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I might not get in, I remind myself for the hundredth time. I'm prepared for that. Nepotism is a powerful thing, but Harvard probably gets hundreds of legacy applications every year. There's no guarantee. At the end of the day, they aren't going to waste a spot on an alumni's kid who might end up washing out. I've never been a naturally incredible student like Evie. I don't have as many references as she did or-
Dear Miss. Bradley,
We regret to inform you that you are not among the applicants who have been selected for this year's-
My hands fall away from the computer, and I stumble away from the table, blood rushing in my ears drowning out the ocean outside.
I didn't get in.
I really didn't get in.
Right there below the crimson letterhead is undeniable proof of what I've suspected all along, that I really am just as much of an outsider in my family as I always thought. Four generations of Doctor Bradleys have gone to Harvard, each of them somehow more successful than the last, and I am the weak branch that's snapped off the family tree, doomed to rot on the ground below.
I don't remember sitting down, but I am, right in the middle of the floor in the stunning villa mydoctorparents paid for so I can attend mydoctorsister's wedding to herdoctorhusband while I lust after hisdoctorfather. What is wrong with me? How could I have messed this up? All I needed to do was be evenmildlycompetent, and surely my last name would have done the rest, but no. Harvard realized what my parents and my sister know, what Judah knows, and what I've been feebly trying to deny to myself my whole life. I amnota Bradley.
Some part of me realizes what's happening. I've had a panic attack before; I know what it means when the room begins to spin like this, when the air I'm breathing doesn't seem to be making it into my burning lungs, and my whole body feels like it's been dunked in ice. Knowing it doesn't help, though. It just reinforces the horrible thoughts churning rapidly through my mind. My parents don't have panic attacks, nor does my sister, just me. Me, the failure. Me, the disappointment. Me, the one who tried and tried but who isn't quite good enough.
I can hear knocking somewhere in the distance, but it seems too far away it doesn't really register. Or it doesn't until I hear a panicked male voice yell my name. I still can't look around or do anything but rock back and forth, my breaths coming in desperate, ragged gulps.
"Isobel!" The voice is closer now, and warm arms are wrapping around me, dragging me back into a big, firm chest.
Someone is seeing me like this. Someone knows- "Listen to me." A hand strokes my hair, and the male voice speaks quietly and calmly into my ear. "I need you to take a deep breath with me in one-two-"
I try to obey, really, I do, but it's impossible. Tears are rolling down my cheeks, my whole body is shaking, and the ragged sound I make is so pitiful it makes me cry harder. I can't even breathe right?What is wrong with me?
"Shhhh." He holds my body tightly against his, and he's so warm compared to me that it's almost unbearable. "You're alright. We're going to try again, okay? Deep breath in one-two-" I manage it this time, greedily sucking in oxygen as the man holding me does the same, his chest rising and falling with mine. "Very good.Very good. Okay,again, nice and slow-"
I don't know how long we sit there, the man's voice in my ear, calmly coaching me through breath after breath as his warmth bleeds into my cold body. At some point, I realize I'm sitting between his legs, still in the middle of the villa's floor. Bit by bit, the world comes back to me until I hear the man's voice in my ear again, smell his earthy, masculine scent, and it finally registers who is holding me.
Judah.
"You're okay." He strokes my hair, his cheek pressed against my head, speaking into my ear. "Everything's okay. I'm here.I've got you, Issy."
Issy.Nobody calls me that.
I'm so weak and exhausted that it doesn't even occur to me to argue or to try and preserve what's left of my pride. What's more, I don't remember the last time someone held me like this. The few boyfriends I've had were passing experiments, halfhearted attempts to see if another person could turn me into one of those happy girls who tell strangers on the bus she likes their outfit. They couldn't, and either I got tired of pretending, or he got tired of trying to connect with me, and we went our separate ways. I didn't love any of them, not even close, they didn't hold me the way Judah is right now, or if they did, it didn't make me feel the way I do now.
Wanted.
It takes a long time for my breathing to finally even out and my heartbeat to slow, but Judah doesn't let me go. He keeps stroking my hair and murmuring quiet, comforting words in my ear.
"I didn't get in." I finally confess, my voice strained and emotionless. I'm so tired, so drained, that it's too much just to get the words out. My eyes flutter shut, and I melt even deeper into Judah's warmth, feeling his chest rising and falling in time with mine.
Judah doesn't tell me that there are other schools, or that everything is going to work out in the end, or that I can try again next year. The last thing I hear as my exhausted body finally surrenders to sleep is his gentle voice in my ear, rough with emotion. "I'm here."
Chapter Eight
Judah
Isobeldoesn'tturnupfor dinner.
I suffer through the meal with my fists clenched beneath the table, more hatred than I've ever felt directed right at the people across the table from me who are eating their dinner and drinking their wine without a care in the world. Every time they look at Evie with warm pride or brag about her accomplishments to Kennedy or Tom, I hear ringing in my ears, and it takes everything in me not to roar.
I can't understand it.She's their daughter.
Their intelligent, kind, beautiful daughter, and by the looks of it, they've spent her entire life,twenty-three years, putting her second to her sister simply because she isn't who they want her to be. It couldn't be clearer to me that in Isobel's mind, becoming a doctor has become inextricably linked to becoming a part of her family,to belonging.
She's terrified of connecting to anyone, of letting a single piece of herself show, and it's not a mystery why when her parents seize upon any possible opportunity to point out her faults. How she reacted when she learned she wouldn't have it makes perfect sense the more I think about it. The whole business is so unspeakably fucked up that it's only for Reuben's sake I manage to keep myself from flipping the table and sending our shitty kugel dinner all over John and Caroline.
