***
“Man, you sure study a lot,” Alec said, eyeing my flash cards with disdain. They’d come with my ACT prep book, a pack for each section of the test, and I was currently reviewing the science ones since it had always been my worst subject in school.
An electromagnetic wave with a wavelength longer than that of X-rays, but shorter than that of visible light is in the ______ part of the spectrum.
“I have to,” I told him. “Stanford has one of the lowest acceptance rates in the country.”
My feet were propped up on the dash, and the sunlight streaming in through the windshield felt like an electric blanket against my skin. I wondered how long it would take before my legs started to burn. My shoulders were tender from yesterday, and even the slightest movement turned the straps of my dress into stinging razor blades.
“So how come you want to go there?”
“It’s where my dad went,” I said, turning the card over.
The correct answer is:
Ultraviolet
Alec tilted his head to the side, like he was trying to make sense of this. “Just to be clear…we’re talking about the dad you don’t remember because he ran away to Europe, right?”
“Yup.” I flipped to the next flash card.
“Okay, explain.”
“Well, when my parents first met, my dad was this hotshot lawyer who saved my mom from a lifetime of waitressing. Took her from a one-room apartment in a bad part of town to a nice house in Orange County, where she learned to depend on him. So when he left, he left her worse off than before. Suddenly she had no means of support and two kids to raise,” I said. “She has an okay job now, but I remember a time when my mom worked eighty-hour weeks to keep the lights on and put food in the fridge.”
“I’m sorry, but…I still don’t understand.”
“All my mom wants is for me and Rose to have a better life thanshe did, but my sister was too busy partying to get passing grades. It killed my mom to see her waste her potential, and I won’t make that mistake. After everything Mom has done to provide for us, I owe it to her. And the only way I know how to do that is to become a successful lawyer like my dad. I have to follow in his footsteps: go to the same school, intern at the same firm. That sort of thing. I know it sounds irrational, but it’s been my plan ever since Rose left.”
The car was quiet except for a the crooning of a country singer and Boomer’s monstrous snoring. Alec cast a skeptical look in my direction, as if he thought I was joking. He opened his mouth, and then closed it.
“That’s crazy,” he said after some time.
I stared out the windshield. “Maybe, but doing this will make my mom happy, and she hasn’t had a lot of that in her life.”
In the distance, I spotted the red-and-blue flash of police lights. There must have been an accident ahead of us, because traffic was starting to stack up.
“But what about you? Will that makeyouhappy?” Alec asked as a black sedan cut in front of us, squeezing its way into the faster-moving lane.
“I won’t mind becoming a lawyer, if that’s what you mean.”
Alec frowned. Whether it was due to our conversation or the current traffic, I couldn’t tell. “I don’t see it.”
“Why?” I teased. “Don’t think I could rock a pantsuit?”
“Because you shouldn’t make a decision that will affect the rest of your life based on someone else,” he said. “You should do your own thing.”
“But it is my own thing,” I told him. “This is going to sound silly, but I’ve dreamed of becoming a lawyer ever since I was a little kid and sawLegally Blonde.”
“You also wanted to be a spy,” he pointed out. “Dreams change.”
“Not all dreams.”
He glanced at me, his gaze sharp and knowing. “Then why don’t I believe you?”
I looked at the flash card I was clutching, trying to come up with a way to explain myself.
The energy an object has when it is stationary is known as its ______.
