Free For Sure & Certain by Anya Monroe Page A

you’re hungry.”
    “Okay, just give me a sec.” Marigold tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as Lily walked away. The sweet-good-bye-moment had been stolen from her and Abel.
    “Tomorrow?” he asked.
    “Perfect.”
    Abel
                 
                  Wednesday morning, as Abel left Practical Business Application, the girl with the thick black glasses stopped him in the hall.
    “I’m Kiera.”
    “I’m Abel.”
    “Everyone knows who you are.”
    He didn’t answer, not knowing what to say to that.
    “Anyways, everyone’s getting together tonight for a mixer. Tell your stoner roommate, okay? We’re doing what Professor Trape suggested, figuring out who’s got what before class next week.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Yeah, like eight-ish, in the common room.” She walked away before he even answered.
    “Ja, I’ll be there,” he told himself, knowing he’d need to muster up some courage for his first college mixer, whatever that was.
    Later that day he knocked on Marigold’s front door, hoping she’d answer and not her overbearing sister. He’d watched Lily in class today; she pursed her lips and offered a constant eye-roll when anyone asked a question. Even though Abel himself knew the questions could be easily answered if someone just spent a moment reading the assigned text, Lily gave no one the benefit of doubt.
    Marigold was nothing like her; she was all clouds and starlight, wild and free. She was all the things an Amish girl wasn’t; yet somehow had a disposition more sincere and earnest than even his sister Bekah had, and Bekah was the gentlest girl he’d ever known. At least before she’d frozen him out over Joshua.
    Lily answered the door.
    “Really, you’re back?”
    “Ja,” he smiled at her as she stood in the doorway, not offering him a way in. “Marigold here?”
    “Marigold!” Lily screeched her sister’s name, not even turning to yell away from his face.
    “Are you coming to the mixer tonight?” Abel asked politely, not wanting to hear anymore screaming.
    “Oh god, you’re coming?”
    “ I am in the program , just the same as you.”
    “Yeah, but everyone knows how you got in.”
    “Do they now?”
    “Charity, right? Probably some television exec wants to give you a reality show.”
    Abel laughed, “Maybe so, but I think it mostly had to do with my SAT score and application.”
    Lily’s stood straighter, narrowing her eyes, suddenly changing her position and deciding to play on the offensive. “What was your score?”
    Abel laughed again, having never been asked a question like that in his life. He was used to questions like, When are you taking your kneeling vows? When are you going to get serious and choose a nice Amish girl? When is your Dad retiring and giving you his farm? No one at home considered a test score worthy of dinner conversation.
    “You truly want to know?”
    She stared harder, pressuring him to answer.
    “Twenty-three seventy.”
    “Shit.” She dropped her arms. “Really?”
    “Ja, tis nothing to lie about.”
    “Um, basically everyone lies about that stuff.”
    “I didn’t know.”
    “I guess not.” She huffed and then held up her hands in defeat. “So do you, like, want to go together tonight, to the mixer?”
    “I tell you my score and suddenly we’re friends?”
    “Well, I don’t want someone else to take you. You have the highest score in the cohort. Didn’t you look at the database?” He shook his head, having never heard of the database before.  “Oh my god, you are so Amish.”
    Marigold walked to the door, eyeing the two curiously.
    “Everything okay here?” she asked tentatively.
    “Yes. Be back here at 7:30, okay?” Lily raised her eyebrows, as if the one in charge. “That gives you two hours to go hangout with my weirdo sister, but come back and we can go together.”
    Marigold walked down the stairs, letting him know it was time for them to get away from Lily.
    “See you then, Lily,” he