Free VIP (Rock & Release, Act I) by Riley Edgewood Page A

just seems the type. But I bite my tongue on that front. "What are you studying?"
    "According to my mother, nothing worthwhile." She rolls her eyes. "According to me, communications with a journalism concentration. You?"
    "Business, because it's what my parents told me I wanted." I shake my head, scoffing at myself. "It sounds so lame. I bet journalism comes with classes that are actually fun ."
    "Ugh. Parents." She shakes her head right along with me. "Can't live with 'em, can't piss 'em off too badly or they'll cut off funding."
    "Definitely can't live with 'em," I mutter.  
    She studies my face for a few moments. "You want to talk about it?"
    I find myself spilling the story to her—and somehow, I find myself telling her about Jason, too.  
    "He was annoying," I say, smiling at the millions of examples that run through my head. "The way younger brothers are supposed to be. But he was good, you know? The kind of guy who'd run through traffic to help a stranger who dropped a bag of groceries across the street."  
    It's a true story. One I witnessed while visiting him during his first semester at Georgetown.  
    "He could be a complete ass, too—in the most unapologetic way. I could tell you stories…" But I shake my head. These memories are getting to be a little too painful. The first was easy, but now each one weighs more than the last and I feel like I might get crushed.  
    He would have had an amazing life , I want to say. He would've been successful and happy and loved . But these parts of him, these parts he'll never have the chance to make reality, they're too hard to share.  
    I feel the corners of my smile wobble, fall.
    Vera's expression softens. Maybe she understands the way my emotions are churning. "How did he die?" she asks, gently.  
    The world stutters around me the way it always does when someone asks, the way it always does when I have to remember. I resist the urge to suck in a deep breath and force the word out instead. "Overdose."  
    Her eyes widen. "I'm so sorry. Like, I'd be sorry no matter how he was taken from you, but drugs… That had to be even more painful for you. I'm sorry. I'm completely putting my foot in my mouth."
    "It's okay. You're really not." It's true. Her reaction is almost…I don't know… welcoming compared to the people who grew up knowing Jason. The speculative expressions, the wow this is awesome gossip glints in so many of their eyes. Followed with the pity. So much smug pity. Vera's face is saddened, but she's not secretly thrilled to hear about something as dramatic as a drug overdose. It's refreshing, in the worst of ways.
    "Was he… Did he do a lot of drugs?"  
    And this is what absolutely kills me. Dead. Dead all over on the inside. "I don't know. I would've sworn he never touched anything harder than alcohol." My breath hitches in my throat. I swallow it down. "I didn't know him as well as I thought."  
    Funny, smart, sweet-when-he-wanted-to-be Jason.  
    Maybe talking about him isn't actually as freeing as I thought, because a part of me is dying all over again.
    "And your parents aren't handling it well?"
    "They're not really handling it at all. The doctor prescribed something for my mom when it'd first happened—ironic, I know, drugs to deal with a drug overdose—so she didn't feel anything for weeks, just walked around like a zombie. She still does, except she's turned into this super fake happy zombie. Like she smiles all the time, but there's no truth behind it. And my dad's just furious. With the world. With me now, especially."
    "You should definitely stay here until he chills out," she says.  
    Hope clears the thickness in my throat, but, "I didn't mean to make you offer that with my sob story. I swear."
    She waves me off, standing to stretch. "That didn't even cross my mind. But I think you should stay here."  
    "Just a few days would be awesome." Gratitude floods me in waves.
    "A few days, a few months—stay as long as you want. As long as you