A light went on inside him. He looked at me—really looked—and asked what my grades were, my SAT scores, my extracurriculars. He started talking feverishly, tapping his leg against the chair. I brought him the application and he pored over it. Getting into the best school in the world was imperative, he said. It would mean I was the best, the cream of the crop. When he got into Harvard, his parents told him it was the proudest moment of their lives. I knew he was telling the truth, because my grandparents brought up Harvard at every holiday. In their eyes my father was perfect. Smart, flawless, always one step away from getting his life back on track and becoming something big.
They didn’t know about the pills.
My dad became obsessed with college applications. The moment I got home from school each day, I rushed to get them, fourteen in all, safeties and reaches, and we spread them over the kitchen table. Talked about answers to questions, reworked essays. We revised the Harvard application seven times until it was perfect, and then he took off a day from work so we could mail it together, ceremoniously. He kissed the stamp and closed the mailbox and I felt, with every fiber of my being, that my father loved me.
For months we waited, speculating about which dorm I’d get assigned to, where my classes would be. He was so normal, a version of himself I barely remembered but was thrilled to have back. Even my mother couldn’t complain. When she wasn’t in the room, he talked in a low voice about moving with me to Cambridge. Four whole years of father-daughter time.
Then the letter came in a thin envelope. We regret to inform you, it said, and the thing I wanted was gone, closed, ripped away. I wasn’t good enough.
I waited for my father to say something—anything—but he locked himself in his bedroom and didn’t come out for two days. When he did, he wouldn’t look at me.
Two weeks later, the envelope came from Duquette. Not Harvard, but the next-best school on my list, number sixteen in the country. When I showed it to him, the light came back, and he broke his silence.
Good job, Jessica.
After that, it didn’t matter that I didn’t win a scholarship, that Duquette offered me no financial aid. There wasn’t a universe in which I would have made a different choice.
I couldn’t find the words to describe this to Coop, even if I wanted to. So instead I said, “You wouldn’t understand.”
He was quiet for a beat, then repeated in a low voice, “I wouldn’t understand…”
I looked out the window. Below us was the central thoroughfare, a promenade that ran the entire length of campus—Frankie liked to run it every morning before football practice. Beyond that, a rolling expanse of treetops, broken by the elegant spires of teaching halls and dormitories.
“Jess.”
When I turned, I found Coop leaning so close our knees almost touched. I inched back. My heartbeat notched higher. And I realized: It was just the two of us. In a private room.
“I understand everything about you. I know you’re obsessed with making Kappa the top sorority because the Chi Os rejected you. I know you’re obsessed with Mint and the Phi Delts because everyone else is, and it’s a status symbol. I know you sneak Adderall to study all night even though econ makes you want to kill yourself. And now I know you charge thousands of dollars to a credit card you can’t afford just to fit in.”
I jumped to my feet. “Stop it, Coop. Shut up.”
He got to his feet, too, taking a step toward me. When I pulled back, he grinned, a glint in his eyes.
“I understand,” he said slowly, drawing the words out, “that you’d do anything to win. You’re kind of a sociopath.”
I froze. “That is the single worst thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Slowly, his grin faded. But his eyes held mine, waiting.
What was happening to me? Where was the outpouring of anger, the indignation? Why did I feel not a blaze of rage but a sparking warmth, blooming somewhere deep, somewhere intimate and dangerous?
“I don’t understand”—my voice was rising, almost yelling—“why I’m not furious right now. Why don’t I want to hit you?”
“Because,” Coop said, “you know I’m right. And you know it means I see you.”
As soon as he said it, I knew it was true—not the sociopath part, but him seeing me. He always had. Ever since the first day.
Something wild unleashed inside me. Without pausing to think, I closed the distance between us and dragged Coop’s mouth to mine. I kissed him hard, desperate to pull him under with me, wherever I was going. His full lips parted instantly, his fingers pushing through my hair, gripping me tighter. I kissed him hungrily, and he kissed back like a starved man, fisting his hands in my shirt, lifting the hem to press his palms against my stomach, running them over my ribs, his touch rough, as if desperate for each next square inch.