A Royal Internship | Complete

Chapter Six

Finishing my exams the following Thursday should have been an exciting moment for me. But instead of celebrating like the rest of my classmates, I was sitting in Janet's kitchen eating cookie dough ice cream straight out of the tub.

"Just so I know..." Janet took a scoop of ice cream out with her own spoon. "How long am I looking at wallowing Genevieve?"

I put another scoop of ice cream in my mouth to avoid having to answer her right away. She crossed her arms and stared at me until I answered her, anyway. "I don't know, like a day?"

"Don't you have another interview tomorrow?" She put the spoon in the sink and sat down on the stool beside me at the island.

I pouted and put my head in my hands. "Please do not remind me! I'm so sure I'm going to get that law job that I don't even want to go to this terrible interview."

"Isn't that something to look forward to, then?" She patted my back and gave me a quick, awkward hug from the side while I stuck another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.

"I guess," I sighed and put the lid back on the ice cream. "I just don't like the stress."

"If you're going to wallow forever, you really need to start chipping in on the ice cream budget." Her hair flipped around when she turned to exit the kitchen. "Or you could come join us for terrible pictionary."

I put the ice cream back into the freezer and tossed the spoon into the sink from at least five feet away. "Okay. But I refuse to be on your team because our disaster should really be shared."

"I am not a disaster!" she protested, walking into the living room ahead of me and plopping down onto the couch. "But I will oppose you, if you wish." She smiled and pulled her feet up onto the couch so she was almost kneeling.

I followed her into the room but sat down on the carpet next to Janet's friend, Gustavo. Because his name also started with the letter G, we had already endured several GG jokes since he arrived. It was already well past acceptable and veering into 'they'll never find the body' territory.

Unsurprisingly, that's what greeted us almost immediately after I returned to the living room. "GG! You guys can be a team and me and Janet will be a team." Janet's lab partner, Semira, clapped excitedly and turned down the music coming through the television.

I wasn't sad not to be on Semira's team, so I accepted. Teams made, she explained how everything would work while she set up the whiteboard.

"So, Gustavo." I turned to my new pictionary partner while Semira went to get a reliable timer. "You're heading home tomorrow, right? All done with your exams?"

He nodded. "I have an internship lined up at a radio station. Pay's shit but I like the work." His smile made me wonder what it was like to pick jobs for fun rather than pay. I never got to ask the question, which was probably for the best, because Semira came back in and the game began.

In between drawing our terrible attempts at Semira's words, we had to find things for them to draw. I tried to fight Gustavo to put my topics in, but it was futile. As the night went on, his topics became more and more obscure. And by the time Janet was trying to draw 'aesthetics,' she put an end to the game.

Gustavo raised his hand in celebration, and Janet finally figured it out. "Oh! You were trying to stump me to end the game." Her mouth formed a small 'o' and then stretched into a smile. "I cannot believe you two would do that to me!"

"Then you really don't know me very well, my dear." Gustavo pretended to be a film director smoking a cigarette. "Because that's been my vision from the beginning."

We devolved into laughter.

"I tried to stop him, but the poor man's only worried about himself!" I put my hands up to defend myself from Janet's blanket assault.

"Are you coming back next year for Law, Genevieve?" Semira used the question to distract Gustavo so she could throw a pillow right at his head. She had good aim, too.

I laughed as Gustavo ran around the coffee table and tried to hit Semira with the pillow she had thrown at his head. "Yeah, I got my acceptance package a few weeks ago. I'm just waiting to hear back about boring stuff like finances and courses."

Semira was still fending Gustavo off with one hand while she talked to me. "I just love that you're going to be a lawyer. You're going to be so good at it."

I was having so much fun laughing that I'd all but forgotten the reason I was sleeping in Janet's extra bedroom in the first place. It might have continued that way, were it not for Semira's ill-timed question. "Isn't your boyfriend already studying law?"

"Ex-fiancé." I tried to keep the emotion out of my face, but I knew I looked sad. I felt sad. "He's in law, yeah."

And just like that, all of the air was sucked out of the room. The bouncy music playing quietly from the television seemed strangely out of place as the heavy silence spilled over us.

"I think I'm going to go work on some final projects and get myself ready for bed." I stood up and turned towards the hallway. "I have a big interview to get through tomorrow. Thanks for the game and have a great summer, okay?" I could feel the tears stinging my eyes and threatening to spill over, so I turned around and walked down the hallway until I came to Janet's guest bedroom.

If it weren't for the tears streaming down my face and the lump forming in my throat, I probably would have been able to hear what Janet was saying in the living room.