Maybe, sort of, in a moment of madness, I’d…sent off an application to Harvard. Where my boyfriend, Lee’s older brother, Noah, had been for the last year.
It was madness, because I was not supposed to get in. I never thought I would. I mean, sure, I worked hard at school, and my grades were good, and I had a couple of extracurriculars, and I’d done well on the SATs…but…it was Harvard, you know? It wasn’t supposed to be the kind of place you got into on a whim; it was the sort of place you spent your entire high school career working toward.
It was madness because they were never supposed to say yes.
“Kind of,” I told my dad now. I lifted my head just a little, grimacing as I caught his eye. Ugh. He looked so damnproudof me. I wished he’d stop that. “I just…I dunno. I thought it might be nice. Like how Lee wanted to apply to Brown because that’s where Rachel’s going. I never mentioned it to anybody—”
“Wait—Lee doesn’t know about this?”
Some of the pride started to dim in his expression.Good,I thought. A little parental disappointment was the least I deserved for keeping a secret from my best friend. The last time I’d done that was when I’d started dating Noah and I’d been worried about Lee finding out and taking it badly. Andthathadn’t exactly gone too great when he did find out, even if he forgave me in the end….
“It’s not like I was trying to hide it from him,” I tried to explain. “This wasn’t like…you know, when I started dating Noah. I just never thought I’d get in, so I didn’t see the point in scaring him. I didn’t think…” I let out a sigh. “I got wait-listed. Which I thought was kind of cool, you know? But people who get wait-listed for Harvard don’t actually get in.”
“Looks like they do.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
A grin split my dad’s face and he came around the counter to hug me. “Well, whatever you decide to do, I’m so proud of you, Elle. Harvard! I know I’ve had my reservations about you dating Noah, but, hey, if this is the kind of influence he’s having on you…”
“I didn’tjustapply because of Noah, you know. I mean—it’s Harvard. Who wouldn’t want to get into Harvard?”
“He’s just the reason you picked that over, say, Yale.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “And I figured…I mean, I sort of…wanted to see if I could get in, you know?”
“Well, you kept it pretty quiet! Didn’t even tell your old man!” He laughed as he sat back down opposite me, but then I watched his forehead crease and the smile slip from his face. He tapped the letter again. “So, uh…you didn’t tell Lee. Or Noah either, I’m guessing?”
“No. Nobody knows about it. I didn’t want to get Noah’s hopes up, and I didn’t want Lee to think…I didn’t want to hurt him. Make him think I didn’t want to go to Berkeley.”
“Have you accepted your place there yet?”
I shook my head. I’d meant to. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Maybe part of why I hadn’t was because I’d held out some little,tinypiece of hope that I’d get off the wait-list at Harvard, but…
This was not supposed to happen.
One afternoon over the phone, Noah had mentioned, flippantly, that maybe I should apply—he’d said it’d be nice to have me around and to spend more time together and that he missed me so much. He hadn’t meant for me to take itseriously,and I knew that, but…
It stuck. And I honestly had wanted to see if I could do it.
Harvard. I got a place at Harvard. Me—Elle Evans!
My mouth was dry and my stomach had coiled itself into knots.
“Any idea what you’re going to do?”
I stared at the letter from the admissions office, thinking of the one in my drawer upstairs that said much the same thing but had a Berkeley letterhead instead.
Lee and I had had our hearts set on Berkeley since what felt like forever. It wasn’t out of state, and it was where our moms had met and become such good friends. It felt special.
And even if you took Noah and our relationship out of the equation…well, Harvard was Harvard. It was the kind of college you were supposed to dream about going to.
But, okay, the fact that Noah was there was a pretty strong pull, I had to admit.
I looked from the letter to my dad, who just looked so damn proud of me that he might burst.
“Please don’t tell everyone about this,” I said. “Especially not the Flynns. I need to…I need to think about this.”
