Business as Usual (Off The Subject) Read Free Page A

edge of my bed and told that me he’d worked it all out with them. That I’d go back to school in the fall and live with him in an apartment. Then he kissed my forehead and made me promise to call if I needed anything in the meantime.
    “I’m here for you, Lexi,” he’d said. “I won’t let anything else happen to you.”
    I didn’t discover the extent of Reed’s sacrifice until days later. He’d been accepted to Stanford University to do his Ph.D. under his idol Dr. Donald Knuth—his lifelong dream—and he gave it up for me. When I protested, he refused to listen. So instead of embarking on a sterling career, he became a grad student at Southern University, where he teaches beginning algebra and runs the math lab. When we moved, our parents made us use our maternal great-grandmother’s maiden name—Pendergraft—to avoid any family embarrassment, which means Reed also lost much of the reputation and credibility he had accumulated over his academic career. Yet he has never once acted hurt or angry over the choices he made for me.
    It’s a debt I can never repay.
    Caroline kisses my cheek. “I’ll talk to him, okay?”
    I smile at her, grateful she’s in our lives. Caroline may be Reed’s fiancée, but she’s also a dear friend. I wouldn’t love her any more if she were my own sister. She loves me too, which is why she always intervenes on my behalf. “I’m sorry, Caroline,” I say. “I put you in this awkward situation. I know you and Reed fight over me.”
    She laughs. “Did I tell you that our first fight was over you?”
    Reed and Caroline first met at a party, and sparks flew the second they laid eyes on each other. Only Caroline was intent on getting a date with another guy that night. “I thought your first fight was over Dylan Humphrey.”
    She smirks. “I mean our first fight as an actual couple. If you don’t count Reed blowing his gasket over me walking across the campus by myself after midnight.” She sobers a bit. “But after I found out why…” I sigh as worry wrinkles her brow. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned—”
    “Lexi, we’re ready for you,” the stage manager says. “We’re about to start the party scene.”
    I hop out of my chair and pull Caroline into a hug. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s the elephant in the room we all ignore.” I drop my arms and give her a sad smile. “But one of these days it’s going to sit on me if we keep doing that.”
    I hear my cue and go onstage, staying to the background until it’s time for me to say my single line. We’re supposed to be at a party, so I pretend to talk to Sylvia, my friend and fellow business major, whom I roped into participating in my work with the charity. My role is simple. I’m supposed to be a vivacious, life-of-the-party girl, so my movements are all exaggerated. Rob, one of the Hillsdale actors, walks onstage with another girl and I spin toward him and deliver my one line.
    “Why did I ever let him go?”
    It’s not a difficult line to remember. I ask myself that question about Brandon almost every day. Sometimes I see him walking across campus hand-in-hand with his old girlfriend and my heart fills with a crushing ache. Of course, it’s not necessarily Brandon who makes me feel that way. It’s the wish to be normal—to have a boyfriend and a chance at a family someday. I fear that that most simple of wishes has been stolen from me.
    We finish the scene and I walk off with Sylvia. Caroline is right where I left her, her sketchbook open. She looks up and grins. “You were great.”
    “I was passable. But that’s okay. It’s for a good cause and it was nice of them to include me.”
    She shakes her head and grins. “Give yourself more credit. That wig makes you sassy.” She winks. “I like it.”
    She spins her sketchpad around. “I’ve come up with designs for T-shirts for the summer program. See what you think.”
    She’s drawn a shirt with the charity’s logo for the