I wake to the sound of objects banging, clutter falling from shelves, and two people giggling, shushing, and reeling towards the bed. It is Leah and Razor, rudely fooling around while I try to sleep. While she does keep shushing him, which was a useless gesture, the sound of heaving, sucking and licking, now forced me to intrude. I roll over and check my phone. It's 4:50 am. I could just go for a run around campus and get back by six, which was the time I had envisioned on originally waking up. Without intruding too much, I grab my running shoes and quickly excuse myself from this awkward situation.

——————-

"Emma!" Spencer rejoices when I walk over to him. As I walk closer, I notice the more raw imperfections that he has tried to cover with make-up. One of which, being puffy, red eyes, potentially from crying.

"Hey Spencer," before I add my next bit, I ere on the side of caution, "how was your night?"

"Is it that obvious?" he whines, his tone and mood alternating 180 degrees upset.

"No," I lie, not all to well.

"Thomas and I broke up last night," he pouts as we walk to the coffee cart.

"Oh no!" I say empathetically, "how long were you together.

"Well, post last break-up was around 9 months, before that was 4 months, and before that was a year."

I was lost. "You're going to have to fill me in here."

"Thomas and I have been on and off dating for two years. Every single time we broke up was because he wouldn't tell his parents about us and though they knew that he was seeing someone..." his voice dried at the end, so I tried to finish his sentence.

"But they though that person was a girl?"

"Yeah. But, I'm worried. This time seemed different. This time it wasn't my fault for the break-up, but him saying that he was hurting to many people by living two lives, and it was time he started to live his life properly. Only I didn't know that was one without me, and instead with some girl, Vanessa."

He says her name with so much spite, it's hard not to slightly feel bad for her, "Hey. If he wasn't able to comment to you 110%, then he doesn't deserve you."

He curled his lips to one side, "Thanks Emma."

When we arrive in the lecture hall we both take a seat in the centre of the row and the class quickly begins to fill out so that nearly every seat is full. I turn to Spencer and say, "I didn't know that this many people were into the business course?"

"They're not. But part of the 18 week assignment is listening to a weekly lecture from..." before he continues, Professor Arble, strolls into the hall. She scans the room bewildered and says coyly, "I didn't know this many people would be taking my class this semester. I wonder why?" The class laughs, but I still don't understand. Her question seemed legitimate. She starts the class by saying, "As you know, each year in the first semester, the school acquires a guest speaker to aid you in your unit, 'Technology building our future.' This year, the school has managed to lure back one of our most successful graduates, Jacob Reynolds." Immediately the name hits close to home. Jacob Reynolds, as in Becky's brother? He strolls into the room with the typical face of a hard and inscrutable man. Only very few people, including myself, know that under that facade is a kind and funny soul. His eyes scan the crowd as if he is looking for something. His eyes lock with mine for just a moment, and for a brief second his demeanour shifts and I see the real Jacob. But he quickly regains his composure and looks onto the class. Girls sigh and smile pathetically towards him, and as quoted by some media source, 'Women everywhere fall under the spell of his devilish charms.' Don't get me wrong, I understand the hype, I would never admit it to Becky, but he is insanely good looking, sometimes I admit that he's made my mind travel places that no guy, has ever managed to do. His blonde hair is kept back by a small amount of gel, his chiseled jaw could alone turn somebody on, the muscular and yet tall physic was delectably enticing, and his scandalous and yet inscrutable manner gave him the charm of a snake. But nevertheless he was my best friends brother.

He stands sturdy as a building in front of the class, demonstrating his intoxicating essence that radiated power. "My name is Jacob Reynolds and I am 22 years old. At 21 I started a manufacturing and investments company called Rey Enterprises Holdings. In fact one and a half years ago, I sat exactly where you are, board by my professor," everyone interjects a laugh, and he looks to Professor Arble and says, "Just kidding Mrs." He looks back at the audience and continues to talk about how his ideas and technological enhancements, founded a multi-billion dollar company in the space of 11 months, which, was the fastest profit in-turn on record. Six months into the prototype test, the government funded his company, which assisted to is exponential growth. I even learned some new things about him, and people learned thing about him that I already knew. Strangely enough, a feeling hung in the pit of my gut, when this happened, I dismissed it quickly, because there was no way that I was jealous about something as tedious as essentially information that would be written in an autobiography about him being common knowledge. At the end of the class, most girls got up, asked for pictures and even tried to put out. My phone buzzed at the last minute with a text from Jacob that read, 'Pls stay for five minutes, need 2 talk 2 u.' I look behind me and see that with his phone still in his hand, he had made eye contact with me. I sighed and went back to my seat, waiting for the swarm of flies to eventually disperse. Five minutes later, I walked down to him. "I didn't know you were taking this class," he begins.

