Infinite Cashback: My Wealth Rebate System

Class ended and Jason stayed in his seat a second too long, notebook still open to a page he hadn’t actually written on.

Ten days.

The number sat in the corner of his vision the way it had all morning, patient, unmoving, the same font the system used for everything else it wanted him to sit with.

He’d taken maybe four real notes the entire lecture. The rest of the page was just his own handwriting looping the same word in slightly different sizes, over and over, without him fully registering he was doing it.

Register.

He stared at the word until it stopped looking like a real word at all, the letters going soft and strange the way any word did if you looked at it too long.

He closed the notebook before it could get any weirder and looked up, and that was when he saw her.

Vivian was by the door, surrounded by three girls Jason vaguely recognized from other classes, laughing at something with her whole body the way she did everything, hand on someone’s arm, head tipped back. She looked easy out there.

Bright. The kind of person a room organized itself around without meaning to, the center of gravity shifting toward her without anyone consciously deciding it should.

I have Sarah he thought, flat and automatic, like reciting a fact to shut down a line of questioning before it could even fully form.

He meant it. He also noticed, with some discomfort, how fast the thought had arrived, like some part of him had been standing guard specifically waiting for this exact moment to deploy it.

He was still watching when Vivian caught his eye across the room, said something quick to her friends, and peeled off toward him, weaving between the emptying desks with the same unhurried confidence she brought everywhere.

"You’ve got a face," she said, dropping into the seat beside him.

"I don’t have a face."

"You do. It’s the specific one where you’re somewhere else entirely." She tilted her head, studying him the way she always did, quick and unbothered, reading him the way she seemed to read everyone. "You didn’t hear a word of that lecture, did you."

"I heard some of it."

"You heard none of it. You’ve been staring at your notebook like it personally offended you." She grinned, letting it go without pushing further, and Jason exhaled slightly, grateful she hadn’t actually landed anywhere close to the real answer, because the real answer wasn’t something he had any intention of explaining to anyone, least of all her.

"Anyway," she said, "I actually came over to tell you something. I can’t make study group today."

"Why not."

"Personal thing, have a birdie at home. Can’t get out of it." She made a small apologetic face, genuine enough that he believed it instantly. "So it’s just you, Bree, and Nadia today. Try not to die."

"If you’re not going, I’m not going."

Vivian raised an eyebrow. "That’s not really how it works."

"I’m making it how it works."

"Okay, well." She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice like she was breaking bad news gently, clearly enjoying the delivery more than the actual content warranted. "You remember Nadia’s whole thing about accountability. The ’this isn’t a democracy’ speech."

"Vaguely."

"She told the group chat this morning that anyone who skips without a documented emergency gets, and I’m quoting directly, ’removed from the shared notes folder and blacklisted from future collaboration.’" Vivian said the whole sentence with theatrical gravity, like she was reading it off a court document. "She actually used the word blacklisted. In writing. To a group chat about a college midterm."

Jason stared at her. "That’s insane."

"That’s Nadia." Vivian shrugged, entirely unbothered, like this was just a known fact of the natural world at this point, no more remarkable than gravity. "So. Your call. Skip and lose access to the notes three days before a midterm, or go sit through it without me."

Jason weighed it for exactly one second before the actual math settled, cold and simple underneath everything else currently competing for space in his head.

Ten days on the clock and I’m going to lose my study materials over a scheduling conflict I didn’t even cause.

"Fine. I’ll go."

"Good choice." She stood, gathering her bag, slinging it over one shoulder with the same easy motion she used for everything. "Tell Bree I said hi. And tell Nadia I have a legitimate excuse, in writing, if she wants proof."

"I’ll pass that along."

She gave him a small wave and disappeared back toward her friends, folding back into the group like she’d never left it, and Jason sat there another second before finally standing, the notebook tucked under his arm, the number in the corner of his vision still counting down whether he looked at it or not.

He walked toward the library alone, and somewhere around the second hallway his thoughts drifted off the timer entirely and landed, unhelpfully, on the two girls waiting for him.

Nadia I understand, at least.

He turned the thought over as he walked, cataloguing her the way he catalogued everything.

Efficient. Direct. Says exactly what she means and expects the same back. Predictable, even, in its own intense way. I know what I’m walking into with her.

Bree’s the one I don’t have a read on.

He thought back to the walk home two days ago, the easy conversation that had unspooled block by block, her calm, deliberate way of answering every question like she’d already considered it from four different angles before he’d even finished asking it out loud.

The small folded note she’d handed him within minutes of meeting him. The quiet, patient attention that made her feel like she was always one step ahead of whatever conversation was actually happening.

And then the moment right at the end, right at her corner, when he’d told her he was reading her back just as carefully as she read everyone else.

She just left. Practically ran.

He replayed it slower this time, trying to actually parse it instead of just filing it away as strange, the way he usually did with things that didn’t immediately organize themselves into something useful. The flush climbing up her cheeks in real time.

The abrupt, uneven exit, nothing like her usual unhurried pace, like her whole calm exterior had briefly short-circuited and sent her sprinting for cover before it could reboot.

Interesting he thought, and then caught himself thinking it, the word landing with more weight than he’d intended, and shoved the observation aside before it could go anywhere it had no business going.

Focus. Ten days. Not the time.

He reached the study room and pushed the door open, and the room was empty.

He stood there for a second, checking the time on his phone, confirming he wasn’t early, confirming this was actually the right room, the same glass walls, the same round table, no Nadia hunched over color-coded notes, no stack of index cards waiting to be dealt out like ammunition.

Huh.

He set his bag down on the table anyway, pulling out a chair, and was still standing there scanning the empty room when the door opened behind him.

Bree stepped in, paused in the doorway when she saw him, and something flickered across her face, quick and unreadable, before settling back into her usual calm.

"Oh," she said. "It’s just you."

"It’s just me. Where is everybody?"

"That’s what I was about to ask you." She stepped fully inside, letting the door swing shut behind her, glancing around the empty table like it might reveal an explanation if she looked hard enough at it. "Vivian’s not here?"

"Family thing. She told me right after class."

"Huh." Bree set her bag down slowly, still processing, her usual unhurried movements slightly disrupted by whatever calculation was running behind her eyes.

"Nadia’s not here either. She texted me an hour ago. Something came up with her advisor, mandatory meeting, couldn’t reschedule."

Jason felt the realization land a half second before she did, watching it cross her face in real time, the careful composure slipping just slightly, a small crack appearing in the steady, unbothered surface she carried everywhere.

"So it’s," she started.

"Just us," he finished.

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

The room felt different suddenly, smaller somehow, the round table designed for four people now sitting there with two empty chairs on either side of them like evidence of a plan that had quietly fallen apart without either of them being told about it in advance.

"I didn’t know that," Bree said, a faint color rising along her cheeks, the same flush from two days ago, arriving faster this time, with less obvious cause than a compliment or a pointed comment.

"I mean. I knew Nadia wasn’t coming. I didn’t know Vivian wasn’t either. I would have."

"Would have what."

"Nothing. Never mind." She sat down quickly, pulling her bag onto her lap and digging through it with more focus than the task actually required, clearly using the motion as cover while she got whatever had briefly slipped back under control.

Jason watched her for a second, filing the reaction away without commenting on it, and pulled out his own chair, settling across from her at the table built for four, the two empty seats sitting there on either side of them like a fact neither of them had quite decided how to address yet.

"So," he said. "Just us, apparently."

"Apparently." Bree finally looked up, some of her usual composure sliding back into place, though the color hadn’t fully left her face yet, still visible along the edges of her cheeks if he looked closely enough.

"Guess we’re studying alone today."

"Guess so."