Chapter One
Dad cleared his throat, tossing the mail onto the counter. A thick envelope slid its way over to me.
“What’s that?” I asked, my mouth full of Cheerios.
Instead of answering me, he said, “Hey, Brad, why don’t you go clean up your room, huh, before you head over to Benny’s.”
“But—”
There was no room forbuts,though, because Dad just hauled Brad, my little brother, up from his stool at the breakfast bar with a grunt and set him on his feet. “Go on, bud, and I’ll let you off doing the dishes with Elle this morning.”
I was immediately suspicious. This summer, Dad had decided to give Brad more responsibility around the house. I’d already shown him how to fold laundry and how to make pasta. Dad had shown him how to mow the lawn properly on the weekend, and we’d just gotten into a routine where he helped one of us do the dishes. Dad said it was because Brad was in middle school now and getting old enough to help out, but we all knew the real reason: I’d be starting college in the fall and wouldn’t be around to do all those kinds of things anymore.
My stomach twisted at the thought of it. In a few months, once I was in Berkeley, everything would change so much. It wasn’t like the house totally fell apart without me—it was always fine when I spent a couple of weeks at the Flynns’ beach house every summer. But still. Iwaskinda worried about leaving them to fend for themselves.
Just a few days ago, I’d been on top of the world, walking across that stage to get my high school diploma, tossing my cap into the air with everybody else….I’d gotten into UC Berkeley with my best friend in the entire world, Lee Flynn, just like we’d always planned, ever since we were old enough to understand what college was. We’d spent our whole lives together, and we’d be starting this next chapter of life as college students together, too. It was so perfect. It was exactly the way it was meant to be.
We had said senior year was going to beouryear—and sure, it had been…a little bumpy sometimes, but it had still been awesome. And college would be, too. As apprehensive as I was about how different everything would be, it was still exciting to think about.
“What’s going on?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the envelope and then at my dad. I shoveled down the last of my cereal, wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, and pushed aside the bowl.
Dad took Brad’s empty stool, tapping the envelope near me. “Maybe you’d like to tell me what’s going on. This came for you.”
“For me?”
I picked up the envelope and turned it over.
Ms.R. Evans
It was marked with the Harvard University logo.
Oh.
Oh shit.
My Cheerios threatened to make a reappearance and my heart was somewhere in my throat as I fumbled to open the envelope. This wasn’t happening. This was not happening. A couple of months ago, I got a letter telling me I was wait-listed, and that was supposed to be the end of it. Except…apparently it wasn’t.
I shook the letter out and laid it flat on the counter to read it.
…delighted to inform you…
My head snapped up, my mouth hanging open. “I…I…”
I could not get my words out.
Impatient, his eyes looking a little crazed behind his glasses, my dad snatched the letter up to read for himself. I watched his eyes dart over the words a few times before he let out a hoot of laughter and shook his head.
I winced, knowing what would come next, and headed him off with a groan, slumping forward to bury my face in my arms. “Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
“You got into Harvard! My little girl got into Harvard! You—” Then he cleared his throat again. “Honey, you didn’t tell me you’d even applied. Is this…Is this because of Noah?”
I groaned again.
This was not supposed to happen.
The first college I’d applied to had been Berkeley—because,duh,of course it was. And then I’d applied to safety schools. Of course I had. That’s what you did, right? That’s what my guidance counselor told me to do. So, obviously, Lee and I had tried to pick all the same safety schools.
Lee had talked about applying to Brown when his girlfriend, Rachel, had applied there, and…
