Billionaires and Brilliance

Chapter One- Too Poor To Buy Apples In The Big Apple

When Olivia first imagined going to live in New York City, this wasn't what she pictured. Poor? Yes. But broke? No.

She threw down the apartment bills in frustration on the table with three legs and a stick under it.

Cassidy looked up from her place on the floor. "What is it?"

"Rent."

"Oh no..."

Cassidy was one of five girls living in the same apartment, and even then they could barely afford to eat. She was the kind of girl that could figure anything out. She, like Olivia and their other roommates, was studying at New York University to be a software developer. She could do anything with technology, or at least, online technology.

Mechanical technology was more of Ryan's thing. Ryan's dream was to be a mechanic, but her parents wouldn't tolerate her not going to a good school. Instead, she was studying to be an engineer. It wasn't what she truly wanted, but she was mostly happy. Ryan was the best adapted to the life the girls led. She had grown up poor until her family gave her up. From there she was passed around the system. No one would keep her because she was too rugged or rebellious or independent. Eventually, she ended up with a family that tolerated her but had high expectations. Thus, her life.

Anthia was the exact opposite. She originally planned on going to beauty school but discovered her talent for acting. After a failed application to Juilliard, she tried NYU and got in. She loved it, especially the stage makeup, which she always did for herself. She was what most girls would look at and consider conceited, but she was sweet. She could be overdramatic, have an ego, and be a primadonna once in a while, but she was normally fun to be around.

Their last roommate was Jessica. She kept to herself, always quiet and reading. She must have read her copy of A Tale of Two Cities at least a hundred times. Buying more books was out of the question, so when she had spare time and was growing weary of the long sentences of Charles Dickens, she'd go to the library. She didn't have a card, but she would find books and read them while she was there, then stash them under things so that no one would check them out before she finished them. She had a cardboard box that she kept next to the air mattress on the floor that she slept on. Inside were dozens of cassette tapes and polaroids, all of people the other girls had never heard about.

Then there was Olivia. She ran on coffee, sarcasm, and spite. She was the girl that got up every morning to go on runs, and it drove Ryan insane. Olivia would plug in earbuds to listen to Billie Eilish or The Chainsmokers on her run. She'd return and take a cold shower before catching the bus and subway with Anthia and Jessica for school. Ryan had scheduled her classes for later in the day to sleep in, and Cassidy made hers very early so they left at very different times than Olivia.

Cassidy got up and set her school-issued laptop down. She grabbed the bill off the table and turned it over, eyes skimming the paper. "I'll pick up an extra shift at the shop." Cassidy worked at a sandwich shop in Brooklyn, a long way from their apartment in Queens.

"Cas-"

She cut Olivia off. "It's ok, Liv, really."

"No, it's not. Your course is really demanding, I'll do it." I offered.

"I'm fine, I have plenty of time."

"No," I countered, "you don't. I can do it."

Cassidy sighed in surrender and returned to her corner of the room. She flopped down on the air mattress and pulled out her laptop. "Ok. I've got a lot of coding to do, anyway."

"Nerd!" Olivia joked.

Cassidy rolled her eyes.

Money was tight. All of the girls had inflatable air mattresses in their apartment, which consisted of a large room with their beds, the table, cardboard boxes pushed together like very, very short walls to divide everyone's space and make storage, and some towels hanging in the center from yarn duct-taped to each wall. There was a small bathroom with a bath that doubled as a shower, a toilet, and an ugly sink in poor condition. Everyone kept their items in their boxes to clear clutter. There was only a dry erase marker on the counter so that they could write messages on the mirror if they were leaving etc. Cassidy also used it as a whiteboard sometimes for her math. It was cheaper than sticky notes.