“What are you saying?”
Georgia bites her lip. “I can’t go to NYU.”
“We talked about the financial aid thing—”
“I’m going to Auburn.”
No.
The plan has always been Chloe and Georgia and NYU. There’s never been another plan. There’s certainly never been a plan that involves— “Auburn? As in forty-minutes-from-here Auburn?”
“The store’s not doing great, and college is expensive, even with financial aid,” Georgia explains. She looks away, glaring at a splotch of ink on the desk next to her. “My parents can’t afford to keep anyone on staff anymore, but they can’t do it by themselves. So I’m gonna stay home and help with the store and go to Auburn.”
“Since when?”
“I decided last month.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks! But every time I try to talk to you, you’re busy or distracted or hanging out with other people, and I’m—”
“Georgia, you cannot spend your life in False Beach.”
“God, you’re still not even listening to me! Has it ever occurred to you that I might not completely hate this place?”
“We literally shit on this place every single day of our lives.”
“No, you do,” Georgia says. “Yeah, there’s a lot about this place that sucks, but it’s where I’m from. And honestly, sometimes I’m sick of you acting like you’re so much better than it, like your family’s not from here too.”
“But you want to get out. You’ve spent the last four years telling me how much you want to get out.”
Georgia turns away, wringing her hands. “What I want is … I want to fall in love. I want to have a big, dramatic, ridiculous love story, like a period piece, and my love interest is played by Saoirse Ronan and I get to wear a fancy corset. I want to write books about the way that feels. And I don’t know if I’ll ever have any of that here, but I know what I’ll lose if I leave.”
“So you’re staying?”
Georgia nods, still not looking at her. “I can’t let Belltower close.”
“You really think you can be happy here? Do you want to ask my mom how that’s going for her?”
“I know, she left. A lot of people do. And that’s okay! I get it! Everybody has to do what they have to do. But if everyone like us leaves False Beach, it’s never gonna change. Someone has to stay.”
“But why does it have to be you?”
Georgia finally lifts her eyes. “Because I can take it.”
“That’s insane, Georgia,” Chloe says, throwing her hands up. “And what am I supposed to do? Go to New York by myself?”
“I don’t know, Chloe, you seem fine without me.”
I’m not, she wants to scream. I won’t be.
“Fine,” Chloe says instead. She breaks for the door, swiping at her eyes. “See you in French.”
* * *
She skips first and second hour, stumbles through third and fourth, and brings her half of the essay to French, where Georgia takes it wordlessly and passes it up to Madame Clark. They don’t talk for the rest of class, and when the bell rings for lunch, Georgia flounces out with Ash, and Chloe stomps off toward the gym.
Maybe she messed up, but it wasn’t completely her fault. If she tracks Shara down, she can prove it.
Up in Rory’s live oak tree, Jake and April are splitting a party-size cardboard tray of nachos, which is balanced so precariously on the bough between them that Chloe makes a point not to stand under it.
“Hey,” Chloe says, gripping the straps of her backpack.
“Hey,” Jake says through a mouthful. “You want a taco?”
“What?” Chloe says, but April has already reached into the plastic Taco Bell bag dangling from a branch and lobbed a soft taco at Chloe’s head. It smacks her gently in the cheek and falls into her hands. “Um. Thanks. Where’s Rory?”
Jake points with his vape pen—one branch up, on the other side of the tree, there’s Rory. And next to him, perched more gracefully than should be possible for someone his size, is Smith.
“Oh,” Chloe says.
She drops her backpack on the sprawling roots, shoves the taco into her oxford pocket, and starts climbing.
“Since when do you eat lunch here, Smith?” Chloe calls up to him. Across the courtyard, Mackenzie and Dixon and the others are still on their same bench.