Miss High Maintenance

Amelia

Marquee wasn’t my go-to club on a good day. I hated the loud music blaring at an incessant pace, so harsh it almost made my heart cave.

Plus, what could anyone hope to achieve in a place like this?

Get drunk, party all night, rebel against some sorry issue in their lives, go back home. Life was routine, even in the fanciest of places. But I kept coming back here like bees returning to their queen.

It wasn’t to give chase to the hot ones or boo the drunkards. The only interest I had was in watching the game. I had a thing for the players.

Not players who ran for love or video games—just the kind who knew how to wield money as it was meant to be—like a resource.

And tonight was as interesting as it got because Treble, the beefy bartender, had given me access to one of the hottest games going on in the private rooms.

I knew the man who was running the cards, the fierce concentration in his eyes native to his bearings. He’d cast a spell on me the first time I’d seen him, in a world many ages ago.

Back then, Professor Ethan had been the epitome of a caring young genius. He made the students at Harvard laugh and fall in love with something as derivative as undergrad psychology.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I loved the advanced lessons, and how they were programmed to give me insight into the workings of the human mind.

I wasn’t so fond of the kinship and family ties lectures, though—and he could make that rubbish interesting.

He was magnetic, charismatic, and he knew how to wield his words like a two-pronged sword: one to the mind, the other to the heart.

“Whatever you tackle in life, there’s more to it than luck. Luck has a role. It’s true. There’s randomness in everything, not unlike playing a game of cards. But, the overarching importance is in the technique of it all.”

And, by the looks of the game he was playing tonight, he had the technique down to the T. All his moves were calculated, right to the very cues he made with his eyes.

He was letting the players believe certain gives and using them to his advantage.

I raised my coconut martini to my lips, a warm bubble of laughter building in the base of my throat. Ethan Reid had game, but that was not what I remembered from the very first time I’d met him.

Six Years Ago

The world would always be confused between two Amelia Knights. The one who was sure of everything, intelligent beyond measure, and a mature entity.

And the other—a child in a candy shop with a thousand dollars to spend at will.

I remembered, sitting in my first class at Harvard, my new school and how all the kids at grade nine had dismissed my presence as hopeless. Their parents forbade them from playing with me.

After all, who’d want to get involved with a bad influence? That was what I signified.

Teachers did their best to reform me.

Parents told my mother I was too wild for my own good.

All of them learned to shut up the day I beat the entire tri-state area schools in the toughest Math olympiad we’d seen over a decade. Suddenly, I was Amelia Knight, teen prodigy.

However, I had no plan to become a worn-out rendition of my brother. I wanted to carve my own fucking story.

Psychology wasn’t meant to be part of it, not until I realized the advantages of knowing the anatomy of human emotions.

It could change everything.

So, there I was, in my first lesson at Harvard, waiting to be disappointed. And then, he walked in.

Eyes like dark chocolate dipped in rum.

The body of an angular Greek God.

And dimples that could floor even the strongest of hearts.

I had no qualms about wanting him. For me, desire was a summer storm, effervescent and tinged with the rebelliousness of youth. And Ethan just fit.

Until, of course, he dismissed me in a very familiar and utmost disappointing fashion.

“Of all the forms of love to exist in the universe, which speaks to you the most?”

His question had caught me by surprise. It didn’t seem like an elementary lesson, for the psychology of love needed a lot more analysis than what we’d come bearing.

“I think it’s all about how you approach the sentiment,” I’d answered, willing the room around me to fall silent. “The psychology therein signifies the interplay of intimacy, passion, and commitment.”

His brows, majestically thick, knitted into a frown.

“However, there is some juxtaposition that’s never accounted for—and that’s comfort. Love doesn’t engender comfort, it asks you to look beyond the domestic and ordinary.”

I tapped my nails lightly along my desk. “Maybe that’s why age-old relationships thrive more upon security, and less on love.”

“That’s—” He almost smiled. “A bit childish.”

