Chapter 3 Chapter 3

I saw Rebeca’s message through my phone’s notification center without opening it and triggering the read receipt. I needed time to figure out how to respond to the mess I had created.

At first, I didn’t understand why she had asked me that, but it only took seconds for me to realize the huge mistake I had made. Without noticing, I had sent my friend a picture while scrolling through photos of that wolf.

That alone shouldn’t have caused problems between two friends. A random picture of some wolf would’ve been easy to explain away. But that wolf was none other than Rebeca’s boyfriend.

How was I supposed to explain to my best friend that I had been using his picture as inspiration to create an artificial intelligence agent? She would never believe that story, and somehow it would sound stranger than it already was.

Suddenly, I felt completely lost, unable to come up with any believable excuse for accidentally sending that image. Almost three minutes had already passed. The longer I waited, the harder it became to explain.

I thought about complimenting Leo, that was the wolf’s name. But doing that would reveal interest in my friend’s boyfriend. That could destroy our friendship.

Desperate and out of ideas, I remembered Rebeca mentioning that she had once given Léo a shirt as a gift. That became the perfect excuse to escape the situation. So I decided to ask if the shirt he was wearing in the picture was the same one she had given him.

"Girl, is that shirt the one you gave him as a gift?" I sent the message before five minutes had passed since her question.

"No, Aria. I gave him was three months ago, on his birthday. Are you crazy?" she replied.

"Sorry, girl. I was just trying to find something to distract myself, I’m heading home. I need to bring things for my father at the hospital," I answered Rebeca.

I decided to use all the pain I was feeling and everything happening with my father to change the subject while talking to Rebeca. Before she could reply again, the driver arrived at my house and I stepped out of the car.

"So that’s it, girl. Tell the professor I won’t be able to attend class today. I also need you to let the AI agent supervision program know, please," I asked Rebeca.

"Don’t worry, Aria. If you need anything, I’m here for you," she answered softly.

Rebeca chose not to ask anything else about the picture of her boyfriend. It seemed she had believed my excuse about the shirt. The last thing I needed at that moment was conflict with my best friend.

Without any strength left to keep moving forward, I started crying right there at the front door of my house. I remembered my father could have died. My chest tightened instantly. That thought alone was enough to make me completely break down while trying to unlock the front door.

None of the keys would fit, or maybe I was too desperate to open a door properly. Then the universe decided to bless me with heavy rain, forcing my body to calm down and open that door like it had done for the last eighteen years.

I walked into the house completely soaked. Ten seconds under the rain had been enough to drench my entire body. I took off my wet clothes right there in the entrance hall and walked barefoot upstairs to my bedroom.

I turned on my computer and played soft music. Meanwhile, I went to the kitchen and heated some mac and cheese in the microwave. My stomach kept twisting and growling involuntarily. I needed to eat something before going back to the hospital.

I went upstairs again and started filling the bathtub with very hot water. I called out to the speaker and asked it to play jazz music. I loved that kind of music.

While I slowly lowered my body into the steaming water, which seemed eager to show off how hot it was, I heard the microwave beep. The pasta was ready, and I had forgotten about it.

The plan had been simple. Go upstairs, fill the bathtub, go back down to eat, then take a bath. But I had ruined that sequence. I stayed in the bath for less than five minutes. I was starving.

I grabbed a towel, dried myself, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I heated the mac and cheese again in the microwave when I received a message from my mother.

"Your father needs to leave here soon, he doesn’t have health insurance. We don’t have money to keep him hospitalized for long. You know that, don’t you, Aria?" my mother wrote.

For the second time that day, someone interrupted me while I was trying to eat. My mother coldly reminded me that we had something else to worry about besides my father’s health. The hospital bill would become enormous, growing larger every day.

"Don’t worry, Mom. The important thing is Dad getting better. We’ll figure the money out somehow. I can work, and you know there’s the college scholarship," I tried to reassure her through text.

"My daughter, that scholarship is everything we have. Imagine if your father stays there for too long, or if he can’t work when he comes back home? We’re going to need you, Aria," my mother replied, making me even more anxious.

"I’ll do everything I can to get that scholarship. I’m already the best student in my class, and I’m already an assistant in an important artificial intelligence project. We’re so close to changing our lives forever. Stay strong, Mom," I replied, trying to calm her down.

This time, I kept eating my mac and cheese because it was the only food we had ready in the house. The baking dish my mother had prepared was still sitting on the table exactly the way my father left it before collapsing.

I looked around the house and felt even more determined to keep moving forward. Besides myself, I carried a massive responsibility toward my parents. I was everything they had in life.

I finished eating that mac and cheese, though it no longer tasted the same. And I loved the mac and cheese my mother made. I had never eaten it anywhere else because nobody knew how to make it like she did.

But that day it felt like there wasn’t enough salt, like the cheese had no flavor, like the pasta itself tasted like nothing. I forced down the last two spoonfuls on my plate and started cleaning up the mess around me.

I needed to leave the house clean so my mother could rest whenever she returned from the hospital. I prepared two lunch boxes with mac and cheese, one for her and one for my father.

I left both lunch boxes on the table and went to my parents’ bedroom. I needed to separate warm clothes to bring to the hospital along with the food.

I grabbed my phone to check the time and noticed I had received an email from the college about the scholarship selection process.

"You were not selected."