Gracie shrugs. “I’m not following. Why is that bad?”
“It’s not, although strange. But then, they aren’t just covering my tuition.” I snatch up my phone, unlock it, and scroll to the photos from last night. “My dorm, meals, supplies—everything is fully covered. They put me in the junior/senior dorm instead of the lowerclassmen building. And let me off for breaking that asshole’s knee with just community service, when it was very clear Mr. Kincaid wanted to press charges.”
Gracie’s eyes slide away at that as she rubs her arms nervously.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry. Had a chill.” She pauses and rubs her palms over her arms. “So, what do you think?”
I frown at her changing the topic but decide not to push it. I’m the last person to get on someone for keeping things to themselves.
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t add up, and whenever I ask the staff to give me details of thisscholarship, they get cagey or dismissive. So, I went to Alex.”
“Before or after youdidn’t really screwand he left that love bite,” she teases.
“It’s not a love bite. But after the not really screwing part.”
“But before he sucked your neck like a Popsicle.”
I huff. “Can I finish?”
She holds up her hands. “My bad.”
“I asked him to help me find out information. His father runs the school and if anyone could get access to stuff, I figured it would be him.”
I click on the picture of the cost summary and turn the phone for her to see.
“This is what we found. The chancellor signed my offer letter instead of the dean of admissions. And not only is there not a scholarship, someone paid over two hundred grand to make sure I got in.”
Gracie takes the phone and sits up straight, flipping through the images as if she’d be able to make sense of any of it.
“While I was looking for my file,” I say, my voice thinning, “I saw my mom’s.”
Gracie’s lips part and her shoulders go rigid.
“I think it has something to do with the fact that she was a student here, too,” I admit, the only thing that makes sense to me.
She shakes her head. “Wow. This is… a lot, Sam. How can you be sure?”
I inhale, my shoulders pinned by my ears. “I can’t. But somethingdeep down won’t let it rest. My mother was a student and, nineteen years later, some anonymous benefactor covers two and a half years of my education. What aren’t they telling me?”
I sigh.
“I thought getting my records would shed light on things, but it’s only left me with more questions.”
“Have you tried the library archives? They keep everything. Yearbooks, old club records, alumni information, school paper articles. If she was a student here, she’s in there somewhere.”
“You really think so?”
Gracie hops off the bed, the mattress shifting from the change in weight. “I think if my mom kept something this big from me, I’d want to find out why. Maybe finding stuff on her can help shed some light on all the other questions.”
She walks over to her closet and retrieves a pair of sneakers. Then she picks up mine from by the foot of my bed and holds them out to me.
“Come on. We’re not going to find the answers sitting here staring at papers.”
The library is nearly empty with the exception of a handful of students. The library assistant is restocking books as she listens to something through her headphones. Class finals aren’t close enough yet to bring in the caffeine-fueled panic, so we get a computer right away. Gracie pulls out the chair, the legs scraping over the carpet.
I take a seat and cue up the log-in screen. After typing in my student information, the desktop view loads. Gracie points to an icon—a stack of books. My chest pulses at the single word beneath it. Archives.