"Yeah, well I didn't know you were going to be the special guest."

"Why did you think I was coming to New York then?"

"Huh. I never really thought about it. What did you need?"

"I was wondering if you and Becky wanted to have dinner tonight? You can bring some friends if you want?"

"I don't know about Becky, because truth be told she doesn't really want people to know your her brother," I instantly stop talking, realising that what I said hurt him and I'm an idiot, "but, I'm sure she would love to come, and I've got a friend who I think would love to as well."

"Great! I can send a car to pick you up..."

"No that ok. We can get a cab."

"Alright, well Beck has the address" he says. I take him into a hug which he returns and then he exits through the teacher door on the right, while I walk up the stairs to the student corridor. I see Spencer leaning on the wall waiting for me like he said he would.

"What did you have to talk to him about?"

"How would you like to go to a dinner party with me tonight?"

--

"No, Emma," Becky says when I ask her to come to dinner.

"Please?" I beg.

"Nooo, I was going to have a quiet night in tonight."

"Uh huh. You plan on wearing a Fendi crop top and denim mini to bed?" I ask sarcastically.

"Fine, but I was going out to a bar with a couple of guys tonight."

"Becky. You owe me for ditching at that party last night."

"I was gone for two seconds!" she whined and fabricated, "plus, your the one that moved from the couch, where I did come back to look for you. But you were already gone."

I decide to pull out my power move, I hold both her hands in mine, step up to her so we are only inches away, "In the name of our friendship, and on Chris Hemsworth's life, please come with me to YOUR BROTHERS place tonight."

"Really," she says seriously, "you went, there? Chris Hemsworth? Well now I have to go. There's no way I'm going to sacrifice my future husband for a couple of guys at a bar."

We both laugh and she gets into some 'juicy' green sweats to go. Spenser meets us at the bottom of the building and we all get a cab to Jacobs. Becky and Spencer immediately hit it off. Their crude personalities and tendencies to see everything as a joke made them the most compatible of friends.

When we arrive at Jacobs penthouse on the Upper East Side, aka Manhattan, the sky scraping view that can be observed from the large floor to ceiling windows are jaw dropping. He walks over barefoot on the cold grey glossed flooring, in a white polo shirt and some jeans. This was the Jacob I knew. Comfortable, and not all dressed up in a suit. When Spencer sees Jacob he grabs my hand and squeezes it as if to let me know who it is that is in front of us. I look over to him and smile at the awe sprawled across his face. "How-What-How do you know Jacob Reynolds?" he stutters.

When Jacob embraces Becky as says, "What's up little sister?" Spencers awe increases, as does my entertainment to his reaction. "I ordered Chinese by the way," Jacob adds. Becky walks off into the wine cellar, and grabs a bottle that I assume is more expensive than the 140 cab fee it took to get here. I love the Reynolds' dearly, but while their humility was always in practice, often their wealth would intimidate people, as I'd seen many times before. Especially Jacob, who unlike his millionaire parents, was a billionaire. However, I notice that money and wealth didn't seem to phase Spencer that much. Becky opened the bottle, and while I pass on a drink, everyone else takes a glass. "Hey, don't tell anyone I let you guys drink tonight," Jacob jokes.

"To Columbia," Becky toasts, "And to old and new friends." Everyone clinks their wine glasses and I with my water. Everybody seems to get along well, after of course the first 20 minutes of awkwardness that imposed on the conversation. Eventually the food arrived, and we all were famished and ate wildly. Becky tried to pry some boys out of her brother, but he remained impartial to her usually persuasive abilities, and told her that she should settle into school before considering a relationship. Spencer, as I presumed was the life of the party, and was even making Jacob laugh a hearty laugh here and there. I recounted the woman's story in my Arts and Humanities class, and Jacob even placed his hand on mine at one moment and rubbed it. However, as I looked down he swiftly moved his hand and acted stubborn the rest of the night. Becky and I talked about the party from last night. When I told the part about the Smash or Pass game, while all of them laughed at my innocence, Jacob just clenched his jaw when I talked about walking home with the nice guy from the group.

"So Emma," Jacob looks to me, "how're the Frats this year?"

I laugh, "You should ask Becky."

She smiles and bites her tongue towards Jacob who is already looking at her disapprovingly, "The party's are great! The alcohol..." she trails off realising her brother getting progressively angrier, "the alcohol I would know nothing about because I'm a minor," he becomes less annoyed, "and the guys...yum, they are smoking hot."

