Paige and I have been together since freshman year at Yale. We were practically attached at the hip when we weren’t in classes. We oddly fit together, even though we’re so different. I think it’s why we work well together. We balance each other out. She’s loud, in your face and always seems to be two steps ahead of everyone else. She’s petite, but I once saw her take a two-hundred-pound man to his ass when he got a little handsy with me in a bar.
Most of the time she’s like an older sister. She’s the closest person to me in the world and the only person I can count as family.
“You can do whatever you want, Mal. Just don’t paint the walls pink.” She pulls the emergency stop chain and jumps off the treadmill. “Please.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I protest as she grabs a water bottle from the refrigerator in the kitchen. The condo has an open floor plan for the most part. The living room, dining room and kitchen all flow together, and there are two bedrooms down the only hallway, each with their own bathroom.
It’s more than I could’ve ever dreamed of having, and Paige is the only reason I’m standing here to begin with. It’s her condo. She bought it when I said I’d gotten an offer to intern at Osbourne Corporation, and she’d insisted we go.
I wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity, knowing there was no way I could make it in New York. I didn’t have the funds, and to be honest, I was scared shitless. I’d yet to fail at anything in my life, and I wasn’t ready to start. I’m not cocky, just determined. Osbourne Corp is no joke. They offer three internships a year, and I’d landed one. I may have had a leg up because I’d also earned one of their top scholarships and they were already aware of my performance. The scholarship paid my way through college and covered everything: board, food, books—you name it. I graduated at the top of my class and first in my major. Osbourne Corp had given me my education, and the internship would give me a chance to show them what I’d become because of them.
I wanted to prove myself, but trying to make it in New York intimidated the shit out of me. Thankfully, Paige was there to offer this place and help me start a new chapter in my life.
At first I was disappointed I didn’t get any other offers after graduation, but the job market is tough. I guess I was surprised that I got an Osbourne scholarship and then an internship offer but never any other offers.
“You look like you’re thinking awfully hard over there,” Paige says, taking another big chug from her water bottle before putting it down on the counter.
“I guess I’m a little nervous about Monday.”
“Are you serious right now?” Paige comes over to stand in front of me, taking the moving box from my hands and putting it back down on the ground. I know what’s coming, and I crack a smile. It’s something she does for me sometimes. “Who busted their ass through high school and got herself a full fucking ride to Yale?”
“I did.”
“Who graduated top of her class?”
“I did.”
“Who corrected that cocky-ass-dipshit Professor Sitten when he tried to say your answer was wrong, and then broke it down to him like he was in the second grade and made him cry?”
“He didn’t cry.”
“Oh, he cried on the inside. Trust me. I know the face a man makes when he’s crying on the inside.”
I can’t help but laugh because it’s true.
“Who?” Paige pushes.
“I did.”
“And who landed one of the best internships in the country?”
“I did.”
“Fuck yeah, you. You’re going to rock that accounting department. You’re going to own those numbers or whatever it is you do with them,” she says, like reading numbers is like reading alien code.
“I love you.” I pull her in for a hug. I know I’m smart and can do anything I put my mind to. It’s easy to be driven when you only have yourself to rely on your whole life. Only you can catch yourself, and that’s how it’s always been, until Paige pushed herself into my life. Sometimes I still need a little shove, and she has enough confidence to easily hand one out.
“I’m hard not to love.” Her freckled nose turns up, and she makes a smug face.
“Except when you’re making men cry on the inside,” I add.
She shrugs before picking up the box, taking it over to the coffee table and ripping off the tape.
“We should have burned all of this stuff instead of taking it with us. I think I can still smell ramen noodles. I swear the whole floor of our dorm smelled like it.”
She waves her hands over the box like she’s trying to air it out.
I come around beside her, dropping down on the couch as I watch her pull random things out of the box. This one is mainly filled with framed pictures. I love taking pictures; capturing our memories. Paige hated having her picture taken, but after four years I’ve worn her down and now she smiles when I tell her to. I never really had much to be happy about, didn’t have anything I wanted to capture before college, so I kind of went nuts at first.
“Which of these are mine?” she asks, going through them.
“Oh, now you want one?” I smile, rolling my eyes.
She pulls one out from our freshman year. I’d dragged her to a football game, saying we had to get all the college experiences we could. I was very eager to soak up everything my first year. As much as I rubbed off on Paige, she’d rubbed off on me, too, because by junior year I was much more blasé about college life.