“I won’t be home for dinner,” I say, grabbing a yogurt, shutting the door with my hip, and reaching for the drawer of silverware. “I’m going shopping for Halloween costumes with Gia and Josie.”
“It’s not even October.”
“It’s almost October,” I counter, snagging a spoon. “And we need multiple outfits apiece. There’s no such thing as too early.”
Truthfully, our shopping probably will stray from Halloween. There’s no reason to limit an outing to one occasion. But I know my parents are struggling with the idea I’m nearing adulthood. It’s in everyone’s interest that my parents picture me browsing for a cute costume, not at the new lingerie store that opened on Fifth Avenue. Gia met a freshman at Columbia last weekend, and she wants a new bra for their first hookup. And I can’t wear my favorite set without thinking about Sawyer Bennett, so I’ll probably pick out somethingnew too.
I’m halfway to the doorway when my mom speaks again.
“Did you finish the draft of your personal statement?”
I turn slowly, forcing my fist to relax around the spoon.Just stress, I tell myself. Everyone gets stressed about college. “Almost. I’ll get the rest completed this weekend.”
Mom sighs my name, followed by, “You need to take this seriously.”
“I am.”
I really am. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have written a statement to start with. But no amount of seriousness can disguise my lackluster interest in college. Four more years of classes and homework assignments and mandatory attendance, away from my favorite city and familiar people? No part of that appeals to me. It took me a while to distill my friend group down to those who possessed genuine loyalty—or to those I thought did—and starting from scratch with strangers sounds exhausting.
Whenever I’ve expressed uncertainty about college, my parents have responded with resounding variations of, “You’ll love it once you’re there!” or, “Nerves are normal,” or, “We’ll find the perfect school for you.”
Worse, they worry my hesitation stems from what happened sophomore year. But Third didn’t destroy my university fantasy. It never existed to begin with. And no one—not my parents or my sister or my friends—understands that. Gia already applied early action to Yale, and Josie is currently planning the color scheme for her dorm room at Stanford.
“Is everything okay, honey?”
I’m not much of a people pleaser. I’m too strong willed for capitulation to come easily. But there is a short list of people whose feelings and opinions I care about, and my parents are at the top of that list. I can’t tell my mom that my reservations about college are multiplying, thecloser application deadlines creep, rather than dissipating, like she and Dad said they would. At least not until I’ve come up with an alternate plan to pitch them.
“Everything’s great,” I reply. “Just tired from tennis practice.”
“Okay,” Mom responds, heading back toward the dining room. She likes to spread out her massive building plans on the big table in there. “I’ll probably meet your dad at the office, and we’ll go out for dinner, if you’re not going to be home.”
“Sounds good,” I say, strolling toward the stairs.
“Grab your mail,” Mom calls from the next room. “It’s sorted by the espresso machine.”
I sigh, shifting my yogurt into the same hand as my spoon as I walk over to the neat piles on the counter. “If this is Princeton again, they’re starting to give desperate.”
Especially since I’m not Ivy material. The only impressive grades I earn consistently are in art class. The rest of my report cards offer some variety—mostlyBs, but the occasionalChas snuck in. And yet a famously selective college will recruit and accept me simply because they’re correctly assuming—or they have carefully researched—that my last name is Kensington, as inthose Kensingtons, so my enrollment will coincide with an eight-figure check.
The preferential treatment annoyed Rory—because my sisterwasIvy material. She could have applied as Florence Garner—Mom’s maiden name—and had her pick of elite institutions, plus an academic scholarship. Rory wanted to earn her way into college on her own merit. Me? I don’t want it, no matter how it’s delivered.
There is a glossy college mailer—UPenn, not Princeton, as if I would move to Pennsylvania—and a white envelope that looks drab alongside the colorful paper. Until I flip it over to read the return address and mystomach somersaults.
He wrote back.
I hadn’t been sure he would.
Became certain he wouldn’t after one week and then two passed since I dropped the letter on Ms. Plemmons’s desk on my way to lunch the second day of senior year. I convinced myself I’d written the marina’s address wrong—Dalton has a strict no-tech policy during school hours, so I’d had to sneak an internet search in, then scribble it as quickly as possible—or that boating didn’t extend past Labor Day, and if the letter had arrived to the right place, it’d been tossed or lost.
Buthe wrote back.
Mom’s out of sight, focused on work in the dining room, and unable to question it, so I allow a wide smile to spread across my face as I practically skip toward the stairs.
Iquestion it though as I reach the landing and continue down the hallway toward my bedroom.
I’m more cynical than the average seventeen-year-old. Money can solve a lot of problems, but it also creates some. The more you have, the more obvious a target that wealth becomes. What happened with Third didn’t help, but I’d already leaned toward believing ill intentions in most people. To questioning friendliness and being suspicious of seeming sincerity.
So, I have no explanation for why holding a letter from a boy I barely know has a whole acrobatic routine happening in my chest. I can’t explain Sawyer. Not the enigma himself or the compelling interest that began before I knew him at all. That formed the second I saw him scowling, unimpressed by my boobs or my bravery. Well—I recall hisamazing titscomment—he was a little impressed, I guess. Just excellent at acting otherwise. With a letter, he didn’t even need to act. He couldhave just ignored it.
