I wasn’t touching that right now. I stayed focused and refused to get distracted. Another trick taught to me by the man in front of me.
“Do you care what happens to them when you cover things up? When you put a donor check above a human being?” I asked softly. “You always tell me that college prepares you for the real world. How are you preparing the ones you help? How are you, Dean Cole, serving your students best by lying for them?”
For the first time, he faltered. Just slightly. Then he straightened. “This is about the quarterback, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Dante Spence knows the stakes. They all do. No one is forcing them into this.”
I shook my head, heat rushing into my face. “No one is forcing them? Dad, you’ve built a machine so big it chews them up, and you’re pretending they volunteered for it.”
His hand slammed against the desk. “Enough. You don’t understand the responsibility I carry.”
“No,” I snapped back, startling even myself. “I understand perfectly. You’ve chosen the program over the truth, overintegrity. And you’re asking me to lie by pretending I don’t see it.” I thought back to the girl David was tutoring earlier, about his remarks regarding her, and the frustration I felt was no longer able to be contained. “How many times have you told me the real world isn’t easy? Yet here you are, setting up every single one of those athletes to fail. Becauseyoumade iteasy. You didn’t teach them that they need toworkto survive.”
His jaw locked, his silence screaming louder than words.
I took a shaky step back. “You’ve always told me rules mattered. That fairness mattered. Was that all just forme? Something to keep your daughter in line while you looked the other way for everyone else?”
“Savannah—”
“No.” My voice broke, but I held my ground. “I don’t even know who you are right now.”
The air between us turned brittle, sharp as glass.
“You knew this was happening, you allowed it,” I spoke softly, my mind racing. “Why did you make mestayon as his tutor if you knew it would never matter? You’re so desperate to make derogatory remarks aboutthe quarterbackbut if you knew he was never in danger of failing, why make me give upmytime? I give you everything, Dad. I go to the lunches, the dinners—”
“Savannah—”
“—the banquets, the insufferableintimatedinner parties with buffoons like Chuck — I do it all. And it’s not enough.” I wiped away a tear. I refused to let emotion take over. “I don’t goto college parties, I don’t hang out with friends. You know why? Because I have no friends. I have tutoring andyouragenda. Your timetable. Was the fact that I had two free nights of my own time so abhorrent to you?”
He sighed. “Savannah...” He almost looked apologetic. “You know why I asked you to tutor him.”
I nodded. “To spy. Right. To report to you, not if he was going to struggle to pass, but to report to you on anything else he might do? Right?” I needed to leave. “I don’t have anything else to say to you right now, Dean Cole. Please don’t call me for a few days. The other engagements we have, I’m giving you advance notice, I’m sick. Sick of this shit.”
He didn’t answer, didn’t move to stop me when I turned for the door.
But his final words followed me out, cold and deliberate. “Keep this to yourself, Savannah. For your own good.”
I didn’t trust myself to answer. If I opened my mouth again, I’d either scream or break.
So I walked. Fast. The heels of my boots struck the polished floor like thunder, each step ricocheting down the hall. I didn’t look back. I very much doubted my father would follow me out.
I couldn’t shake the look that I saw on his face — stern, unyielding, convinced of his righteousness — he truly believed this was right.
The cold air outside hit me like a slap. I gulped it down, hard and desperate, until the burn in my lungs was sharper than the one in my chest.
Keep this to yourself.Who in the hell was I going to tell? I didn’t even know where to start. How did you unpackthis?
My hands shook as I shoved them into my coat pockets. Anger, disbelief, betrayal — they tangled into a knot I couldn’t loosen. We had our differences, I knew that, and he made choices for me that I wish he hadn’t, but still... My dad wassupposed to be the one person I could trust. The one who taught me right from wrong.
And now... Now he’d shown me it was all negotiable. For others. A hysterical bubble of laughter escaped me. Maybe even me — was my straight-A student status really earned?
The world feltoff, and my legs felt unsteady as I marched. My mind was blown, and I really hated that the only face I wanted to see, the only voice I wanted to hear, belonged to Dante Spence.
Which terrified me more than anything.
Because if Dante knew, if he was complicit... I wasn’t going to be able to handle it. It was stupid, I knew that. I’d only known him for a few weeks, but I felt like Iknewhim. If... I shook my head. This was way too much.
“Ugh, I’m going to cry in public like a girl,” I muttered.
“Last time I looked, you were a girl.”
