Curved by Samantha Strokes Read Free Book Online

she was Lindsay, no one else wanted to work with her. She sponged off answers from others anyway, never contributing to group work or associated tasks. There was a project where she simply sat painting her nails, and in tacky acrylics, too.
     
    “Here it is,” Lindsay said, her screen blinking in front of me. I hauled my laptop from my purse, onto my desk, cursing.
     
    “Great,” I said, sarcastically. “Just lay it on me then.”
     
    So we had these images. And we had to discern whether or not they were correlating properly to a data set; then we had to write a report on any misleading pieces of information we were given; and then, we had to collaborate and create new graphs that corrected any previous problems. By the time I understood the directions though, our class was almost over.
     
    “This is a quiz grade,” Lindsay said.
     
    “I know that,” I said, pointing at the bold letters at the top of our assignment. In big print: 3% of your grade.
     
    “Just do it right,” Lindsay said. “After all, aren’t you the Placarm Rhodes girl?”
     
    “Why do you have to be such a bitch?” I said, typing loudly so I wouldn’t have to hear her response. “Anyway, if you could just help me out with the report, since you like to talk so much.”
     
    Lindsay mumbled something, but I didn’t care. Once she got started on the paper, we went along smoothly to the finish line.
     
    Okay, so Lindsay wasn’t completely useless. She could be manageable, if you got over her offputting behavior. We emailed in our answers, checking once to make sure neither of us had strayed too far from what we originally proposed in our thesis statement.
     
    “Everything’s looking good,” I said, tapping my laptop. The light caught my nails. Sheesh. Now these were looking nasty and disgusting. I slid my hands into my jean pockets, hoping Lindsay hadn’t seen.
     
    “Can I ask you something?” Lindsay said, as we stood up, gathering our things. “Since you’re the homeless president, I have to know—what do you get out of it? Are they giving you kickbacks? You know, special rewards behind the scenes?”
     
    “I do it out of the goodness of my heart, Lindsay,” I said. “Not exactly your schtick, but it’s mine.”
     
    “So you’re doing it for the fuzzy feelings?” By now, we had made it out of the auditorium. Why was she stalking me again? Did I interest her so much? Was my internship with Placarm Rhodes such an accomplishment? I mean, my face was plastered in a recent newspaper article back home in my small town, but Lindsay didn’t even grow up where I did. She was one rich, spoiled girl.
     
    Maybe a poor woman usurping her spot caused her jitters at night, tormented her.
     
    I licked my lips at the thought.
     
    Delicious.
     
    “You can make me sound selfish if you want,” I said. “Whether or not it’s because of how helping others makes me feel, at the end of the day, I want to do right by humanity. I want to help people.”
     
    “You should join the Peace Corps,” Lindsay purred. “Stay out of finance, yeah?”
     
    She walked ahead of me, taking her afternoon break. Christ, women like Lindsay made me lose faith in my gender.
     
    Luckily enough, I had no more classes with her. The rest of my day went nicely, and the sun peeked out the clouds, and there was plenty of food when I went down to get some at the court.
     
    Because my life had so much crammed into it, I didn’t have many friends. Occasionally, someone might call out to me from across the road I was crossing, but most of my campus classmates were strangers to me.
     
    In my computer science class, I had to go over IF statements, which were not at all difficult for me to get through. Exactly why I chose to take the elective, when most would balk. Computer science came naturally to me, and I figured out later on that I could pick it up on the side while also pursuing my finance credentials.
     
    In class, I would open up Word documents,