22

Aidan

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“You seem better,” Jerry remarks when I enter the kitchen the following Monday morning, dressed in a white button down and navy pants. “You also look better.” It’s a fair observation, not an insult. I’ve been wearing the same sweatpants and T-shirt all week, and even I had to admit I was starting to smell.

“Thanks.”

“Early shift at the library?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “I’m covering for someone.”

“Cool. Let me know if you need to tie anything up for any reason. I have a lot of knot knowledge now.”

Sure enough, the couch, ottoman, and both side tables are covered in various lengths of ropes tied up in various types of knots.

“You’re really taking this seriously,” I remark, pouring a bowl of cereal and watching him work on another knot as I eat.

“Well,” he says, chewing on his bottom lip. “I was the worst knot-tier in the group, and it was pretty embarrassing. You don’t say you’re pre-med and then admit you can’t tie a slip knot.”

“Oh, God, no.”

If he hears my sarcasm, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Anyway,” he continues. “Practice makes perfect, so here I am.”

The word perfect makes me think of Aster, and I contemplate Jerry’s knots, an assortment of twisted penance for his crime of cheating. And my crime of paying for it.

I finish the cereal, down half a glass of orange juice, and grab my jacket. “I’ll see you later.”

“Have fun at work.”

It’s a rainy March day as I trudge over to the campus, passing lecture halls and coffee shops, the tempting smells of caffeine and cinnamon buns trying to lure me off my path. But I can’t be late for the morning’s check-in. Today is the requisite Promise & Potential Program once-a-term meeting, where, in addition to classes, jobs, and our extracurricular activity, we’re assigned a task to complete to benefit the seriously under-funded program. I got lucky my first year because they had just moved offices and needed help setting up, so I spent a weekend painting walls and moving furniture and got my cooperation credits without actually having to talk to anybody. Last year I monitored the online program forum and forwarded the queries to Jim and Becca as needed. I’m hoping for something as unchallenging again this time around

The PPP offices are on the second floor of a nondescript gray building, its walls covered with moss and ivy. I pass a handful of people as I enter, mostly older folks dressed in cheap suits and ties.

The building is dim, the floors cheap brown linoleum, the walls a dingy off-white. I take the stairs up one level, weak light spilling in through the occasional window. My boots squeak as I make the short trip to the end of the hall and into the entrance area for the PPP. An elderly lady named Becca sits at the reception desk, and next to it is a swinging gate that leads to a cluster of small offices and meeting rooms.

“Hi, Becca,” I say, signing my name on the clipboard she slides over.

“Hey, Aidan. How’s everything?”

“Never better. Need anything painted today?”

She tsks. “You wish. Go straight on back.”

I slip through the gate and search for the program director, a redheaded guy named Jim who’s not much older than me but who possesses the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old. Not even the drab décor or the constantly dwindling budget can bring Jim down.

I pass a couple of empty offices before coming to the PPP library, a slightly larger office with two half-empty bookshelves, three small desks, and one ancient desktop computer. Today the desks have been pushed to the side, the floor space crammed with cheap metal folding chairs, arranged six across and ten deep, with a small aisle carved out in the middle.

Nearly all the seats are full, so I take one at the very back. Toward the front I spot T.J. and Wes, their heads bent together as they talk. Brix stands off to the side, having a conversation with Jim, but pretty much everyone else is sitting quietly or fiddling with something on their phones.

The room is about seventy percent male, a hundred percent diverse, and extremely confused. We’ve never been gathered before. Never seen this many PPP faces. But before we can worry too much, Jim moves to stand behind the makeshift podium at the front of the room.

“Good morning,” he says, smiling widely. “And thank you all for coming.”

A couple of people mutter some sort of greeting, but everyone else is sitting anxiously, waiting for the ax to fall. A free ride to Holsom in exchange for our promise to try our best was too good to be true, and without exchanging a word, it’s obvious that everyone in here is expecting the worst.

“I know we’ve typically met one-on-one to discuss your cooperation credits, but this year we have a special PPP ten-year anniversary project, and we need everyone here to work together to see it succeed.”

There’s an expectant pause, like he’s waiting for us to applaud, but no one makes a sound.

“Okay,” Jim says, still smiling. “Great. The project will have a past, present, future theme, and will hopefully help to update and re-brand the program. We’ll be creating new brochure materials for prospective students and donors, conducting interviews with program graduates and current participants, offering in-person campus tours, phone consults...”

“We’re supposed to do tours?” Wes asks, sticking his hand in the air belatedly. “I thought we were anonymous.”

“You’re not anonymous to me, Wes,” Jim says, but no one laughs. “Ahem. No one has to lead a tour if they don’t want to. Your privacy is yours to cherish, and we respect that.”

“Can I just send out donation letters like last year?” a girl in the front row asks. “I like mail.”

“You did a great job with the mailings, Nikki. We’ll see if that spot is still available for you.”

She cracks her gum. “Awesome.”

I sigh and dig out my phone, tuning out the rest of Jim’s presentation. I don’t plan to lead any tours, but the cooperation credit is mandatory, and I get why it’s necessary. A PPP student named Lindo greeted me on my move-in day, helping me bring my bags to my room and get settled in. I’d had an enormous chip on my shoulder, totally prepared to be the black sheep in this sea of imagined trust fund rich kids, but seeing someone who’d had a harder life than me make this place work for him gave me the confidence to believe I could have the same opportunities if I opened myself up to them.

