Yet every time Archie offered to help, she refused.
Once he found overdue tuition notices scattered across her kitchen table.
“Let me pay this.”
She looked up.
“No.”
“Skyla, it’s seven thousand dollars.”
“I know.”
“That’s nothing to me.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want you paying it.”
He frowned.
She softened.
“I need to walk across that graduation stage knowing I got myself there.”
“You would still have earned the degree.”
“But I need to know what I’m capable of.”
At first, Archie admired her.
He bragged about her.
“My girlfriend isn’t impressed by money.”
“She’s different.”
“She’s real.”
Then his family got involved.
His mother, Eleanor, watched Skyla carefully during Sunday dinners at the family estate.
“She’s very spirited,” Eleanor said one evening after Skyla left the room.
“That sounds like an insult.”
“It isn’t.”
“It sounded like one.”
