"Elena, you're a lifesaver!" Professor Winters fumbled with his stack of books as I swooped in, catching three hardcovers before they crashed to the ground.
"Just in the right place at the right time," I said, flashing a smile as I balanced half his academic library. "Where to?"
"Third floor, but you really don't have to—"
"Already heading that way!" I wasn't, but the poor man looked like he was one paper cut away from a nervous breakdown.
The truth was, I was supposed to be meeting Lisa for coffee ten minutes ago. But helping people was my thing. My brand. Elena Hart: campus ray of sunshine, professional problem-solver, and Olympic gold medalist in pretending her life wasn't a dumpster fire.
After dropping off the books and declining Professor Winters' offer to write me a recommendation letter (that I desperately needed but couldn't admit to needing since he wasn't sure he should have been offering), I sprinted across the quad. My phone buzzed with Lisa's sixth text when I spotted Troy, a freshman from my economics study group, looking lost and panicky outside the library.
"Troy? What's wrong? You look like you're about to throw up."
"My laptop died," he croaked, clutching a USB drive. "My paper's due in fifteen minutes and the library computers are all taken."
I checked my watch. Lisa was going to kill me. "Use mine," I said, already unzipping my backpack. "I've got juice for days. Meet me at the campus café when you're done."
His face lit up like I'd offered him a kidney. "Seriously? You're the best, Elena!"
Lisa's expression twenty minutes later was considerably less adoring, particularly when I finished my tale. "You gave away your laptop. Again."
"He was desperate," I defended, sliding into the coffee shop booth across from her. "And I'll get it back. Besides, this isn't even real coffee." I gestured to her venti caramel monstrosity. "It's caffeinated ice cream."
"Don't change the subject." Lisa narrowed her eyes but pushed a plain black coffee toward me. "You need to stop treating everyone else's emergencies like they're yours to fix."
"Says the girl who already ordered my coffee exactly how I like it." I grinned, taking a long sip. "Who's helping who now?"
"That's different. I'm your best friend. I'm contractually obligated to enable your caffeine addiction." She tossed her blonde hair over one shoulder. "Speaking of enabling, where's your man?"
My smile faltered slightly. Daniel. My mysterious friend who kept "coincidentally" appearing whenever I was particularly broke, always with some flimsy excuse to give me money. Last week it was "hey, I bet you can't name all fifty states in alphabetical order" with a hundred-dollar prize. The week before, he'd "found" my wallet that I'd "dropped" with an extra forty bucks inside.
"He's just a friend," I muttered.
"A hot, loaded friend who's obviously into you."
I rolled my eyes. "He is not. Some people are just nice."
Lisa's retort was cut off by my phone's alarm. My stomach dropped. "Shoot. Family dinner."
"Skip it," Lisa suggested, like she always did. "Your step-monster won't even notice."
"My dad would. It's the only time he remembers I exist." I gathered my bag, already dreading the evening ahead. "Besides, Clarissa specifically said it was 'mandatory' this time. She's having some fancy business associates over."
"Translation: she needs someone to serve finger foods while she pretends she knows how to cook them." Lisa scowled.
"It's fine," I lied, my everything's-fine smile slipping back into place. "Free dinner, right?"
----
It was not free.
"Elena, darling, be a dear and pass these around." Clarissa pressed a tray of tiny pastry things into my hands the moment I walked through the door of my father's mansion. Not my mansion. Never mine, despite the fact that I'd lived there until college.
I hadn't even had time to take off my coat.
"I—sure, but let me just say hi to Dad first—"
"He's busy with Mr. Carrington. Business talk." She adjusted my collar with cold fingers, her diamond rings catching the light. "And do try to smile properly, dear. You look exhausted."
That's because I am exhausted, I wanted to say. From working two jobs while taking eighteen credits because my stepmother convinced Dad that paying my tuition would "rob me of self-reliance."
Instead, I smiled. Properly. And took the tray.
For the next hour, I circulated through rooms of our house I was no longer allowed to enter casually, offering strange looking whatever-the-hell-they-weres to people who looked through me like I was part of the furniture. Clarissa held court in the center of the living room, my father beaming adoringly at her side.
"Oops!" A champagne flute tipped against my only nice dress—the black one I'd saved three paychecks for. The amber liquid spread across the fabric.
"Oh, Elena, I'm sooo sorry." My stepsister Delilah's saccharine voice could have put a diabetic in shock. "But really, you should watch where you're standing. My Louboutins don't navigate around serving staff easily."
"I'm not—" I bit my tongue. "No problem," I said instead, dabbing uselessly at the stain with a napkin.
"Is that the same dress you wore to Dad's birthday last year?" She wrinkled her nose. "Sustainable fashion. How...economical of you."
Before I could respond, my stepbrother Evan materialized, plucking a pastry from my tray. "Speaking of economical, how's that scholarship holding up, sis? Still maintaining that GPA?" His tone suggested he was really asking if I'd been kicked out yet.
"3.95," I answered automatically. The hours of sleep I'd sacrificed for that number flashed before my eyes.
"Hmm. Not 4.0? Slipping a bit?" He smirked, high-fiving Delilah as they drifted back into the crowd.
I spotted my father across the room and started toward him, desperate for just one moment of acknowledgment, but Clarissa intercepted me.
"Kitchen, Elena. We need more of the mushroom canapés." Her eyes flicked to my stained dress. "And perhaps you should remain there for the rest of the evening. That dress looks rather...distressing."
I bit my lip against the retort.
The kitchen was blessedly empty. I set down the tray and gripped the edge of the marble counter, breathing deeply through my nose. I would not cry. Not here, not now.
"Everything's fine," I whispered to my reflection on the chrome refrigerator. "Just fine."
"Talking to appliances now, Elena? Should we be worried?"
I jumped. The catering assistant—Adam, I think—stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised.
"Just practicing my TED talk," I joked, pulling myself together with practiced ease. "How to Make Friends with Kitchen Appliances: The Untold Story."
He laughed, and I joined in, settling my mask back into place. Good old Elena. Always ready with a smile.
---
Two excruciating hours later, I escaped. Clarissa hadn't even noticed when I slipped out without saying goodbye to anyone. My father had been too engrossed in his business conversations to look for me.
It started raining the moment I stepped outside, because of course it did.
"Delilah needed the car for a date," our housekeeper had explained apologetically when I'd asked for a ride. Translation: Delilah didn't want me to have a ride.
So I walked, pulling my jacket tight around me as the rain picked up. The fastest route to my apartment took me through downtown, past all the shiny stores I couldn't afford to shop in and restaurants I'd only entered as a delivery person.
A plaintive "meow" caught my attention from above. Squinting through the rain, I spotted a small orange cat perched precariously on the scaffolding of a massive billboard, looking thoroughly miserable.
"How did you even get up there?" I called.
The cat meowed again, more desperately this time.
I sighed, looking up at the massive advertisement. Some tech billionaire's face smirked down at me, selling the latest whatever. Sebastian Blackwood—that was his name. His companies were always in the news lately, and his annoyingly perfect face was plastered all over campus since his company sponsored our computer science building.
The scaffolding didn't look that high...
"Don't worry," I called to the cat, pulling myself onto the first rung of the metal ladder and praying it held me.
I was almost to the cat when I heard it—a low, ominous creak from above. Looking up, I caught a final glimpse of Sebastian Blackwood's giant smirking face tilting toward me as the billboard broke free from its moorings.
Of course this is how I die, I thought as gravity took hold. Crushed by a rich man who doesn't even know I exist.
Then everything went black.