Page 81 of Instant Karma

“Prudence—”

“No. Whatever. I wish you and the centerallthe luck in the world.”

Quint reaches forward and grabs the stack of paper out of my hands. “Would you stop messing with the papers and listen to me?”

“Why should I?” I yell, jumping to my feet. “So I can hear more about how difficult I am? How much you hated working with me? News flash, Quint! The last nine months weren’t exactly a joyride for me, either!”

“That’s not my fault!” he yells back.

“It is entirely your fault!” I make an angry sound and squeeze my fists tight. Please, Universe. Please bring your wrath down on him. For speaking to me this way. For making me feel like something’s wrong with me. For rejecting myideas, my help,me.“If you weren’t so unreliable and irresponsible, then maybe I would be able to trust you! But how can I possibly know that you won’t screw it up?” I stomp my foot, a little petulantly, but I don’t care. “It’s just better if I do it on my own!” I snatch the papers from his hands. An edge slices through one of my fingers. “Ow!”

I throw the papers back onto the table and inspect the wound. Sure, it’s just a paper cut, but it’s a gnarly one. I cast a disgruntled look up at the ceiling, the sky, the universe. “Seriously?” I shout.

Quint huffs and turns his back on me. I think he’s going to storm away, which infuriates me more.I’msupposed to be the one storming away!

But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he opens a drawer, riffles around for a minute, and then comes back. He’s holding a box of bandages. He doesn’t look at me as he tears open the box, takes out a Band-Aid, and rips off the paper. He holds it out to me.

I snatch it away and tape it around my finger. I’m still simmering. I can tell that he is, too. But our last brash words have started to dissipate in the silence, and when Quint finally speaks, his tone is even, if still frustrated.

“I wanted to help with our assignments. But within the first two weeks, you were convinced that I was a useless lab partner. I took notes—you took better ones. I drew graphs—you went home and made digital pie charts. I measured the salt for that… that saltwater experiment way back when? And you immediately started remeasuring. You double- and triple-checked everything I did. At some point it became clear that nothing I did was going to be good enough, so why keep trying?” He shrugs at me, but the gesture is anything but nonchalant. “I stopped helping you with the lab assignments because you didn’t want help.”

I stand there, not saying a word, my jaw clenched. It feels like there’s a thundercloud brewing between us, preparing to let off a bolt of lightning, though I don’t know which one of us it’s going to strike.

“And yeah,” he continues, “I know I suck at spelling and I’m not a great writer or whatever, but I’m not useless. I mean, design stuff? Things like flyers and posters? I’m actually pretty good at that. You saw the paper, didn’t you?”

My shoulders loosen, just a little, as I think about his report. The columns, the footers, the fonts.

“Yeah, but I figured…”

He waits, daring me to finish that sentence.

I swallow. “I figured you just downloaded a free template or something.”

“Of course that’s what you figured.” He shakes his head. Sighs deeply. And collapses back into a chair. Not the chair he was in before. He leaves that one empty—a wall between us.

I press down on the Band-Aid, feeling the sting of the cut underneath, and timidly lower myself back into my chair as well.

“It wasn’t a template,” he said. “I’m not completely incompetent.”

“I didn’t say you were incompetent.”

He gives me a weary look. “Yeah. You did. Maybe not with words, but that’s what you’ve been saying all year.”

I swallow. Guilt is starting to scratch at my throat, and I’m finding it hard to hold on to my own anger when I can’t fully deny what he’s saying. The truth is, I did think he was incompetent. Or at least, not capable of working tomystandards. And maybe I still feel that way.

“Look,” I say, trying to keep my tone even, “I’m not trying to be difficult. I just know that when I do something myself, then I’ll know exactly what I’m getting. I don’t have to stress out about it, and whether or not it’ll be done how I want it to be, or if it will be any good, or if it will be done on time. And yeah, I know my life would probably be a lot easier if I could just say, you know what? Who cares? They’re just flyers and posters. It’s not a big deal. Let someone else handle it. But Ican’t.I can’t just accept…” I struggle to find the right words.

Quint finds them for me. “Crappy work?”

I flinch. “I was trying to find a nice way of saying it.”

He shuts his eyes, clearly disappointed.

“For the record,” I add, “the paper did look really nice. Nicer, probably, than even I would have done it.”

His lips twitch humorlessly to one side. “Thanks for that,” he mutters. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you to admit.” Then he sighs and looks at me again. “Prudence, I’m not asking you to accept crappy work. I’m asking you to accept thatmaybe, just maybe, I might be better at some things than you are. Like—that presentation board you’d made up? You definitely should have let me take care of that part.”

I frown. “What was wrong with my presentation board?”

---