, trying to figure out what the hell had gotten into her. “I just woke up,” I said.

Her eyes thinned. “When was the last time you drank water? Or took a shower?”

Was she fucking serious?

“Literally right now. You just—okayokayokayokay!” I held up my hands, surrendering as the spout tipped far enough for a thin stream of water to escape. “God, relax. I’ll drink some fucking water.”

What the hell was wrong with her? My whole carpet was soaked.

I hauled to my feet, vaguely aware of how much genuine effort it took. My muscles were weirdly sore, my knees more unsteady than I remembered them usually being.

I dragged my feet all the way to the kitchen, poured myself a small glass of water, and forced it down even though it tasted like bitter, liquid sand.

“Happy?” I snapped. The glass cup hit the bottom of the sink with a much more dramatic clank than I’d intended, but I wasn’t sorry about it.

Jamie ignored my small tantrum as she ripped a large plastic garbage bag from its roll and proceeded to march right back to my room.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded to know.

I felt a little out of breath as I trailed after her. I swiped a bunch of wet hair away from my eyes and forehead as Jamie got to work, grabbing empty cans, bottles, and clothing off the floor.

“Seriously, what are you doing?” I asked again.

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re cleaning my room,” I said as she shoved an empty peanut butter jar into the bag.

“Then that’s what I’m doing.” She put the bag down, moving to strip my pillows of their cases. “You should get in the bath before it gets cold. I got that honey-lavender stuff you like, and there’s already a fresh set of clothes for you in there too.”

“I can clean this up myself.” I just hadn’t felt like it this week. Or last.

“I know,” she said easily. “I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just… What’s this?”

My sluggish brain was exactly one beat too slow to comprehend what she was looking at.

The photobooth strips we’d taken that day at the harbor.

“Is that…” She squinted down at the pictures. “Is that Adrien? Why is he blue?”

I snatched the photos out of her hand and clutched them against my stomach.

“It’s not him,” I said.

Her gaze flicked to my nose, then thawed, understanding. “You keep pictures of you and Adrien in your pillowcase?”

My heart was hurling itself around my ribcage as my entire body burned scarlet. I wish I’d never told her about the nostril flare thing.

“Ria…”

“I’m gonna go take that bath now,” I decided. Then I walked to the small garbage bin in the corner of my room and forced my hand to release the strips.

I’d been meaning to get rid of them anyway. I just… eventually.

Jamie was doing that thing where she was looking at me like I was a wounded kitten, so I averted my gaze and trudged out of the room, promising myself that I wouldn’t do a dumpster dive to retrieve the photos when she inevitably took the garbage out.

* * *

The two voices murmuring in hushed tones stopped abruptly as soon as I walked into the kitchen, a towel wrapped around my wet hair. A very pregnant Alba tried to flash me her most convincing smile from her spot at the table, but it flickered before it could touch her eyes.

“Hey,” I said as my feet shuffled noisily toward the fridge. I opened it and scanned the shelves mindlessly, even though I didn’t really have an appetite.

“You’re awake,” Alba said too brightly.

I hummed, my attention lingering on a carton of eggs. I knew I needed to eat at some point, but was an omelet worth the energy? I’d have to gather the ingredients, prep the veggies, heat the pan, cook, wait, eat, clean up…

I shut the fridge. Eating was officially a tomorrow problem.

Alba cleared her throat, trying to draw my attention. I turned to her.

“What?” I asked, even though it wasn’t necessary.

The day after I’d gotten back from Victoria, she’d blown up my phone, asking me to explain to her exactly what I’d done to prompt Adrien to request an in-person meeting with her and apologize for “literally everything,” as she’d put it. She’d also wanted to know why he’d rehired her and tripled her maternity compensation. “He even gave me three extra months of leave! And when I go back, my weekly hours are capped at a strict forty, I’m not allowed to work on holidays, and using my vacation days is officially mandatory. Seriously, what the hell did you do?”

I’d promised to explain it all later, and it was officially later.

But instead of hounding me for all the answers she was owed, she motioned to a stack of takeout containers in front of her. “I brought Indian from that place you like. Chicken tikka masala, extra spicy. With garlic naan.”

Oh. Well, that was nice.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll grab the plates. You can just sit down, Ria,” Jamie offered, springing right into action.

They were being weird. Their voices, actions, vibes were way off. I realized this but found that I didn’t care enough to ask. So I just did as I was told.

There was an awkward bit of silence as Jamie set the table, and Alba struggled to say whatever she needed to say. Even Toebeans was uncharacteristically quiet, curled up on one of the chairs, bushy tail flicking.

“So,” my sister finally said, and I could tell by the way her voice dipped that she was gearing up for A Conversation. “Interesting to see that this whole misery train runs both ways.”

Jamie set a massive glass of water beside my bare plate. One of the football-sized ones that came with the apartment, and that we kept at the very back of the cupboards, because no one ever needed to drink almost a liter of any liquid in one sitting. Unless it came directly from a bottle of wine.

