I thank her again and leave, happier than I’ve been all week. I find a bench down the hall and text Jade immediately. She texts back within seconds.
AMAZING JOB BB!!! I KNEW YOU’D GET IT.
I’m radiating, little rays of sunshine bursting through my skin. I haven’t had enough caffeine for this the jittery, wide-awake feeling to be anything but pure, undistilled joy.
A little breathless, I call my mom.
“Hey, chicken, how are ya?” She sounds tired, but I know she’ll want to hear this.
“Mom, I won the scholarship.” My cheeks actually hurt from smiling.
“Which scholarship?” I hear the water running in the background and dishes clanging. There’s a TV on somewhere. I know she isn’t trying to minimize this moment, but I’m ready to scream from the rooftops and buy a cake and tell everyone I see that I won this scholarship, and her lack of enthusiasm is bringing me down.
“It’s the Walden Senior Scholarship. It covers everything my partial won’t cover next year. I’m going to finish college, Mom. I’m going to grad school, and I’m going to—” I choke, my throat thick with emotion.
I’m going to do it. I’m going to make my dreams real.
“Jessie, that is amazing.” I know she’s mustering as much excitement as she can, and maybe another day she would have been jumping up and down with joy, but not today. At four o’clock on a Monday she’s finished one work shift and will be getting ready for her next any minute.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll let you go. Tell Daddy I said hi.”
She promises she will and we hang up. Pinches of disappointment snip away at my excitement, but I’m not going to let it ruin this moment.
For once I bask in my win with no shoulds, no guilt, no list of things I could have done better. I’m still so jazzed up, and I want to tell people. I want to celebrate.
I compose a text to Mac but stop myself before I can hit send. My eyes heat with the threat of tears as I remember we’re not talking right now. My chest aches, the longing to text him nearly overwhelming. He would celebrate with me. He’d make me feel like a million dollars even though he didn’t get it.
Oh my god.It dawns on me—if I won, it means Mac didn’t win. I deflate, shrinking about two inches.
He deserved it just as much as I did. A flash of his brothers’ faces enters my head, his dad’s angry voice at Thanksgiving.Is he okay?
I hover my finger over his number, chewing on the inside of my lip. Maybe I should just check in and see how he’s doing, how it went with his dad.
But our fight comes back to me. The guilt on his face, his admission, the feeling when I realized I’d been played.
I click my phone off. I will not be calling Mac.
My stomach grumbles. It’s early, but I didn’t have a big lunch, so I text Jade and ask if she’s free to meet for dinner. When I look up, one of my psych professors is passing by.
“Hi, Professor Harris.” I give him a polite smile and look back down at my phone, but he stops.
“Jessie! I just wanted to say that I heard about the Walden Senior Scholarship.”
I smile, waiting for the inevitable praise.
“A second place for that scholarship is really quite an accomplishment.”
Second place?
I cock my head to the side, brow furrowed. He doesn’t pick up on my body language and plows ahead.
“You and Mackenzie have always been neck and neck for these things. I hope you aren’t too disappointed he won it. You are both such deserving students.”
But Mac didn’t win.
He opens his mouth to say more, but I interrupt.
“Sorry, Professor, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think there’s been some mistake. Professor Gold just told me I won the scholarship…”
