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Hannah shifts her weight and crosses her arms over her chest. “Did you hack into UCLA and do something that made the admissions office think Maddy had been admitted?”
Oooooooh, shit. I stare at Hannah, my lips pressed together, weighing my options. The ground suddenly feels like it’s shifting beneath my dress shoes. How the fuck did Hannah even think to ask me that question? And why now, of all times, mere seconds before I was going to pull her outside and make her my fiancée?
In the face of my silence, Hannah clenches her jaw. “It’s a simple yes or no question.”
Welp.
Here we go.
I guess I’ve always known, deep down, this day would come. I just thought I’d be the one controlling its timing. I thought I’d be able to sit Hannah down one day, when I felt good and ready, and tell her all my secrets. All the things I do and why. And she’d hug me and thank me for my honesty. And off we’d go into the sunset together without missing a beat. But it’s now abundantly clear I’ve waited too long and missed my chance to lead the charge.
“It’s actually a yes and no question,” I say. “Yes, I hacked into UCLA. No, I didn’t do anything on Maddy’s behalf once I got there. Once I pulled up the admissions data, she’d already gotten in on her own.” Hannah looks deeply skeptical, so I add, “I swear to Steve Jobs, I didn’t do anything to get her in.” At any other time, that bit about Steve Jobs would amuse Hannah. Make her smile, at least, if not chuckle. But not this time. Which means this moment—this conversation—is probably about a whole lot more than my hack into UCLA. It’s the conversation I’ve been dreading. The one I’m now realizing, indubitably, I should have been the one to instigate. “I swear she got in on her own,” I sputter. “I swear on my mother. On my father, too.”
“How do you expect me to believe a word you say?” Hannah says. “You knew how I felt. I told you, explicitly, I didn’t want you to do anything. But you did it, anyway. Because no matter what, you wanted me to move to LA.”
“I know it looks bad for me, but if I’d changed her status from rejected to admitted, do you think I’d have admitted her for spring quarter? Hell no! I would have given her exactly what she wanted: admittance for the fall. Nobody wants spring quarter. That sucks ass. It’s a consolation prize.”
Hannah folds her arms over her chest. “Unless putting Maddy in for spring decreased the chances of someone noticing the nefarious thing you’d done.”
Damn. That’s an impressive leap of logic, even if it’s not true. In fact, I had that very thought when I sat in front of my screen, struggling mightily with my thumping desire to switch Maddy from spring to fall admittance. In the end, I decided not to touch it, for a variety of reasons, including the one Hannah’s just identified.
“I feel like I should get some credit for resisting temptation,” I say, feeling a bit like I’m playing violin on a sinking ship. “I wanted to switch her to fall, so fucking badly, to guarantee I’d have my beloved girlfriend in LA with me. But I restrained myself, out of respect for your wishes.”
“If you respected my wishes so damned much, why’d you hack into UCLA in the first place?”
“I was simply poking around, out of curiosity. I do that kind of thing all the time. I hack systems, just to see if I can. If I were a rock climber, then I’d climb every steep rock formation I came upon. It’s the same sort of impulse.”
She’s not buying it. “What would you have done if you you’d gone in there and found out Maddy had been rejected?”
“Luckily, we don’t need to wonder about that, because she got in on her own.”
“So you say.”
“I swear she did, Hannah.”
“Let’s say I believe you. There’s still no point in going in at all, if you weren’t fully prepared to get her in through any means necessary. That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around, Henn—the fact that you’ll say one thing to my face and then do the opposite behind my back.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You were prepared to do it, if necessary, though. And that’s the issue. It’s a matter of trust and integrity. I would have sworn on my life you’d never bald face lie to me about anything. Yes, you’re tight-lipped and mysterious about your work. But I never thought for a minute you’d flat-out lie to me about something important like this. It’s making me question everything.”
I’m floored. Panicked. Freaking out. “It doesn’t have to be that big a deal. It’s like, imagine there’s a Christmas present you’ve really wanted all year long, and then you see a wrapped box under the tree in the exact shape of that thing. Add to this scenario the fact that you know, for sure, you can take a peek without anyone finding out. Ever. Well, you’d take that peek, wouldn’t you, and you wouldn’t consider yourself a bad person or lacking integrity for doing it, right?”