"Amen," I say moaning in agreement.

I see Jacob roll his eyes, for the second time being annoyed by what said, "What's up your ass?" I say both jokingly and serious.

Then, something I've never seen happen before occurs, he loses his composure, becomes flustered flustered, and replies, "College is for education, not Fraternity's and sex."

"You were apart of a fraternity," I say challenging him.

"Yeah well," he pausing thinking up an excuse, "It's different, because... because I'm successful."

"Your logic is messed up," I say laughing, and from there the subject gets dropped and luckily the light-hearted mood got picked back up by Spencer.

Eventually the night drew on, and I was getting tired. At around 11:00 pm, Jacob had his driver, Peter, get us all safely back to the dormitories. he helped me help Spencer first get to his side of campus, and then helped me get Becky into her room. Peter was about 40 years older than Jacob, but he had been driving him since he was a little boy. He reminisced about the times when helped young teenager Jacob help his sister who had been drinking into the pool house. He never once spoke bad about either Jake or Becky, and rather in an endearing and fond tone. I go myself in the bed, not bothering to set an alarm for the next morning, because I knew I don't have a class until 2:20 pm. Just as my mind began to drift off into seep, my phone startles me wide awake with the alert noise of a text message. I pick it up at let my eyes adjust to the blinding light. I see that Jacob was the one who had texted me. He said, 'Had fun tonight. Let's do it again sometime?' Was he flirting with me? No. Of course not, I'm reading into this for sure. To tired to respond, I leave him on read and drift off into sleep.

The next morning, I wake up around 9:30 am. I feel good and motivated. My mind immediately goes back to the text which I received last night from Jacob, this time I have the energy to respond. But I find myself anxious before hitting the reply. What is wrong with me? I've known this guy for over 13 years and I'm scared to text him? I decide on a simple, 'Yeah, last night was great! Thx for having us over.' I get ready for the day in a grey Columbia t-shirt which Becky had cropped and given to me, and a pair of exercise leggings. I had planned on shopping with Becky today because Fall was nearing quickly, but she had a make-up Modern History class this morning that she had to attend. So I instead invited Spencer to come along with me. At 9:00 o'clock, I hear a musical knock on my door and quickly opened it. "Darling, I bought coffee!" Spencer chirped when I opened the door.

"Darling!"

"Uh ha, I'm on a caffeine high, and ready for some shopping!"

"Well you are definitely high on something," I mumble, "You didn't have to get me coffee," I mockingly scolded him. The caffeine fizzled in my veins like carbonated water, and my body was fuelled with energy.

"Ah please, I owe you for last night. I still can't believe I got to meet Jacob Reynolds."

"Alrighty, stop fangirling," I say as we, leave the room and head downstairs.

"I smelt his shampoo when I walked pass..."

I interject and say blithely, "That's creepy."

"Shut up," he dismisses my comment, "we use the same shampoo!" he squeals. I laugh at his comment, and he asks me, "How long have you too been into each other?"

The coffee I had been drinking suddenly tastes metallic and cold, I spit it out, causing me to choke. "He is not into me," I say defensively.

"Ahh, darling, you blind naive child," he says condescending, "so you don't deny that your into him?"

"I never said that!"

"No. But instead of defending yourself, you went straight to saying that he wasn't into you, which leads me to think that your into him."

"Glad to see psych 101 is paying off," I mumble, "I'm not attracted to Jacob."

"Ha, now your lying. Every man, woman or third gender is attracted to Jacob Reynolds. That man is S.E.X wrapped in silky smooth chocolate and..."

"Alright," I say loudly, hearing enough of this conversation, "can we move on."

We ended up getting a cab to the shops at Columbus circle, while Spencer, I had realised came from a wealthy family, I was limited to a 50 budget, which reminded me that I would need to look for an internship. Even better, a paid internship. After we got lunch, Spencer needed to purchase a suit for his cousins wedding. We ended up deciding on an upscale place called Sarar. I feel slightly out of place, with most people wearing suits, or designer, while I was my casual Columbia T-shirt and leggings. Spencer tells me he's a size 18, and I begin to look around. A caucasian male, dressed slickly in a crisp blue suit and brown loafers approaches me with slight condescending disdain across his face. "Hello there," he says as an afterthought to watching me handle each suit.

"Hey," I reply.

"Miss, is there something you're looking for," he asked curtly.

"Ah, just checking out the Jackets right now."

"You know that's a 600 jacket, right?"

