"Did I do something to you? Because I really don't think I did," I said.
"I'm not trying to be your friend, Lindsay. I'm just here to figure out the deal with this coin."
I wasn't trying to be his friend either, but why would either one of us want to spend time with someone who hated the other even with a goal that was clear as mud? He wasn't going to ruin the experience for me, and unless he found something to offer besides a bad attitude, he would no longer be with us very soon.
On the team. I wasn't going to kill him. Most likely.
***
Lindsay Hughes, a sophomore studying cultural anthropology at Tillamook College in Oregon, has been good at discovering patterns, lies, hidden details, and just about everything else for as long as she can remember. To her, it's no secret that she's an underachieving disappointment to her parents, she'll probably never find a job if she even graduates, and her spending habits will haunt her eventually, but she also couldn't care less about those minor issues.
With a professor who hates her job, a rock enthusiast best friend, a nosy roommate, and a bitter classmate who can't seem to listen, she digs up something, and for once in her life, she can't figure out what it means.
"Why are you getting upset?" he asked.
"Because everything is different now. Call it my lack of emotional intelligence, but I can't stand you!"
"What's different?"
"Everything is. You know everything. You're holding the key to the world just above my fingertips."
"What?"
"You know exactly what I mean."
He rubbed his eyes with his hand. "If I'm doing that, it's only because I'm giving it to you. I'm not against you, and I don't know why you think I am. This was supposed to be a peace offering."
"I don't want peace. I just-" I couldn't hold back my tears any longer. "I just want everything to go back to the way it was."
"Before me?"
I nodded.
Amanda Jayne is a sports-loving, change-resisting math enthusiast. She loves "her" people more than anything in the world, and nothing can ever break their bond.
Or so she thought.
When her brother's best friend Viktor moves in as a foreign exchange student, he shows Amanda what loyalty doesn't mean, and that trust can be built up and broken down like sandcastles.
Can they learn to coexist, or will their different points of view drive them apart?
Rewritten version completed July 14, 2020