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“And I didn’t think I’d need it!” I heard the frustration explode in my voice as this came out, louder than I’d expected it to. “I applied to a whole bunch of other places—schools that I actually wanted to go to. And I kind of wish I would have looked at Stanwich before all this—so I would at least know how I felt about it.”
“I get that.”
“And then…”
“Brisket,” Russell filled in, and I smiled.
“Brisket,” I agreed. “So when I only got into two schools—it felt like it wasn’t even really a choice. A free ride, or loans my whole life.” I turned to face him more fully. “Oh, sorry. Loans are what you take out to pay for school when your father isn’t a rock star.”
“Hey now.”
“And it just feels like I’m—trapped. But then, I feel so guilty, because I’m getting my college paid for, and who cares how it’s happening, you know? I should be grateful.”
“This is sounding familiar,” Russell said, giving me a smile—the kind that actually makes you look sadder—over Andy’s head.
“So tomorrow I start there. Just like she wanted. And me going there is like saying I forgive her, you know? That what she did is somehow okay. It’s like she’s bought me off, knowing I couldn’t turn it down, and I just…” I let out a long, shaky breath. This was the problem with the whole situation—nothing was going to change. I could feel whatever I felt, but the reality was, I was getting on a plane tomorrow and this was happening. “She even offered to pick me up from the airport. Like she can just snap her fingers and pretend she’s my mom.”
Back when I’d first told her I’d gotten in, Gillian had sent me a series of excited emails, asking me for my flight information, saying she would come and get me, help show me around campus. I hadn’t responded to any of them, and each subsequent email had fewer exclamation points, until they stopped coming altogether.
“That’s a lot,” Russell said quietly, echoing what I’d said to him.
“And the worst part is I’m dreading going to college. And that’s not how it should be. I should be excited! I should be thrilled to be off on this whole new adventure, and instead I just want to pretend it’s not happening and take a nap.” I could see, down the street ahead of us, Wylie Sanders’s gates. We’d almost made it back. “Like, I’m sure you would have gotten off the wait list even without your dad—”
“But I’ll never know for sure.”
“And I might have really liked Stanwich if I’d just come across it on my own. But now…”
“Yeah,” Russell agreed. “I know what you mean. It’s hard.”
“Yeah.”
We walked together, Wylie Sanders’s house getting ever closer, and I realized I felt a bit… lighter. Not that anything had changed—I had just, in fact, been made aware of how intractable the problem actually was. But it did feel better to have shared it. That there wasn’t some burden I was both hauling around with me and trying to keep hidden.
“Thanks for telling me,” Russell said as we approached Wylie’s gates.
I nodded. “And you too—for telling me, I mean.”
Russell waved up at a camera, and a second later, there was a whrrrr of a motor and the gates started to swing slowly inward. We began our trek up the driveway, and a moment later, I realized I’d been entrusted with something. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about Michigan. I mean—” I flashed to the bus conference room table, C.J. pushing the document over to me. “I did sign that NDA, so I legally can’t. But I wouldn’t anyway.”
“I never worried about that.”
Russell looked over at me and gave me a smile. I returned it, holding his eye for just a moment before I looked away, back toward the house. The balloon dog was there, resplendent on the lawn. I was surprised by how happy I was to see the house—how familiar it seemed in not much time at all.
The door was unlocked, and as we made our way past the Picasso and the desert space portrait and into the main room, I was expecting that it would be full—that everyone would be hanging out in different groupings, and when they saw we’d returned bearing the dog, a cheer would go up hailing the Andy-rescuers.
But Wylie and Chloe were the only ones there—Chloe on the sofa and Wylie sitting on the ottoman coffee table across from her.
“Hey,” Russell said as we stepped into the room. He held up Andy—who was wide-awake now and seemed desperate to get to Wylie, his tail wagging furiously. “Got him.”
Wylie’s face creased into a relieved smile, and Russell set the wriggling dog down. He crossed the room, running full-out, and leapt up onto the coffee table, climbing all over Wylie and trying to lick his face. “Okay, okay,” Wylie said, even as he was laughing as he scooped up the dog. Wylie was in his pajama pants, with his reading glasses hooked over the collar of his sweatshirt. This was no longer the larger-than-life celebrity, impossibly cool, remote and removed. Wylie looked… like a dad. Like Russell had told me he actually was. Like all the rock star had been washed away and this was what was underneath.
“Good work,” Chloe said, speaking quietly as she gave us a smile.
“I knew you’d be back,” Wylie said. He raised the dog up above his head and Andy panted happily at him. “Tomorrow, we get you a new trainer.”
“Where is everyone?” Russell asked, and I was glad, because it was exactly what I’d been wondering.
“They got rides back once we’d heard you’d got him, and then most everyone headed to bed.” Wylie yawned and covered his mouth—and I noticed that even all his rings were gone. He was just wearing a normal silver band on his ring finger, nothing that would have been out of place in a suburban cul-de-sac. “Which is where I’m heading too.”
