Page 101 of Gifted & Talented

“Oh my god, Jamie!” She looked at him with such a flame of hatred that he knew, somewhere deep in his guthe knew,that this was a really bad love, the kind that bites. The kind that would bitehim,specifically.

“Why would you do that to yourself?” he felt himself ask her. “Why would you go through that, for what?”

She was embarrassed, he could tell. She was mortified, like she’d shown him an ugly scar and he’d replied that she, as a whole, was ugly. He knew,he could see it on her face, but he didn’t yet know it the way he would eventually know. He’d humiliated her, he’d broken her heart, he’d said no to a part of her that she had only shared with him because she trusted him more than any other person on earth. Poor little rich girl! Except he really did feel pain for her, he honestly fucking ached.

The guy, Jamie’s old roommate, he did a total one-eighty, dropped out of school to go on medical missions in various countries south of the equator. He posted on social media about his numerous hunger strikes; he used his family’s money to fund class action suits over negligence-related deaths and racially driven wrongful termination cases until his father cut him off; eventually he died in poverty, about a year ago, from a severe case of malaria. His social media linked to a variety of socially conscious websites—he rarely appeared in any of the photos, and his last post was “what a beautiful life! I am rich in all the ways that matter” followed by the hashtag#happiness.

And, obviously,#blessed.

So to say Jamie had become obsessed with Chirp was an understatement. He preordered it, wore his the moment it arrived. After weeks and weeks he found that all it did was make him think of her, which was the opposite of happiness, though it fanned an old compulsion, some idiotic need to be part of Meredith’s life. This time he was angry, ultimately she hadkilleda man; it didn’t matter what sort of platitudes that guy had claimed to his imagined global audience, happiness and self-sacrifice weren’t the same. Happiness! Please! Meredith couldn’t make that shit! She sold her soul when she signed with Tyche, and thank god she did, because Jamie could hate her for that. He couldn’t hate her for anything else, butthatwas disgusting, it was the epitome of privilege, it proved to him that her goal was never philanthropic. It made her less the girl whose lashes swept across her cheek as she slept and more the thing he wanted her to be, the willing conflagration of callousness and greed. Meredith Wren, finally the paragon of class solidarity that Jamie’s ethical conscience had always needed her to be.

He’d known it from the start, that he was going to expose her, he was going to ruin her, and yes, he would carry that guilt around forever—he’d shove it in the box markedMEREDITHalong with the vestiges of pain and love—but who was to say that wasn’t exactly what either of them deserved?

He could only love her complicatedly, maybe even only from a distance. Up close she made him stupid, she overrode his natural functions. He looked at her and saw stars, he saw forever, he saw a lonely girl with more money inher life than love. She was the last person to know what happy looked like, what happy felt like, how incredibly underwhelming happiness actually was to claim. Happiness! Mosquitoes were probably happy, the bloodsuckers. Short and blissful, filled with retribution. How was that for the fulfillment of life.

Meredith’s foot cramped then and Jamie reached for it, massaged it, kissed the arch of it. The darkness was thick, teeming with bugs and bloom. It was all so simple, so pathetic. Don’t marry him, marry me. Be a better person.Wantto be better, all on your own—want to right it all, for me. Face it, he thought, but also, how could he ask her that when it meant that he would lose her? Fix it, he thought, keep lying until you’ve gotten away with everything you’ve done, but if she did that, would he still respect her? Could he still look her in the eye and know he’d made a liar of her, even if they both already knew what she was?

Why couldn’t he just love someone middle-class and sane? Why couldn’t he want something smaller than justice? Why couldn’t he buy pre-sliced mango at Demeter without it eating up his checking account—why was it so undignifying to slice the damn mango himself? Why couldn’t he just accept that itwasnice to feel better, to feel a moment of [redacted because it isn’t real] from giving himself a little treat, which frankly he deserved? Wasn’t this what life was, hadn’t it always been life, they’d just monetized it so that in exchange for Jamie’s mango-related hedonism the CEO of Tyche could have three thousand exotic camels and ten night-blooming yachts?

“I should probably get back,” said Meredith, “because the lawyers will be here soon.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him quickly, inconclusively. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”

“And then what?” asked Jamie.

“And then we’ll get a drink,” she said.

“And then?”

“And then at some point we’ll eat breakfast.”

“And then?”

“And then I guess we’ll have lunch.”

“And then?”

“Probably dinner, unless we’re still full from the other two meals.”

“And then?”

“Breakfast again.”

“You’re not answering my question,” Jamie said irritably.

“Actually, I am. You’re just not listening.” She tightened her grip on his cheek, then reached over for her yoga pants. “I’m sorry you have to love me,” she said in a moment of worrying telepathy, rising to her feet to pull them on. “I wish I could let you love someone better.”

“At least leave me the decency of my own critical errors,” muttered Jamie, handing Meredith her bralette.

“But can you do me a favor?” Meredith said, pulling it on over her head.

“Absolutely,” he said to his feet. “I’d hoped there was a catch. Make it a good one, like really ethically troubling, something I can feel violently sick about.”

She crouched down to look at him.

“Don’t let me go,” she said.

“Okay,” said Jamie uncertainly. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Meredith confirmed.

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