Page 85 of Claiming Atlas

“You barely even know her.”

“I know. Fucking dumb, right?”

She laughs, waving her hand in the air in dismissal. “Nah. She loves you too.”

The smile falls from my face. “What? She hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t. She hates this.” She points to the letter on the table, then sits back and pulls her legs up beneath her. “What do you know about her?”

I laugh. “Not a fucking thing.” I run my hand over my hair. “God, that really does sound stupid.”

“Kayla is the best person I’ve ever met. She’s driven, and strong...” She shakes her head as if trying to find the words. “This school is—was—everything to her.”

I nod. “Yeah, the um... Learn and Grow Charter School.”

“Learn andLove,” Scarlet clarifies. She looks over at a book shelf, then back at me. “I thought maybe she left it here, like she left this letter.”

“What?”

She waves toward the bookshelf. “Oh, this whole plan, you know? This binder full of every little detail. I mean, she’s been working on this plan for five years, maybe even more. Learn and Love is this amazing concept, you know? Like, it centers around the fact that schools place such emphasis on education, you know, on book smarts, and learning, math and all this other bullshit, but there’s literally no emphasis on being an actually decenthuman.”

I smile as she explains this side of Kayla that I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to meet. Learn and Love,” I say, because the name is starting to make sense.

“Yeah. Learning is great, but if you have all these super intelligent people, right, but no heart, no soul—”

“No love.”

She nods. “What then? Who cares if you can cure cancer if there’s no humanity left in the world? Who cares if you’re a Republican or Democrat or a surgeon or... I don’t know, I mean, what if the worst fucking guy on earth is president? Does it matter if there’s no compassion left? We’re all just... drones.”

I shake my head. Kayla is even better than I thought.

There’s no fucking way I deserve a girl like her.

I want the world to love me.

She wants to love the world.

I look at her best friend and pray she’ll help me make things right. “How much did she lose? I’ll write a check. I’ll cover what they took from her and then some.”

She laughs sharply. “Oh no, that is thelastthing you should do.”

Frowning, I chew on my lip. “Why? What do you mean? She needs the money, right?”

Her eyebrows rise up. “Yeah. She lost half of her funding thanks to that little article about you two. But Kayla will hate you if you try to buy her back.”

I shake my head. “I’m not trying to buy her back... I’d be... investing. Why is that bad?”

“Just trust me.” She brings her bottle of beer to her lips and takes a long sip, watching me as she does so. When she’s finished, she sets the bottle down and leans forward on her elbows. “Look, Atlas, I know you can fix this. But you can’t fix anything if you think money fixes everything. That’s not Kayla.”

Scowling, I stand up and begin to pace the living room. She’s talking in circles. God, women are confusing. “Okay, so, she needs money, and she lost that money because of getting mixed up with me, but I can’t give her the money she lost because she’ll...” I look at her expectantly. “Help me out here.”

“She’ll say it’s pity money.”

“What the fuck?”

“I know.” Scarlet shrugs.

I pull in a deep breath. “Okay.” I scratch my head as I consider my options. “I have to go to the investors and make them change their minds.”

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