“Good-bye, Alec.”
It is the first time I say these words and they leave a bitter aftertaste. We’d promised never to say good-bye, Alec always claiming the phrase was too harsh, too final.
Alec calls back immediately, but I turn off my phone. I don’t have room for more than one voice in my head right now.
I break open, remembering every beautiful promise he made, and the girl he woke in me. But now I need to go to the only place I know that is truly safe. I drive home, where Mom’s waiting for me in the kitchen, her face drawn with concern. “Are you all right? Did you see Alec? What did he say?”
“I called him. He denied it.” The letter, that is. I don’t bring Mom up to speed on SLUT and that added bit of humiliation. I can’t let Mom know my failure is bigger than the one choice.
“Do you believe him, Zephyr?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Mom. Everything feels so out of control and I don’t even know how to fix any of it.” My lungs grow too small to hold enough air, my ribs strangle. How do I go back to the days before Alec? Can I undo the things we’ve done? Return to a person I barely remember being?
“Sit.” Mom guides me to the kitchen chair. Her hand plants on my knee. “Breathe, Zephyr. There’s a way through any problem. Let’s take it one fact at a time.”
I nod, wanting nothing more than her help, her clarity.
“Tell me one thing you want from this.”
“The truth.” Breathe.
She kneads the round of my knee. “There may be too many versions of that. I’m asking you what you want. What would you do if it were in your power? What would you change if you could?”
“Boston College.” It is the one sure thing that bobs to the surface in this ocean of doubt.
Mom looks relieved. “Okay. And is that in your control?”
“Not anymore.” Breathe.
“What if you went to the admissions board, withdrew your rejection?”
A light. Hope. “Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know, Zephyr, but if you tell me you want my help I will do everything in my power. But you have to swear this is absolutely what you want; that you won’t change your mind.”
“I won’t.” If I could get Boston College back I’d never want anything more again.
“Then that’s where we’ll start.” She pats my knee with this new optimism. “We’ll contact the college first thing Monday, after the holiday break. But for now I think a cup of tea might be all we can do.”
Tea sounds simple and good. And Monday sounds possible, the first step in a controlled, executable plan. “Yes. Tea.”
“Chamomile or mint?”
The house phone rings and Mom stands to answer. “Hello?” A few seconds pass before she gives the phone a blank look, hangs up. “Wrong number, I guess.” She holds up the two boxes of tea for me to consider.
“Anything but mint,” I tell her.
I drink the hot tea with Mom, but it does exactly zero to settle me. The quiet of the kitchen, Mom’s concern, my future unknown—again. It’s all too much.
When I head to my room, I pull up the Boston College website and search the athletics staff contact list. I write an e-mail to the field hockey coach, telling her I’ve been accepted and asking her to meet with me. I detail Sudbury’s 12–1 record, our state title. And I write about what it means for me to be on the field, part of a team. I don’t disclose what I’ve done, what was in the package I mailed to the college.
I read the e-mail more than a dozen times, changing one word and then fifty. Finally, my nerves step aside long enough for me to press send.
And I wait.
Again.
Chapter 32
The ability to sleep abandoned me. Last night was too dark and too crammed with the best memories of Alec. I tossed in bed, plagued by his fingers skating across the flat of my stomach, his shape hovering over me in his backyard, my skin exposed to the dusk. The electric touch of his sneaker against mine. The shock of him inside me. The white light he’d build within me.
But the morning sun wipes away all those memories and sprays light on all my doubt.
If Alec did keep Boston College’s letter from me, wasn’t it because he wanted to be with me?
And the newspaper photo, the word branded there? There were fifty people in the caf that day and all of them dumb enough to think that would be a funny joke. Maybe the clipping fell out of Gregg’s locker somehow. Maybe a million things could have happened that prove Alec’s innocence and my paranoia.
Or maybe only one thing happened. The thing I suspect. And fear.
I lace up my sneakers and head out for a run. The sun is low over the trees, barely awake. Its gold light blankets the snow-tipped pines. There is no sound but my footfall crunching against the crisp snow.