Page 21 of Innocent

Meaning my supervisor is setting me up both to fail and to be the scapegoat he’ll blame when the customer departs in an angry huff and fires them.

Except I’m determinednotto fail.

Plus, I’ve met the client in person, and I got along fabulously with her.

Not that I’m going to tell my supervisor any of that. I plan on blindsiding the fuck out of him.

Mostly because everyone thinks I’m far more innocent and sweet than I really am.

Again, I’m a petty bitch. Catching people off-guard is far more satisfying. It’s their fault if they underestimate me.

For starters, if I can succeed, it’ll mean a valuable addition to my design portfolio. It could also lead to a paying position at this design company, because I’ll run an endplay and bypass the asshole supervising me and go right to the company owner with my results.

It’ll also be a way I can give a silentfuck youto my supervisor. I suspect the guy is deep in the closet. Yet while giving me the assignment, he also managed to make three snide remarks which I definitely took as being low-key homophobic.

If I’d refused to take the assignment, I probably wouldn’t be an intern there any longer. I can’t risk being labelled as difficult to work with by any of the firms partnering with FSU’s College of Fine Arts. And I need to finish my graduate studies. I want my damn master’s.

I’ve worked too fricking hard to get where I am to blow it all now.

I also do work for the theater department, helping with set and art design. It all goes into my portfolio.

My eventual goal is to have my own design and interior architecture firm, maybe in Orlando or Tampa or Miami. Or maybe even somewhere outside of Florida. Atlanta, LA, Las Vegas—there’s a whole world out there. My dream is to live my life and make a decent living so I can sleep at night, pay my bills, and enjoy a calm, peaceful, successful future.

Absolutely afuck youto my parents.

Not that they give a shit about me, or even want me to have a peaceful life.

Hell, they don’t want me to have a life atall.

Which is yet another reason I’m determined to succeed, if for no other reason than to make their heads explode one day.

Living well is the best revenge, right?

I suppose getting as far as I have, despite my parents discarding me when I was twelve, is a good start on that revenge.

* * * *

As a TA, I’m usually the one in our department who ends up saddled with problem children students for the professors, too. Undergrad students, of course. How that usually goes is someone starts sweet-talking me, telling me how great I am with people. Then, before I know it, I have another name added to the roster of students I’m advising.

I mean, I’m not complaining. Not at all. It’s part of the gig. The little I earn pays for my cell phone and other assorted living expenses, like food and laundry. I mean, I get a basic food plan through school, but it’sreallybasic.

Sure, I have money in savings. Except I need to hold on to that, too, ya know? It’s meant to actuallypayfor school, books, those sorts of things. If I’m lucky, I might have enough left over by the time I graduate with my master’s to buy a decent car.

I already know today will mean an annoyingly tedious series of meetings with students to check in with them on their various projects.

I’m not a morning person, either, so I’m careful to schedule these for late mornings and afternoons.

I’mnotan idiot.

After I do a little more work on my laptop, I save my progress, grab it and everything else I need, tuck it all into my messenger bag, and leave our shared dorm room. No car, but I live on campus and it’s a mild early November day.

FSU in Tallahassee wouldn’t have automatically been my first choice of universities. When my grandmother offered to pay for my college education anywhere I wanted to go, and I learned FSU had an interior design undergrad degree and a master’s program, this was my logical choice.

Especially after they accepted me for admission.

Again, I’m no idiot.

And it was warm, and far from upstate New York, where I was raised.