“Well that escalated quickly,” Pri said.

She sat on the bare floor across from me in our shitty apartment, mugs in hand. We watched the cheap coffee table between us in rapt attention, where most of a law textbook had grown. Only the last inch was left, still wriggling out of the wood. The wood of the table squealed like nails on a chalkboard as the book worked itself out.

“Has your career grown in, yet?” I asked her. I didn’t mean it to come out in a whisper. Speaking any louder seemed to make the whole thing real.

“Not even a hint. I thought only prodigies and shit got their careers in their teens. Is there such a thing as a law prodigy? Oooh, are you going to be a supreme court justice?”

It started as nothing but a nub in the wood when we noticed it, something we could have polished out tomorrow morning. Maybe something that we should have polished out. The first book of my budding future had grown in before the end of our first cup of coffee. We were planning to go dancing tonight, but Pri had changed into sweats. I was still in my sequined dress, heels discarded by the door.

The textbook made a little popping sound and a bang as it settled on the table, fully formed and properly inanimate. I couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t stand to look at it but I couldn’t look anywhere else. I thought the grain of the wood beside the book wavered. Maybe it was just a shadow passing over the knot. I couldn’t get two books in one night. No one had two books grow in their first night.

Pri cocked her head ninety degrees to read the title. “‘Questions and Explanations for Civil Procedure.’ Sounds dull as fuck.”

I slammed my mug down over the knot in the wood to keep it from shifting again. “We should go out.”

“You’re not gonna read your book tonight?” Pri asked.

“I’m not even going to be a lawyer. I can’t afford to be a lawyer,” I said, getting my keys. “C’mon. If you don’t want to change then at least let’s get some food or something.”