“So you don’t care I’m currently in spot twenty,” he says, “while you’re ranked twenty-one?”
I walked right into that.
It was the Segner common room that brought Sumner and me together during our very first semester at Ivernia. He’d seen a quiz in my hand and asked me what I got. At least, that’s what I’d thought I heard. Turns out, he’d asked me my name, to which I’d replied with my grade. Ninety-one.
He went overtime with that unfortunate bit, calling me “Ninety-one” for three months before transitioning to Carmichael, which was almost worse because—for a fleeting few weeks—I’d developed a minor crush on him. He had a Peter Parker type of nerdiness about him, a quick-witted sense of humor, and an endearing softness behind his eyes. But all the guys called one another by their last name, except for Jared, who was Drexton—some gamer thing—so I assumed that’s how he saw me: as one of the guys. Not exactly what I was hoping for.
My crush evaporated as his desperation to be a high-key know-it-all grew. I avoided him at all costs, but he didn’t avoid me. It was as if I were a challenge, except I didn’t know the rules of the game. He went out of his way to talk to me in geometry, boasting aboutquiz scores and informing me I hadthe worsttaste in mechanical pencil brands, as if that were something anyone on this slow-spinning Earth had a strong opinion on. He delighted in getting under my skin. Like a tick. Or a bacterial infection.
He grins. “You’re staring.”
I am, it’s true, but instead I say, “You’re delusional.”
It’s that look, the one I’d grown accustomed to over the past few months, that elicits an unnerving jolt of adrenaline. The same one he’d broadcast when he’d slip into the living room after everyone else turned in, leaning in the doorway to ask what makeup assignment held my attention. And when I’d show him, he’d join me on the floor, crossing his arms over the coffee table and resting his chin on top of them as he watched me work through calculus equations, as if this were an interesting sports game and I was on the winning team.
I don’t know why my brain decided to store these trivial things away, or why it spontaneously raised my dopamine levels every time he pulled up next to me. At first, I thought it was an intimidation tactic—or a way to tout his mathematical strengths. But whenever I was stuck, he’d offer guidance—Go back to line four of that solve—then I’d find my own error. I never asked why he helped, and he never offered a reason.
“Your name is Delaney,” he’d say, spelling out my name in scratchy capital print. “Those letters exist as a finite sequence, always in that exact order. You can’t rearrange them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be you.”
And then I knew. Like the Earth’s rotation, my crush had returned. I wondered how he felt but never gathered enough nerve to ask.
Over time, we made a habit of sitting on the back patio late at night after everyone else had gone to bed. We’d read in separate corners of the living room until one of us caught the other’s eye, a silent signal to move toward the door. There, back in my quiet suburban neighborhood, we’d talk for hours, arguing over meaningless things and volleying one-liners like a game of Ping-Pong. Family seemed to be a sore spot for him—he never brought it up, so I didn’t either. But he listened with dedicated rapture when something jogged a memory of my dad.
This is the longest conversation we’ve shared since August. His gaze falters. I wonder if he realizes this too. And for a moment I’m back in Pennsylvania, the earthy-sweet balm of the night breeze singing through my lungs as the gentle pressure of my lips finds his. Clipped memories of his hands sweeping down my shoulder blades and mine in his hair, softer than I’d imagined, his glasses skewed across his forehead. The fluttering in my chest as he deepened the kiss and the hollow expanse when he pulled away.
I consider bringing it all up. Everything we should have talked about before he left. But then I remember the soft rasp of his words after:We shouldn’t.It’s not a good idea. A hot flame of embarrassment reignites inside my chest. He let me down gently, and it stung worse than I expected. He may as well have saidI don’t want you. How could you think that?
And how could I? Our relationship was built on harmless trolling and competition, nothing more.
The next morning, he acted like it never happened. He sat next to me at breakfast and rode in the car as my brother dropped me off at work, like it was so easy to reset. And two days later, after a brief goodbye, he left for New York with Jared.
I thought about texting him but didn’t.
I wondered if he thought about texting me but didn’t.
God, I wish he hadn’t stayed with us. Even though I’d made the first move, he’d managed to make the shittiest summer of my life even worse.
Forget it, a small voice tells me, so I move past him and head toward the open coolers away from packs of students. Sumner doesn’t follow. Instead, he tosses his empty can in the nearby garbage.
As I’m reaching for a soda, I notice Ellerby deep in conversation with Mrs.Faustino. They’ve distanced themselves from the clusters of students with their backs to the commotion. I’m about to walk over and say hi, maybe save face by reminding her I’m still in the pool of star students, when I catch something I’m positive I shouldn’t overhear.
“Surely something can be done?” Mrs.Faustino is saying. “The school year’s just started.”
“The board has struggled to find alternatives to prevent this from happening. I’m afraid there’s no way around it,” Ellerby says, her voice low. “Ivernia could close as soon as December.”
6
Cold dread snakes like liquidnitrogen through my veins. I spin in the opposite direction and allow my brain to autopilot me away from a conversation that’s clearly none of my business. Except it is. My attempt to process stalls at those three devastating words:Ivernia could close.
Sumner stands a few feet away, his lips slightly parted. He looks physically pained, which is how I know with sudden certainty I’m not the only one who overheard.
They’re going to close the school?
It feels impossible, like trying to eliminate gravity. Ivernia is one of the oldest coed boarding schools on the East Coast. It’s existed for well over a century. Longer, even. They can’t get rid of it…can they?
I’d always held on to the guarantee you could return to a geographical place. That it can exist long after you’re gone, adapting and growing in its own way while remaining on the same foundation it was built upon. A place is a constant that can’t be taken away from you, which is why this revelation hurts. Ivernia was my dad’s favorite place in the world. It was supposed to exist even after he didn’t. This was where he broadened his knowledge, where students learned from him and he learned from them.
Even though I’d go on to graduate and attend college, I knew I could always return. Now, I realize, that won’t necessarily be true.
