The Laziest Girl Alive Chapter 05

The Laziest Girl Alive Chapter 05

Everyone just stared, completely stunned.

The chat went absolutely feral.

[Director? Director of what, a psych ward?]

[A tenured chair for a lazy bum who didn’t even finish high school? Did someone hack Dr. Lewis s brain or what?]

[What kind of script is this? This is supposed to be a dating reality show, not a fantasy series.]

My mom finally found her voice, dry and strained with a forced little smile.

“Dr. Lewis, you must have the wrong person,” she said. “This is my daughter, Nora. She… she just likes staying home and doesn’t move around much.”

She spoke carefully, terrified of offending the famous academic standing in her living room.

My dad rushed to agree.

“Exactly. There must be some kind of misunderstanding,” he said. “Chloe is the one in Adler’s graduate program. You’re here for her, right?”

As he spoke, he kept shooting Chloe looks, clearly begging her to jump in and smooth things over.

Dr. Lewis finally straightened up, his usually gentle face twisted with confusion and impatience.

“Wrong person? How could I possibly get the wrong person?”

He waved his hands, more agitated by the second.

“I have practically worn a groove in the floor at the National Institute for Theoretical Physics trying to convince Dr. Reed to come to Adler. How would I not recognize her?”

He was speaking so loudly and with such obvious frustration that it sounded almost like he was the

one being wronged.

“Dr… Dr. Reed?” my dad echoed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his voice cracked.

Seeing they still weren’t getting it, Dr. Lewis just went all in.

He took a step forward, almost blocking the camera.

“You really don’t know who she is?”

“Nora Reed was recruited by the National Institute for Theoretical Physics at fourteen,” he said, his

voice ringing through the room. “At sixteen, she won one of the highest international prizes in physics. By eighteen, she had completed her doctorate and was already leading her own research

team.”

He drew in a sharp breath and looked at me with something close to reverence.

“At twenty, she became the youngest division director in the Institute’s history.”

My parents stood frozen in shock.

Dr. Lewis’s hand shook as he pointed at the stack of pages Chloe had soaked, now half-dry at the edge of the coffee table.

“And those, too.”

His voice broke with anger.

“You treated them like trash. Every single symbol on those pages could change the future of the

world.”

The blood drained from Chloe’s face.

She swayed and had to grab the arm of the couch beside her to keep from collapsing.

She stared at me, her eyes filled with pure horror.

It had never even crossed her mind that the small-town nobody she had been using as a pathetic

point of comparison to make herself look better was a division director at the National Institute for

Theoretical Physics.

My parents’ faces were just as shocked.

Their lips trembled, but not a single word came out.

Only Ethan kept his eyes fixed on me, a mix of disbelief and dawning realization in his expression.

Under everyone’s gaze, I slowly pushed myself up a little on the couch, ran a hand through my messy hair, looked at Dr. Lewis, and sighed.

“Dr. Lewis,” I said, “I told you not to come to my house.”

“It’s way too much trouble.”