Page 3 of Calculated Risk
"I need a lot of things. Your condescending problem-solving isn't one of them."
"Condescending—"
"Yes. Condescending. You swoop into everyone's drama like some kind of relationship therapist slash life coach slash campus savior, but you know what? Some of us don't want to be your charity project." She points her finger towards me. I glance over at Sebatian who is looking between us.
What the hell is going on here? My head is telling me to tell her to go to hell and walk away, but before I can speak Sebastian clears his throat. "Lilah, I don't think?—"
"He's been avoiding me for three years." She's on a roll now, anger overriding her devastation. "Everyone else gets Marcus Chen's infinite wisdom and helpful suggestions. But me? He can barely look at me. So forgive me if I don't want his help now just because Isla called him."
She's right. I have been avoiding her for three very specific years. Because looking at Lilah Rodriguez makes me want things I can't control. Feel things I can't calculate. Risk things I can't afford to lose.
"You're right," I say evenly. "I've been avoiding you, but that doesn't change the fact that your work is destroyed and you need help."
"Why? Why do you care? You've made it clear you want nothing to do with me." I’m not sure if she’s angry with me for being the campus helpline, or for not giving her any of my time, or because her work is ruined. The way she’s just shouting at me without even thinking about what she’s saying is confusing me.
Because you scare me. Because you make me feel like I'm falling. Because every time I see you, I have to remind myself why getting close to you is a bad idea.
"Because Isla asked me to," I lie. "And because someone deliberately sabotaged your thesis. That's not just vandalism. That's targeted."
"You think I don't know that?" Her voice cracks. "This was everything. A year of work. Every piece in this show meant something. And someone -" She stops, taking a shaky breath. "Someone wanted to destroy it. To destroy me."
Isla puts an arm around her. "We're going to figure out who did this."
"How? The security footage is gone. There's no evidence and even if we find out who, it doesn't change the fact that I have two weeks to recreate an entire thesis show or I don't graduate."
"Can you recreate it?" Sebastian asks.
"I don't know. Maybe? Some of it. But not all of it. Some pieces took months. I'd need to work twenty-four hours a day and even then—" She laughs bitterly. "It's impossible."
"Nothing's impossible," I hear myself say. "Just improbable. And improbable things require planning."
"Oh my god." Lilah turns to face me fully. "Did you seriously just try to motivate-poster-quote me right now?"
I have to bite my inner cheek to stop myself from smiling at her reply, and how angry she looks at the moment.
"I'm saying there's a solution. We just need to find it."
"We. There is no we. I don't want your help, Marcus."
"Then you're going to fail. Is your pride worth your degree?" I ask her and the words come out harsher than I intended. Lilah flinches like I've slapped her.
"Fuck you," she says quietly. "You don't know anything about me or my life or what I'm willing to sacrifice. So take your calculated risk analysis and your perfect problem-solving skills and get the hell out of my gallery."
She walks away, disappearing into the back rooms. Isla shoots me a look that clearly saysThat could have gone betterbefore following her.
Sebastian and I stand in the destroyed gallery.
"Well," he says after a moment. "That went about as badly as it could have."
"I'm not good at this. The emotional stuff." I never have, I’m not good with talking to girls when they’re emotional.
"No shit." He surveys the damage. "What aren't you telling me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You've been weird about Lilah since freshman year. Every time her name comes up, you change the subject. Every event where she might be there, you find an excuse to leave early and just now, you were trying so hard not to look at her that you might as well have been staring."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
