Page 23 of Not In The Contract
“Okay, then how do you feel about checking in your personal items with security whenever you enter or leave the house?”
“Wait, run that by me again.”
“No, you heard me correctly.” She scoffed. “Upon entrance or exit, you must check your personal items with the security team. They also have the right to confiscate anything they deem dangerous.”
“What the fuck could I possibly bring that would be classified as dangerous?” I scoffed. “It’s not like I’m running around with a gun! I’m a PhD student, not a mass murderer.”
“I guess she doesn’t want to find that out the hard way.” Tamera chuckled in disbelief. “You also have a schedule of your own.”
My patience began to wear thin. “Awesome,” I muttered, punching the hamburger meat into the chopping board with entirely too much force. It splattered onto my hoodie and I swore under my breath.
“Careful there, Gordon Ramsay,” Tamera teased. “Anyway, your schedule is apparently the same as hers. The only difference is your days are blocked where hers has the details of her meetings.”
“It does not say that,” I jeered. Irritation bled into my limbs.
“It does,” she said, turning the screen again to prove me wrong. “It even says exactly what time you’re allowed to tend to your personal errands.”
“This is a joke,” I breathed. “It has to be.”
“I think your nightmares have taken a physical form in one Alex Bell.”
Clearly.
The rest of the evening was spent poring over the numerous documents Alex had emailed to me, reading and rereading them to make sure we hadn’t missed a single bullet point. The last thing I needed was to fuck something up. My dissertation was on the line, my wholelifeat this point. I couldn’t risk pissing Alex off. Not for my sake, or Paula’s, for that matter.
Tamera looked up from my laptop, her eyes puffy with exhaustion. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” she asked through a yawn. “I’m pretty sure we could find someone else who isn’t this prickly.”
I shook my head, my eyelids drooping. “This is my only chance,” I insisted. “I have to make this work.”
“You understand that you’ll be under a ton of stress, right?” she pressed. “More than you would have been before these rules.”
“I get it.” I yawned. “Look, I’m not happy about it. But I already decided that I would do anything to get this done, and get it done right. I owe it to myself to do whatever it takes.”
“I agree,” she said consolingly. “I just want to know that you’re not going to end up burning yourself out. I’d hate to see you falter.”
“You won’t,” I said, tapping my fist to her shoulder. “I promise.”
“Okay,” she mumbled. “Now, start signing so I can get to bed. I didn’t think I’d be sleeping over tonight.”
I frowned at her. “Youalwayssleep over, you little leech,” I reminded her.
She chuckled sleepily and slid the last bag of jelly beans over to me. “But I’m always prepared.”
The next few days were spent memorizing the ridiculous set of rules that would become my life for two entire months.
Two months that now seemed far longer than they had just a week ago.
The words in the documents blurred into vague blotches of ink, and my brain was full to bursting. I had no idea how I’d ever get through a day, let alone months, of it.
“You look troubled.”
I barely glanced up at Paula as she sat on the bench next to me.
It was an unusually warm day, and most of the other university students had dragged out picnic blankets and snacks and lay sprawled on the yellowing grass. I’d tried to take a page from their book, I’d thought the warm sun might shake the grogginess from me. But all it did was lull me further into fatigue. It would be so good to fall asleep under the watery midday sun.
I took a deep breath. “Your friend is not what you said she’d be,” I told her. “Or rather, she’s more than that.”
Paula chuckled conspiratorially. “How so?”
