Page 28 of Brutal Prince

Indi

My Computer Science class goes off without a hitch. Lavish is on the same timetable as my old school, so I’m only a week behind. But even so, after the teacher introduces me to the class, I barely register that I’m learning concepts a week into the future.

I get computers. I understand those basic programs everyone else swears at on a daily basis. Back before everything went to shit, I was the resident IT Girl on the block. Fellow students — even their damn parents — would send me sheepish text messages at all hours of the day asking for help with their issues.

Emails.

Internet browsers.

Blue screens.

I had no training beyond the basics that my school’s computer programming classes gave, but it would never take me longer than a few minutes to figure out what the issue was.

Usually, it was the user.

At first, I was all nice about it. I’d suggest they tried things differently. Perhaps looked up new shit in Google before attempting anything.

But after a few years of being everyone’s favorite IT Girl, that shit got me real jaded.

I went from being ‘Indi the Genius’ to ‘That girl that fixes computers.’

The texts for me to help put a stop to email spam stopped. I was no longer the go-to person for clearing suspicious browser histories.

Instead, I only got called in on the level 3 shit: blue screens, failed updates, and porn pop-ups.

Now, for the first time in a week I’m finally starting to feel like myself again.

For the period of one class, I manage to forget Mom’s dead.

* * *

I strideinto AP Psychology with a smile on my face and a swagger in my step. There’d been a pop quiz for the last ten minutes of my computer programming class.

I aced it.

Afterward, the teacher called me aside to introduce himself formally. And then told me I had two days to catch up the last week of theory.

Well, damn. Guess I’d better cancel my plans for this evening.

I laugh to myself as I sink into my seat. Around me, the classroom’s filled with a very familiar drone of friends chatting and the sound of chairs scraping back.

For a few, idyllic moments, I lose myself in that noise.

You know what? I got this. Whatever the world has to throw my way, I can handle it. This is a new chapter in my life. The fresh start I was looking for in syringes and rubber hoses. All I need is—

“What up, virgin?”

My thoughts collapse in on themselves like a poorly constructed house of cards.

Briar.

I don’t turn, mostly because I’m frozen but also because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing the shock on my face.

AP Psych.

Really?

The fuck does a jock like him need to know about Freud or Jung?

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