Speaking of which, “Do we have any wine?”

“No,” they both said at the same time.

Bummer.

Alba cleared her throat for what must have been the fourth time in two minutes.

“Do you need a lozenge?” My voice came out sharp enough that both her and Jamie raised their eyebrows at me. Shit. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap.”

“What’s going on with you?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She cocked her head. “Really? Because Adrien told me at least some of what happened in Victoria, and it didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Well, it was.”

I snatched a slice of naan out of the open foil, ripped a piece off, and shoved it into my mouth. They both kept staring.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Alba eventually said in a soft tone, “he’s not doing great, either.”

The naan turned to a clump of clay in my mouth. I forced it down with a big gulp of water.

“I don’t care,” I muttered, keeping my eyes down.

“Ria, you should know—”

“Okay, you know what, new rule,” I decided. “We’re officially adding Adrien to the banned list of conversation topics, right under Josh.”

“No,” Alba said.

“I’m not asking.”

“And I’m not going to sit back and let you fall into this pit again,” she retorted.

“What pit? I’m telling you I don’t want to talk about your asshole boss—”

“No, Ria. No more conversation bans. You don’t want to talk about Adrien, you don’t want to talk about Josh, you don’t want to talk about school, you never want to talk about Dad. You just… you keep internalizing everything, punishing yourself, and it’s… so difficult for me to watch. If you need therapy, we can—”

“Alba, I don’t want to talk about this with you,” I told her as calmly as one could through clenched teeth.

“Fine, then just listen,” Alba said. “We’re having this conversation one way or another, because I’m not—I can’t just sit back and do nothing anymore. Not in good conscience. So please just let me say my piece, because I think… sometimes with the things you say and how you act, it feels like you think what happened with Dad was your fault, and—”

“Alba, stop!”

Her eyes were welling up, her chin wobbling a little as she began to rub her stomach. “Am I right? Is that what you think?”

I couldn’t pry my jaw open enough to answer her, though. Maybe because I didn’t really know what to say.

Jamie was looking between us with a sad frown, her fingers fumbling with the dainty chain around her neck.

“Ria, I can’t just sit back and watch you go down this self-destructive path anymore. I physically can’t do it. I’ve given you time, I’ve given you space, but it’s not getting better, and it feels like you keep… punishing yourself because you think you deserve it. And if you don't want to talk about it with me, then fine. But please at least talk to a professional about it.”

Jamie reached for my hand then, squeezing it once.

“And what makes you think I’m punishing myself?” I asked her stubbornly.

“Well, for one, you’ve spent an entire decade holding yourself back, not pursuing a single one of your interests, and squandering every last ounce of your own potential,” she said. “You’ve given up on your dreams, ambitions. Things you’ve been passionate about since as far back as I can remember.”

A sudden flash of anger snaked through me like a livewire, hot and heavy. I didn’t have nearly enough patience or energy to pull it back. “Newsflash, Albs: I’m not the first person in history to have peaked in high school. I don’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with a bunch of potential I may or may not have had when I was a fucking teenager! Get over it!”

Both her and Jamie raised their eyebrows at me, but Alba recovered quickly, leaning back as her eyes narrowed with a warning glint. Her lips weren’t wobbling anymore. Instead, her demeanor and expression started to take on a more… challenging tone. Like she was gearing up for a battle.

Or maybe I was projecting.

I rose to my feet, fists clenching at my sides. “You think I held myself back on purpose?” I asked her. “You think I chose this path? Alba, every single one of those universities revokedtheir offers. That wasn’t my choice.”

If I thought for one secondthat there was still a chance that I could—nevermind. It didn’t fucking matter anymore.

Alba shrugged.

She shrugged. As if what I’d said was completely irrelevant to the argument.

“So?” she said.

My head jutted forward. “Is that a serious question? Or a pregnancy brain thing?”

“Did you ever try applying again?”

Jamie threw a piece of naan into her mouth like it was popcorn, her wide eyes sliding from my end of the table to Alba’s. She looked…

Something was happening. The two of them were up to something.

“Why would I pay a bunch of money just to go through another round of rejections?” I asked.

“How do you know they’ll reject you?”

“Because they will.”

“But how do you know that if you’ve never even tried?”

“I just do!” I snarled.

“Mhmm. Sure.”

Jamie peeled open the tops of two different curry containers as she watched our exchange—the extra spicy tikka masala, and a yellow curry with cubes of paneer.

My stomach growled, sending hunger pangs through me for the first time in almost two weeks. But I kept my focus on my sister. “I have a criminal record, remember?”

Her gaze dipped to her cuticles. “I’m not interested in your excuses, Ria.”

My fingers dug into the table. She was goading me. I didn’t know why she was doing it, but she was, and it was fucking working.

“It’s not an excuse,” I argued.

Her eyes snapped back to my face. They were fucking glittering. “Prove it,” she said.

“What? How?”

Before I’d even asked, she’d thrust a hand into her large tote bag.