The words slapped me harder in the face than my nana did when she found out I’d been nibbling food from the fridge past bedtime. How dare this man call me, Amelia Knight, childish?

“Why would you say that?” I’d asked.

“Because you’re looking at love from the conventional purview of choosing someone who goes against your grain of comfort.

“So, if a man is distinctly unattainable by your standards, you profess the feelings that are born out of that unavailability as love. I beg to differ.”

“I—

The sniggers from the classroom hadn’t helped.

“Of course…” He’d been kind, then, something that stung worse than the jibe. “You’re very young yet.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying, and how much I’m capable of.”

His brows rose once more; this time in an expression of sardonic curiosity. “Is that so?”

“Ask me anything that warrants the working of the logical mind,” I’d challenged him.

He’d tossed numbers and equations at me, one after the other, each one more complicated than the last. The crowd of students whooped and cheered as I cleared each one.

“Well, well.” Ethan Reid’s grin was almost predatory by the end of the class.

He had the look of a wolf who’d come close to disbalancing their prey and failed seconds shy of the mark. “You’re something else, Miss High Maintenance.”

I’d tossed my books aside and stormed out of the class, unwilling to engage in his provocations any longer. That same day, I’d gone to the dean, intending to drop out.

Of course, he’d driven pedantic sense into me.

Why the hell would I sacrifice what was needed to excel for a petty man and his ambitions? He believed in a different kind of love.

He didn’t understand the fire that could come with it, that was only possible when you’d run through a maze of angst.

The kind that could consume you from within, make you breathe life to blank papers, create history.

Romeo and Juliet, Jack and Rose, all the great stories remained unfulfilled for a reason, and that was the unattainable pursuit of human affection.

The end of that semester couldn’t come fast enough, but when it did, it brought an IQ test along with it. Routine, as Professor Reid pleasantly informed the entire class.

I wasn’t bothered, although my results did astound him.

“Miss Amelia Knight has performed the best out of all of you, with a near perfect score of a hundred and sixty-seven. I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised.”

He’d smiled at me, his infuriatingly beautiful dimples cutting crescent-moons on his cheeks.

I’d mustered enough patience for a fitting reply. “Funny, how much you notice when your head isn’t stuck in books written back when burning women like me as witches was hip.”

We’d pretty much remained on bad terms for the rest of my undergraduate days.

He never took it out on me, though, because I performed the best in his class. And when days at Harvard went from sunny to dark, he excused me from classes.

Gave me time to heal.

Life was different when I had Elaine around me. But I was different, too.

The Present Day

I shrugged and returned to the present moment, shaking from the flashback I’d entered. Treble was tapping my shoulder, his face concerned. “Hey, I’m cutting you off. You’ve had one too many, kiddo.”

“Fair enough.” I sighed and stretched, standing up. I felt like getting into trouble.

A second later, I flung my agile body upon the bar table, swinging in tune with the obscene music.

The crowd roared, their pitches feverish with frenzied delight.

Who didn’t like seeing a beautiful billionaire get wasted out of her mind?

“The next round is on me!” I raised my glass at them, and some of the drink spilled. No one was bothered. “Treble, let ‘em flow!”

What was I doing? The music was at a whole other level now, its rhythm strangely discordant. It stung against my skin, prickling and erupting into a valley of goosebumps.

I pulled my hair tie out and freed my blonde locks, letting each tendril turn at its own will.

This was me in my element. Who cared if Ethan Reid was in the pub, making a quick buck or two? All he’d ever made me feel was uncomfortable.

A sudden realization hit me like the last notes of scotch on the rocks.

Wasn’t that what I felt about love, too? That it was meant to make you question your very existence?

I shrugged once more. I was way too drunk for sane thoughts anyway.

“Hey, Treble,” I asked. “One last glass?”

He frowned at me, but I made the baby eyes work. “Please?”

“Fine,” he muttered. “One, and then you’re done for the night, deal?”

I giggled. “Deal.”