The surest way to hit your target is to shoot first and call whatever you hit your target.
“That’s a long way down. You must be pretty determined.”
“Thanks. I wanted to make certain this was one thing I couldn’t fuck up.”
“Finals?”
“Finals is only the start of it,” she said. “I lost my flat, my girlfriend, my car, my pet, my parents… failing finals just means a lifetime of student debt and a suck-ass nowhere job in the middle of fail town.”
“What was your major.”
“Business and pre-law.”
Jones whistled backwards. “That’s a high target to hit.”
“I had to get outta fail-town. Business and law are lossless industries.”
“So’s porn, but few actually aim to get there.” Jones peeked over the edge. “You’re getting a crowd.”
“First time for everything.”
“Big family or social issues?”
“I dunno.” She sat on the edge. “I’m just… invisible. I’m not pretty. I’m obviously not smart. I’m not talented. I wasted all my time on stupid photomontages instead of studying. I wish I’d never even thought of OwlBearGryphon.”
“No shit. You did OwlBearGryphon? That stuff’s the bomb! You gotta be making tons of money.”
“No, that’d be the people who put OwlBearGryphon on shirts and badges and crap like that. I never put a pixel towards the OwlBearGryphon game or did a frame of that stoopid cartoon… Hundreds of people are making millions and I can’t see a cent…”
“My Nanna always said, ‘The surest way to hit your target is to shoot first and call whatever you hit your target.’ Seems to me you’ve got things a little backwards. Especially all the 'can’t’s and 'not’s.”
“…and here comes the bullshit…”
“It’s just my opinion, mind,” said Jones. “But you are talented. You are smart. And… Ithinkyou'repretty… I bet you’ve got lots of stuff on your computer or whatever that can be just as great as OwlBearGryphon. And nowhere near as… vulnerable.”
“…yeah…?”
“Yeah. Like… if you want to keep something as your intellectual property, you shouldn’t put it up on FreeToPlayWith dot com.”
“See? I told you I was stupid.”
“There’s a difference between stupid and uninformed. While we live, we learn.” Jones sidled closer. “I’d like it a lot if you gave living another go.”
She wiped her face. Looked at Jones for the first time. “You aren’t a cop.”
“No, I’m a failing artist with an ear for business who came up here with similar ideas. And then I saw you and my whole world changed.”
She swung around. Put her weathered sneakers on the gravel of the roof. “So how about a failed business lawyer and a failed arts major team up and see what we can make with each other?”
“Sounds like a deal to me,” said Jones. “And you know the best thing about meeting someone on the worst day of their life?”
“What?”
“It can only get better.”
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