Graham the Un-Favorite
P.S. Sorry I couldn’t get you back into Yale. I tried. The Remington name doesn’t mean much these days.
His phone number is printed painstakingly underneath his name. And then I see the second piece of paper.
“Oh. Holy shit,” Toni whispers. “Adina, that’s… that’s six zeroes after the one, isn’t it? That’s a million dollars.”
“What?” Mom asks, abandoning the groceries to my father. She stalks over. “A million what?”
“Yes. It is,” I whisper. “He gave me a million dollars.”
“Oh my God,” Mom whispers.
“What are you gonna do with it? That’s so much. You can go anywhere. Be anything,” Toni breathes, trembling with her excitement. It’s more than enough to do that. Toni grabs my hand, squeezing hard, looking at me with bright hope in her eyes.
I could probably buy my way back into Yale myself.
But I realize, then, for the first time… I don’t want Yale. Not anymore. Not ever. Because it will come with conditions and expectations. Another world I would always be fighting to be accepted in, that would never really be mine.
I don’t know what I do want, but it’s not the rose-colored world of upper-class New England, and it’s not Suburbia, either. I missed it, Suburbia. I missed my home and how simple and mine it all was. I had dismissed these houses that all looked the same, that felt small, but now I realized that each had an inside, unknown and glorious, a tiny kingdom. But it is not my kingdom anymore, and neither is the Remington Estate. All of it fits rough, if it ever fit at all.
All of it belongs to someone else. Other people’s values and other people’s dreams that have been pasted to me. I need to find my own. I just wish I hadn’t had to learn it this way.
“You can’t keep it,” Dad says. “Can you?”
“I earned this money,” I say quietly. I stop, trying to find the words. My parents are still, but Toni nods, encouraging, waiting for me to finish. “The things I had to do. What I saw. I earned this. Actually, I earned more, but I’ll take this.”
I sit back in my chair, closing my eyes.
I don’t know if I’ll ever call Graham. Even to thank him. I still think of the way I escaped and how when I looked at him, I saw his last name first, even with how much he helped me. Maybe even cared about me. I’m not sure if I want to know if I could care about him out here.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. Maybe I’ll always have nightmares, thinking back to that house, to that maze, to the stables, to everything.
I played a game, a bloody one, and I was made into someone new. But I was not finished. If I was made once, I can be remade. There will always be someone new to become, with each turn of a day, of a life. There’s still more to see. Still more to be and grow. Still more to do. Maybe in New York. Maybe in California. Maybe I’ll go to Lagos. Definitely Paris—Saint will be my first stop. So I’ll take the money, and I’ll go. Even with the terror that has made a home in my body, I’ll go and be.
I’ll live my life.
Because I’m not finished with it yet.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WRITING IS SOLITARY. PUTTING TOGETHER a book is not. This is a group project. I want to thank my agent, Quressa Robinson, for advocating for me and being my number one cheerleader here. You have always been so encouraging and have pushed me and my work in ways that I couldn’t imagine. Thank you, Jenny Meyer, for advocating for my book abroad.
Thank you to my amazing editor, Alexa Pastor, at Simon and Schuster Children’s. I can’t imagine this journey with anyone else. I can’t imagine working on this book with anyone else. It would not have been the book I wanted it to be with anyone else. You get it and you get me. Thank you so much! I want to thank all my friends at S&S, and I want to be clear that there are more names than I can even count because everyone has been going so hard for me and this book. But I would be remiss in not listing a few names: Alma Gomez Martinez, Dorothy Gribbin, Sara Berko, Laura Eckes, Justin Chanda, Kendra Levin, Lynn Kavanaugh, Karen Sherman, and Cienna Smith. Thank you.
Thank you to my team in the UK! You have been absolutely fabulous to me. Thank you, Tom Rawlinson, my amazing editor and advocate over there. Thank you to Harriet Venn and Michael Bedo.
To my high school English teachers, Mr. Weisberg and especially Ms. Tramontin, thank you for showing me the power of the written word. I have never forgotten the words that you both told me over and over again during my four years—don’t stop writing. I hold them dear.
To both loving sets of grandparents （and by extension my family）， thank you for supporting me!
I want to thank specifically my aunt Daniella for always believing in me, promising to read all my work, and actually doing so when audio editions are available.
I want to thank some of my friends—Camryn Garrett, Shelly Romero, Molly X Chang, Racquel Marie, Jake Maia Arlow, and Christina Li. Thank you for being so supportive and always having my back. I love y’all so much!
To the Clown Clan （and all other variations of who we are）—Circe Moskowitz, Ashia Monet, and Joel Rochester—I love you. Thank you for not letting me minimize my success or talent. Thank you for reminding me that this wasn’t just luck, I earned this.
To Selina Mao, you are the best writer I have ever met. Every day, I am thankful that we had our first poetry class together. The most humbling experience to meet someone so much better than me. The most amazing experience to meet someone who also was unabashedly into the same things as me. Thank you for pushing me and my craft.
To Alexandra Young, you are my person. I really do feel like that’s all there is to say.
To Sarah DeSouza. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, whom I love so so deeply and dearly. You are my very best friend. Thank you for reading every draft. Thank you for hearing every doubt and every anxiety. Thank you for refusing to let me pretend that this isn’t a big deal, because this is a big deal. Thank you for being.
I want to thank my parents for reading me three books every single night from the time I was a newborn until I’d decided I could read myself to sleep. Mommy, I’m sorry I’m a little creep who likes writing about creepy little things, but you shouldn’t have let me pick all my own books when I was seven. Dad, thanks for being a nerd and raising me to be a little nerd. I wish you were into zombies—this book has nothing to do with zombies, but I still wish you were into them.
Finally, I thank my sister, Alyssa. I still remember every shadow puppet show.