The Billionaire Prize

New York City

Downtown Brooklyn

“Tell me why you don’t want to go for the auction in Sandy Falls, Trinity,” Raina said, following her into the café and joining the queue.

It was a cold morning, and all Trinity could think about was getting a hot cup of coffee into her system, not talking about some random thing her old high school was putting together to make money. Don’t get her wrong; it was for a good cause, but it was also for trying to reach into the pockets of whatever rich guests they had invited for the bid or auction or whatever it was called.

She didn’t even understand why they had emailed her when she was not even part of the elite of the school back then. She had been in the back line, and no one had noticed her, not even when she started to gain weight from being pregnant during their last exam, or when her grandma sent her over to her father’s cousin’s place when she began to show.

Well, she didn’t want to think about all of that. What she wanted to talk about was why they had invited her. The last time she went to Sandy Falls was when her grandmother died, and she went to have her buried, and that was five years ago.

She had escaped that town; she didn’t think going back there was a good idea.

“I’m not going; it’s simple,” she told Raina, her best friend.

Raina had also once lived in Sandy Falls, and she had basically followed Trinity here a couple of years after she left the place. Trinity had stayed with her father’s cousin and his family until she was twenty, and she had to go to college, and damn it hadn’t been easy, but they had been there, Abel and his wife; Sarah! They had helped her through tough times, thick and thin, as people described it.

Sandy Falls wasn’t a place she would like to go back to, not for anything because she had a lot of bad memories of that place. It was where her parents and sister had died in a car accident years ago; it was where her grandmother had died; it was where she had gotten pregnant by a boy who had skipped town the next morning.

“Trinity,” Raina hissed, grabbing Trinity’s arm to pull her out of her thoughts. “Stop saying things in your head when you can say them out loud. I’m talking to you here,” she said.

“I’m not doing that,” Trinity denied, rolling her eyes at her best friend.

Raina grunted and then she hit her arm playfully. “And stop rolling your eyes at me,” she said, even though her back was turned to her.

Trinity scoffed, turning to face her. “I wasn’t rolling my eyes at you; you bully,” she smiled, even though she wanted to pretend she was offended.