Three years ago I never would have believed I could get a girl like Aster. Never would have had the courage to try. I might have always been destined to fail, but making the effort is its own type of progress.

“So that’s that,” Jim says, some time later. The sharp clap of his hands interrupts my thoughts and I put away my phone and straighten in my seat, preparing to go. “We’ve got the sign up sheets here, so if you have a partner in mind, add your names to the same line. I’ll pair up any singles later. You can select your three preferred tasks, and jobs will be assigned shortly. I’m here if you have any questions.”

A handful of people walk out, but most approach the front, picking up papers and pencils from the desks and jotting down the required information. I see T.J. and Wes chatting as they fill in their forms, and I glance around for Brix, thinking he might want to work together. And that’s when I see her.

Aster.

The shiny blond hair, the sharp jut of her stubborn jaw, her denim jacket. I stop breathing for a second. My entire body misses her, desperate to close the fifteen feet between us and promise to do whatever it takes to make up for what I already did.

Then she approaches Jim, aiming that gorgeous smile right at him, and I stop breathing for another reason.

She’s here to ruin me.

I think about her giving Jerry a box of burned belongings. She doesn’t forgive, he said. She doesn’t forget.

She’s going to tell Jim what I did, that I have neither promise nor potential, that I’m a liar and an asshole and whatever else she needs to say to yank the PPP scholarship out from under me. I have no idea how she found out about it, and I don’t care. I want Aster, but I want this scholarship more. I need it.

I elbow my way through the group of students, knocking over chairs in my haste to get to the front.

“Just one second,” Jim is saying to Aster when I approach. He quickly hurries over to the sign up desks where a squabble has broken out between a couple of students.

“Hey, Aster,” I say casually.

She almost jumps out of her skin, whipping around and gaping at me. “What—” She looks behind me, like answers might be lurking in my shadow. “What are you doing here?” she asks, even as realization dawns. “You’re—”

Her reaction is the polar opposite of the snide I’m going to destroy you response I was expecting, and before the implication can completely sink in, Jim is back.

“Aidan Shaw!” he exclaims, snatching my hand in a grip I don’t return as I stare at Aster in astonishment. “Good to see you, as always. And you already know Aster Lindsey? Excellent.” He beams and scribbles on the paper in his hand. “There. You’re partnered up. Excellent. I couldn’t have chosen better myself.”

“No...” Aster tries to interject, her voice weak with shock.

He ignores the tiny protest. “Preferred assignments?”

“We’re not—”

“Interviews,” I say loudly, because that’s one of the tasks I heard Jim mention and I can’t think of anything better.

She shoots me a withering glare. “Jim, we are not—”

“—interested in mailing brochures,” I finish. “We are not interested in mail.”

“Sure. Nikki’s got that covered, anyway.” Another fight—or perhaps the same one—breaks out in the corner again, and Jim sighs. “Would you two excuse me? Who knew pencils could cause so much drama?”

He dashes off to calm things down again.

“You’re in the program?” I whisper-shout as soon as he’s gone.

“You’re in the program?” Aster counters.

“Yes, obviously!”

She gives me a derisive look. “Yes, obviously.”

But now that I’ve seen her, witnessed those cracks in her façade, I can’t un-see them. This snooty look she’s trying on is like a little girl stumbling around in her mother’s high heels. It’s something she might aspire to, but not something that fits her.

“What’d you do?” I ask.

Aster does a double take. “That’s none of your business.”

“I stole cars. Did six months in juvie for fighting at school, got out, decided stealing cars was more my thing, got arrested, then got a judge who gave me a choice: Holsom or five years in prison.”

Her jaw is tight. “You should have picked prison.”

“Then I wouldn’t have met you.”

“Exactly.”

That hurts, but I don’t let it show. Now that I know she’s not here to rat me out, I’m fucking ecstatic to have a reason to see her again.

“Seems like we’re partners,” I say.

“We’re nothing, Aidan. I’m going to talk to Jim and find someone—anyone—else.”

In the corner, the loud argument about pencils escalates into a full-on shouting match.

“Well, you have a lot of good alternatives,” I observe.

Aster’s nostrils flare as she exhales, frustrated and furious. “Anything would be better,” she says, striding past me to the door.

I catch her arm as she leaves. She stops and stares at my fingers, then raises fulminous blue eyes to mine.

“What are you doing?” she asks in a low voice, her rage barely restrained.

“I’m sorry about what happened.”

She blinks, the apology obviously unexpected. “I don’t care.”

“I do. I miss you.”

She looks for Jim, who is taking away everybody’s pencils, then pries my fingers off her arm. “You’ll get over it.”

“Come on, Aster,” I try. “You’re here, which means that despite appearances, you’re not perfect. Give me another chance.”

“Here is an anomaly,” she says through her teeth. “Most people don’t get second chances. And smart people don’t give them. I don’t give them, and I don’t waste them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you had your chance, and you fucked it up before it ever began. And you ruined mine, and I’m never going to forget it.”

I don’t say anything else as she stomps away, her blond hair swinging, her body so stiff it looks like it could crack at the slightest pressure. Like the fissures in her composure are growing ever-wider, ready to burst open, and I have a crow bar.