I really want Danielle to stay. As a family member, not my coach, but I know that’s not going to happen. I’m in deep shit with her, too, and when she doesn’t protest, Iknow it’s more than her being a good employee to the man who runs the school where she’s not just a coach but also an English teacher—she knows her presence will soften whatever is coming next. And if anyone subscribes to the tough-love approach, it’s my older sister. Which, ironically, is why I love her so much.
“I’ll be right outside,” Danielle says as she steps out of the room, leaving the door ajar. I’m left alone under the sodium lights with the head of our school.
I’ve seen this movie before. I know what he’s going to say. I know it, but I still don’t believe it.
I’m the best in my grade.
I’m the star athlete.
I’m the anointed queen of next year’s junior class.
But none of that matters right now.
All that matters is that I go to a private school, broke its private rules, and now I’m about to be privately kicked out on my ass.
“Miss Rodinsky, though I do believe what happened tonight to be out of line with the exemplary character you’ve demonstrated over the past two years at Windsor Prep,” he says, pausing, and my heart drops fifty feet before he begins speaking again, “that does not change the zero tolerance policy for violence to which we adhere.”
Zero tolerance.Words I haven’t had directed toward me in my entire rule-abiding life.
Principal Meyer pauses again, and his weary eyes areon my face, willing me to return in kind. He’s not going to move on with my fate without looking me in the eye. I wish I were cowardly enough to look down forever so it won’t happen, but instead, my eyes flash up to meet his.
“In accordance with our policy, I’m sorry to say that you are suspended for the rest of the school year.”
I blink at him.
Suspended. Not expelled. Just out. For the rest of the school year—only three days, for the remainder of finals.
I’m not sure if that suspension will keep me from the state championship tomorrow night, but still, my hopeful heart rises back up to its rightful place and my gut reaction is to smile in relief. But he draws in a deep breath and I realize he’s not done. I wait for it, nails digging hard into my clenched palms, even though I have no idea what else there could be to say. He’s already said the worst thing.
Or so I think.
“Suspension aside, there is also the matter of your scholarship—”
My heart drops all the way through the bathroom tile to freaking China. I think I’m literally shriveling up to die as my mind races through what this means.
I am at Windsor Prep on scholarship—one deemed “academic,” buteveryoneknows it should be described as “athletic,” if only that weren’t technically illegal.
There’s no way in hell my parents could afford the $15,000 yearly tuition without it. My dad’s a detective andmy mom had to quit her job last year when her cancer came back. We even put our house on the market with plans to move in with Danielle and Heather because we can’t pay for both our mortgage and Mom’s mastectomy that’s happening next week to save her from her own boobs, even with insurance.
I swallow.
I haven’t so much as blinked at my scholarship documents since I signed them in eighth grade, continuing the very short tradition Danielle started of Rodinsky women leaving public school behind for Windsor Prep.
I have no idea what it says other than that my parents don’t have to pay a dime for me to walk the expensively adorned halls I all but own.
“Under the terms of your scholarship, suspension voids the contract.”
Stars float in front of my eyes. Principal Meyer’s pruney face hovers, framed by their light, floating in the abyss. My educational abyss, apparently.
Owned. The halls I all but owned.
“This means if you would like to return to Windsor Prep next year, you will have to do so as a nonscholarship student.”
3
SOMEHOW I FIGURED THAT IF I WERE TO HIT THE BOTTOMof my own personal barrel at sixteen, it would’ve been in the dead of a Kansas winter. Snow blowing, skies as gray as my mood, maybe a patch of black ice at the ready to land me on my ass physically as well as metaphorically.
Instead, it’s 98 degrees outside in August and approximately 410 degrees in my stomach as it stutters and flips under the withering stare of Coach Kitt.
