And all I can think is that he was right.
Harvard made sense.
My father made sense.
The girls, the legacy, the expected path, the clean old East Coast story of it all?—
it all made sense.
None of it made me burn.
Stanford did.
I see sunlight on the runway.
Palm trees.
The ocean flashing blue in the distance from the freeway.
The gym humming with bodies in motion instead of echoing like a cathedral.
The team.
The warmth.
The possibility.
And then, because the universe apparently has no interest in subtlety, I see her again.
Stella.
Hair dark as wet ink under the lights.
Shoulders stronger.
Body honed into something sharper than memory.
That laugh.
My fists clench,
That laugh.
I scrub a hand over my face and let Leo’s voice cut back in one last time.
“This about a girl?”
That was when Jade sat up straighter under her blanket.
“It’s always a girl,” she said.
I rolled my eyes.
Leo just watched me.
Then, after a beat:
“What about freshman year at Royal Oaks?”