“Like this.” She held out a blue folder, an oddly familiar smirk toying with the tips of her mouth. She wiggled it tauntingly when I didn’t immediately reach for it. “Come on. You asked.”

I snatched it out of her outstretched hand and threw it open on the table.

Time stopped.

“What—uh… what’s this?” I asked stupidly. Even though the answer was written right there, clear as day.

Five separate university application forms, all of which were already filled out. With my information.

“You just have to sign ‘em,” Alba said, evidently pleased with this small victory of hers. “I couldn’t do that part for you. Because of the law.”

“I… can’t,” I stammered as the rush of nerves hit my bloodstream. My mind was reeling, trying to climb out of the thick fog it’d been stuck in for the last ten days. Come up with an excuse. Any excuse! “Just sending these in would cost like six hundred and twenty-five dollars. Even if I had a job right now, I wouldn’t spend that much money just to prove a point.”

Jamie poured a bunch of food onto my plate, smiling to herself.

“Interesting that you know the current going rate for university applications in the country,” Alba mused. “Almost like you’ve checked them recently. Or even regularly. Like maybe that dream isn’t quite as dead as you want everyone to believe.”

I was this close to developing an ulcer. But before I could try to convince her that it was just a lucky guess, she reached into her bag again.

“Five checks. One for each school. Any other excuses?”

Panic sprouted in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not taking six hundred dollars from you just to send in a bunch of joke applications to universities that are going to take one look at my record and reject them.”

She blinked slowly, waiting for a beat before she said, “Except for the fact that your record wasn’t the full reason your offers and scholarships were revoked. Josh’s dad pulled a bunch of strings to make it happen, and you know that because he told you so. Right before he made you believe you’d never have a shot at pursuing a post-secondary education again, as payback for ‘what you did to his son.’” Her fingers bent in the air when she said that last part, anger ticking in her cheek.

My jaw hit the floor. “How do youknow that?”

She swallowed thickly, her gaze softening. “Why didn’t you tell me that he threatened you? I could have tried to help.”

My forehead hurt from the strain of my frown. “Seriously. How did you find out? And when?”

“Yesterday.” She very pointedly did not answer my first question.

“What an asshole,” Jamie said midchew. “Can you imagine being a grown-ass man and threatening an eighteen-year-old girl like that? Fucking loser.”

Alba nodded. “Point is, Ria, if you really, truly, in your deepest of hearts don’t want to go, then that’s okay. But if there’s even a part of you that’s held on to the dream… you should send in those applications. Trust me.”

“Mmm.” Jamie nodded, mouth full.

I watched the two of them carefully, my eyes thinning into slits. “And how are we so sure Josh’s dad won’t pull his strings again?” I asked slowly.

Alba looked me dead in the eyes, smirked, and said, “He’s been taken care of. As have the admission board members that accepted his bribes.”

Click.

“But wait, there’s more!” Jamie interjected as I continued to hold my sister’s gaze. She was wiggling with excitement. “Ria, tell her you don’t think you could afford the tuition even if you did get in.”

I was going to have at least one cracked molar by the time this conversation was over.

Alba’s little smirk twitched. “That’s a very valid concern to have, Ria,” she said, pointedly ignoring the eight separate veins protruding out of my face and neck. “Did you know that certain law firms will actually pay to put exceptionally talented individuals through school if said exceptionally talented individuals agree to work for them for a certain period of time after graduation?”

“A law firm scholarship program!” Jamie exclaimed. “They even pay for your living expenses if they want you badly enough. Who’d have thunk it?”

Who indeed.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Alba went on. The two of them were having way too much fun with this sloppy little performance of theirs. “You’re thinking, ‘Alba, those sponsorship programs are for law students. I don’t even have my bachelor’s degree yet. Why would they ever consider me for such an amazing opportunity that I would be incredibly silly not to at least consider?’”

That wasn’t what I was thinking.

“Well, Ria, I’m glad you asked,” Alba went on.

“She really is,” Jamie said to me. “You can tell.”

“What if I told you that if—and only if—you’re exceptionally talented enough, that one very well-known law firm in particular would also be willing to cover the costs of your undergraduate degree?”

Alba reached into her bag again as my pulse continued to thunder, pulled out a sleek business card, and slid it to me across the table.

Sunny Kanun.

Senior Partner.

Kanun, Barr, & Lee.

“Your interview’s tomorrow afternoon. Details are on the back,” Alba said. “Don’t be late. Or do. I honestly don’t think it’ll matter.”

Silence settled between the three of us as Alba and Jamie waited for my reaction. Finally, I picked up the card, stripped the towel from my damp hair, and declared, “I’m going to kill Adrien Cloutier. For real this time.”

“Yes!” Jamie jumped out of her seat. “But do it with mascara on, yeah?”

“He’s still at the office,” Alba said easily. She placed her all-access pass on the table as Jamie dragged me back into the bathroom, demanding to know where I’d put my hairbrush.

I didn’t even try to put up a fight.