I nod. “Sadly.”
Karla’s been in town for a little over a week. After finishing graduate school, she’s taking a short break before starting at Gray Construction as an architect. Which means she’s running amok in my life, asking questions that are none of her business and begging to see Mallory again. She swears they would be the best of friends, which I can see being a real possibility.
Mallory wrings her hands, and her tiny smile makes me unreasonably excited.
“Fine, as long as I can get some caffeine to help me get through outlining my personal statement.”
“You don’t drink caffeine, Eddie. It gives you headaches and makes you jittery. I haven’t forgotten what happened during finals sophomore year. You knocked over all those plates at Sunshine Junction.”
“I was caffeinated and exhausted.” She bumps my shoulder as we descend the stairs. “That wasn’t one of my finest moments.”
I chuckle. “And did you say outlining?”
“Gray. Please don’t tell me you’re one of those people who can raw dog essays and somehow make them perfect.”
I scrunch up my face to hide the smile that peeks out. “Could you be more vulgar?”
“I absolutely fucking can,” she sings.
Settled in our booth at Claude’s Cafe, I pull up the email from Mallory. In less than twenty minutes, she created an outline that hits every target and mandatory criteria that Dr. Martin laid out for us.
I do, as Mallory so beautifully calls it, raw dog essays. I start typing and hope I find my footing along the way.
Out of two hundred people, I made it through to the next round. Having this tiny bit of hope feels both powerful and stupid. For the first time, I question if my dream doesn’t have to be over.
I’ll still have Nan, and I’m sure Karla won’t care if I go against Dad. She might have been excited to join the family business, but I doubt she’ll mind that I’m not.
My decision won’t matter to Keaton, my older brother, considering we’ve never been close. We haven’t spoken in years. Not since I told him I changed my major.
And my mother will do exactly what Dad says, cutting me off.
Life without my parents won’t be any different than it is now. We already don’t talk. The only thing that will change is my layer of security. Regardless, they’re still my parents, and part of me still wants to make them proud.
I look over the table at Mallory, who’s rummaging through her backpack. If she knew about my mental turmoil, she’d tell me this should be an easy decision. That no amount of security or family pressure should matter more than my dream. I’m sure she’d believe that giving it all up because of my father’s threats is cowardly.
Every time he feels me slipping away, he tightens the reins and pulls me back in. I hate people like him. People that need to control everything in their lives and the lives of others.
All the courage I scrounged up on the walk to Claude’s vanishes into thin air, my fingers freezing halfway through the message telling him I won’t be completing my summer internship with Gray Construction. I shove my phone into my pocket as shame weasels its way through the pride, shattering my good mood into a million pieces on the table.
My fingers slam against the keyboard to distract myself with the outline. Each letter clashes harshly as I channel all my frustration into the wobbly keys, pushing me deeper into the depths of my own head until it’s all I can hear.Click, click, click.
The only thing that manages to partially pull me out is a jar of peanut butter that knocks over my tea, sending a flood of brown across the table.
“Are you okay?” I ask, lifting my computer into the air.
Mallory hasn’t a clue what happened, still pulling things out of her backpack.
“Eddie. What’s going on?”
“My pen. I need to go home. Can you take me?”
Even though I only heard bits and pieces of what she said, I definitely heard the word pen. I reach into my backpack and place a black pen in front of her before looking at my computer. “Easy fix.”
“What the hell?” Her knees knock against the table as she bolts up, stuffing everything back into her backpack. “I need to get home, Gray. I said I don’t have my insulin—”
I sigh into the screen and cut her off. If I can get through this outline, I might be able to convince myself that it’s a good idea to tell my father to shove his controlling and manipulative plans where the sun doesn’t shine.
It’s at this very moment I realize they’re similar in this way, my father and Mallory.
