Page 16 of Gifted & Talented

“I’m hardly ever home, Jamie,” she told him impatiently. “In case you’ve failed to notice, I’m very busy and important.”

“Then why did you decide to—? Never mind.” Jamie seemed to find her impossible to reason with at the moment. “No, you cannot order a rental car. You’ll have to go to a facility like all the other plebs.”

Meredith squinted at him. “I don’t believe you,” she said finally, “since I’m almost certain that’s got to be false. But also, you’re right, it would probably be better if I handled this more relatably.”

“Good thinking,” confirmed Gillian.

“There’s not a chance that anything you’ve done thus far could be considered relatable,” said Jamie.

“I’ve got to go, Gill,” said Meredith. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Kisses,” said Gillian before promptly hanging up. She was extremelyefficient. Despite Meredith’s grand plans to dislike any woman who chose to devote herself to her brother, Meredith had always quietly been a fan.

Jamie, meanwhile, was messing around on his phone.

“Look, here’s the closest place you could get a car,” he said, showing her Playa Vista’s finest backwoods outpost. “You can probably still catch your boyfriend for a ride, or get a car to drop you off there now—”

“Oh, you’re coming with me,” said Meredith on a whim, pulling the conference room door open and letting it fall shut again without bothering to check if Jamie was following. “We’re not done discussing this.”

“Meredith.” She heard the telltale sound of him chasing after her and suppressed the urge to smile. Vengeful joy would really not be ideal if captured on film, given the number of times she’d already been referred to as a traitor. “Meredith, there’s nothing left to say.”

“Don’t you want my side of the story?” she asked Jamie, glancing sideways at him. “Seems like your article will have a much better shot at national acclaim if you actually consult the source.”

For a moment—a breath—he faltered, and she won herself another point.

“Meredith,” Jamie managed impressively, with a scoff, “I really don’t think your side of the story is relevant unless you’re planning to confess to—”

“Jamie.” Meredith fell to a halt, turning to look at him. He paused, too, seemingly caught off guard. She realized in the light of the corridor that he wasn’t exactly the same, though the difference was in the little details, the small things. She had previously been the one to shave the hair on the back of his neck to keep it from looking overgrown, which it had a tendency to be, considering they’d been libertine university students at the time. Now, it seemed quite noticeable to Meredith that it had been a long while since his last proper haircut. “Why did you come to see me tonight?”

She caught a moment’s hesitation, a glimpse of truth that danced across Jamie’s thoughts. Despite his insistence that she had a tell, he was no different. She’d always liked that she could read him so plainly, while everyone else was such a chore to interpret. She was constantly behaving like a person who didn’t actually speak English—listening, translating, thinking, then translating again to try to say something back in a language the other person understood. Exhausting. More often than not she disregarded the effort altogether, just as she did now.

Beside her in the corridor, a neat row of digital screens chased a loop of company advertisements, sunset scenes of Playa Vista, popular mantras byKip Hughes. A brief, neon flash promisedTHIS APP WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY! :), and Meredith didn’t flinch.

“I’ll save you the trouble of telling me the truth,” she told him, with something she considered gentleness, although it probably sounded like the normal resoluteness of her voice. “Instead, I’ll put it to you this way. Come with me to my father’s house or I might kill you.” She shrugged. “Might just wipe your devices and cancel the storage payments to your preferred avenue in the cloud. The point is,” she concluded, “you’ll never know for sure what I am or am not capable of doing to you until you’re already too late to stop me.”

His eyes flickered with something. Flatteringly it could have been respect. Less flatteringly, an eye roll. “Is that how much this means to you?”

“Did you ever have any doubt that it did?” she said without hesitation.

They stared at each other a moment longer.

“I know there’s a reason,” said Jamie, a little side shuffle to a previous unanswered question, proffered candor in exchange for something she wasn’t yet confident she wouldn’t give. “I want to know what it is. But you’re not going to be able to stop me from publishing the truth, Meredith.”

“I know.” Lies, she was lying. She could stop him. She knew it, and he knew it, too, but it was a double-edged sword, that, because once she used it, she proved him right. The look on his face seemed a challenge, a gauntlet thrown, and a more sympathetic part of her thought it might be a form of self-harm, in its way. Like anyone who texted an ex or investigated them for fraud, apparently to the point of hyperfixation.

But surely there was another way. She felt sure she could convince him otherwise, via the preferable route of rational thought, if she could just get him alone for a while. There was no way she was letting the article go to print. She had no idea what it contained, only that if anyone else ever saw its contents, then Chirp would be nothing. The last decade of her life would be wasted. Even if Jamie knew enough about Tyche to bring them down—which she already doubted, or she wouldn’t be in this deep; for better or worse, she was the daughter of Thayer Wren, and she knew what a man like Kip Hughes could cover up—herhands were by far the dirtiest. She was an accomplice—worse, a weapon—and would almost certainly go to prison for her crimes.

Meredith Wren, most likely to succeed—what would they say about her then? If anyone knew what she’d done to get here, they’d burn her for a witch, metaphorically if not actually. She was halfway to obscurity already.What came after 30 Under 30? What happened when she was no longer a prodigy, just a liar? A traitor? A fraud? Time would not be kind to her, and neither would anyone else.

“No,” Thayer had said to Meredith once, unequivocally. “No, you can’t have Wrenfare. I told you to stay in school. I told you that if you got your degree, there would be space for you here—eventually.”

“Butyoudropped out,” protested Meredith. “Youhad an idea, and so do I—”

“I dropped out because the timing was right for me to move forward on something I already knew to be profitable. Your ‘idea’ is insubstantial at best,” said Thayer. “And if you want people to follow you, you have to build a team. You have to earn respect. You can’t just have things handed to you.”

Lou hadn’t been there—Lou was long gone by then—but Meredith already knew what she would say.Just get over it, Meredith. Grow up.

So Meredith had done it. She grew up. She built the team. She earned the respect. No one had handed her anything. She’d made all the choices, climbed every step of the way by herself. She had built all of this with her own two hands, her own blood and sweat. It was hers, and she had lost Jamie Ammar once already. She could do it again if that’s what it took.

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