I was taken aback by his backhanded question, and I saw in my peripheral vision that other shoppers were now paying attention the conversation. I looked around for Spencer, but after not being able to locate him, I refocus my attention to the salesman, "Ok?"

"Alright, just wanted to let you know." He walks away, but stays unusually close and continuously looks over to check my hands. "Miss we do have a lot of cameras throughout the store, I just wanted to make you aware of that," he said imprudently.

I sigh and roll my eyes, frustrated by the fact he his racially profiling me. He walks over to two ladies shopping and asks them loud enough for me to hear, "I just want to make sure she's not bothering you ladies."

"Why would she be bothering us," the first woman asks mad in my defence. She was a younger woman with large green eyes, blonde hair and lightly freckled skin, while her friend, who was very similar looking, had fiery red hair. Ignoring the humiliation and embarrassment, I continue to ears drop and shop.

The man says to them, "I would rather be spending my time and attention with you lovely ladies, who are, obviously able to afford our business." he takes a suggestive and impactful pause and they goes on to say, "I mean nine times out of ten if somebody steals something, their black." She inhales shocked by the audacity of this man. "I mean, 'it's not that I'm being racist, it's just facts." He states.

"It is prejudice, narcissistic and racist people like you, that makes me disgusted to be an American, I am for sure reporting you to you supervisor." She and her friend abruptly leave the store, avoiding all eye contact with me. I clench and release my jaw over and over, until I have received some control.

However, the salesman appears to be someone I just can't shake, as he returns to me and insists, "I really don't think that we are going to have anything that interests you Miss. We're stock a very classy, specific look."

"I don't know what that means, but I'm just going to ignore you and continue looking for a suit for my friend, ok."

"Can you even pay for this suit?"

With a huff loud enough to attract attention from other customers, I remove my credit card from the back of my phone and say, "See, I have a credit card. I can pay for all this."

Discourteously, the man rolls his eyes and says, "We don't accept stolen credit cards."

"Come on. What makes you think that my credit card is stolen," I raise my voice agitated, which he sees at a threat.

Using two fingers he signals over security,"I'm going to have to pat you down Miss," he says sternly.

Shocked, I mumble, "I don't believe this, this is messed up. I-"

"Miss we are going to need you to cooperate."

"Oh my gosh!" I place my hands behind my head, while the security guard hesitantly, violates me, "Is this even legal?" I ask, despite already knowing the answer. What I should of asked is where the fuck are his morals and ethics.

"Yes it's legal," he replies smugly.

"I'm just looking at the suits!"

"We have to protect the merchandise," he replies coyly.

The security guard walks away after not finding any stolen items on my person. I make eye contact with Spencer, who walks out of the change room and over to me. The salesman walks away curtly, but when I start talking to Spencer, he immediately returns and asks him, "Sorry, is she bothering you?"

He looks at the man confused and angry, "No. Why would she be bothering me?" The salesman looks me up and down quizzically, so Spencer steps in and says, "Look, I don't want to intrude, but I come from Europe," he signals to the gesture the man made and says, "this would never happen in Europe. You can't profile on the basis of the way someone looks."

The salesman says with ease, "No, I wasn't profiling anyone-"

But Spencer interjects and says, "No, the thing is how can anyone make any conclusions about someone on the basis of colour or you know looks and stuff like that."

The man lowers his voice to a whisper and says, "Nine times out of ten, if someone steals something, they look like her." That is the second time I have heard that today, but the sting hurts no less.

Spencer is speechless.

The man reiterates, "Are you saying I was wrong?"Throughout this injustice, I have remained silent. Voiceless. Misrepresented.

But this time, Spencer looks at him as if he had two heads, "Well, yeah! Yeah definitely! I'm uncomfortable, she's uncomfortable because of you-"

"She looks like someone that would steal," he remains consistent.

"Shut up." Spencer repulses, "No she does not! Because she's black?! Are you crazy?! I'm from Eastern Europe, I could steal!" Spencer grabs my hand and drags me out of there. I'm shell shocked. While I know that I have been racially profiled before, never has it been so public, so humiliating and so intense.

Filling the awkward silence of our walk, I said, "I didn't know you were from Eastern Europe?"

Nonchalantly he replied, "Yeah. We moved to south Dakota when I was 10."

For the rest of the journey, we made small talk until we reached our next store. But before we walked in, Spencer asked me, "How often does that happen."

I consider my answer, "Probably more than I realise."

He nods, my answer clearly sufficing. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah. What's one strangers opinion mean to me?" I asks enthusiastically. Spencer plasters a smile onto his face. We enter the boutique and I think to myself, 'did his opinion mean anything to me?'