Page 68 of Sunny Undone

Sunny looks genuinely confused by my surprise. “Isn’t it?” he asks. “What’s the point of a life where everything is pragmatic?”

The echoes of his words swirl in my chest, like my heart wants to latch on to them. To live that way. But I hear my father’s voice tell me that’s too whimsical. It lacks data, the very thing I hold on to, but it sounds a lot like…freedom.

I reach for the lapels of his leather cut, holding them softly. “You’re teaching me a lot about living, Sunny.”

He beams at that. “Good. Now, what do we need to do here?”

I sigh and let go of his cut. “Samples. Some of mine got destroyed due to an equipment failure of one of our fridges and some other disasters. I have to collect more. Then, I need to get them back to the lab and get some tests started on them today because, while I’m fairly confident that the dean won’t really shut down my research, I want to get as much data as I can.”

“You save all your shit on the college network?” Sunny asks.

“I do,” I say.

“Then, you tell me what to collect and how to collect it. And you start transferring copies of all your files to yourself somehow. Because I’m worried about what the dicks will do to your research if you don’t agree to their demands to back off.”

I shake my head. “They wouldn’t just cut me off, Sunny. That’s not how academia works.”

Sunny runs his knuckle down my cheek. “If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s you never really know what any official and organized entity will do until they are pushed or pressured. If they want the donation as badly as you say they do, there’s no saying what they’ll do to make sure it happens. And they’ll make you collateral damage over my dead body.”

21

SUNNY

There is something incredibly intimidating about heading into a moon-lit building for the education of the intelligent few. The ride over here has been filled with Greek letters and shit.

Sororities and fraternities. I took ‘em all in as I rode behind Della’s camper van.

I think frat culture would have done my fucking head in. We pass three frat boys, all of ‘em in gray joggers; only one of them is wearing a shirt. I might be less educated than them, but at least I got abs worth showing off. Bet they can’t throw a ball for shit.

Honestly, outside of meeting Della, I thought intelligent people were stuck up. People trying to buy an education that leads them to perpetual debt for the rest of their lives felt like a shit deal to me. I felt like the illusion of being more educated made them take a position of superiority over people like me. Like we’re somehow worth less because we aren’t as clever. Yet, if the staff of a grocery store walked out, there’s no way the CEOs and all the people with fancy offices and salaries would have the first idea how to run the store. But if all the executives walked out, the store would continue to run, like it does every day, until someone stopped paying the bills and salaries.

But Della isn’t like that. Her education was merely a pathway to fight for what she cares about. It enables her to belong here and do the thing she cares about most.

We park outside, and I climb off my bike, ready to help her with the samples.

“We can do a couple of trips, if we need to,” she says, opening the sliding door of the camper.

“Pftt! Don’t challenge me like that, Indy.” I throw her laptop bag over my shoulder, then grab three coolers.

“I can carry one of them,” she says.

“I know you can. Grab the other things.”

She grabs a number of smaller bags that contain her notes, equipment, and spare little tube things we put the samples in. But she mutters as she does it. “I’m used to carrying all this stuff by myself.”

I chuckle as she jimmies the door closed.

“Question for you, Indy,” I say as I track her ass while she walks ahead of me. “What do you gain by saying shit like that? Like, I know you can carry it. I mean, I get it, Little Miss Independent. But nothing changes in the universe if I carry all the heavy shit, from now on.”

She turns and looks at me, open mouthed, like she’s about to argue, then closes it.

I grin. “Holy shit. Did I just win an argument with the one and only Doctor Della Hart?”

“I’m processing your hypothesis.”

“Sounds like you’re just taking extra time to say you lost.”

Della rolls her eyes. “I’m just trying to establish whether accepting unnecessary assistance creates a pattern of learned dependence.”