would be an individualized email from the Capstone Foundation—Dear Iliana, Your Declaration of Intent was the best essay we’ve ever read—but instead it’s a form email copied to God knows how many other people, with nothing but “Re: Declaration of Intent Essay” in the subject line.
My heart drops.
Sarah’s scream on the other side of the exhibit is ice in my veins.
“Randall! Iliana! The email!” Sarah is jumping up and down, clutching her phone in her hands. “I’m in! I’m in!”
There’s no way in hell Sarah made it in and I didn’t.
I can’t even wrap my head around it.
I scroll past a block of text—“The Capstone Foundation has existed as an auxiliary of the Ocoee Arts Festival since…”—and find a column of twenty-five names, listed one at a time. I don’t recognize any of them:
Xuewen Miao
Marquetta Oliver
Tia Leath
Marianna Walters
Adelaide Lyu
None of them are Conservatory students. I make a mental note to find each of these people on Facebook and keep scrolling.
Marianna sounds like a great “real name” for Alice.
I imagine myself whispering Marianna in someone’s ear.
Next, Tia. Marquetta. Adelaide.
It could really be anyone.
Sarah’s name finally appears farther down the list, and it’s the first I recognize. Even farther, a girl named Kiersten Keller from the Conservatory’s theater-track program—someone I didn’t realize was an artist at all. Judging by the scroll bar, I don’t have much email left.
I want to cry.
I scroll, and scroll, and it won’t be long until I reach the end—
Finally: Iliana Vrionides.
I look up from my phone, grinning, searching the exhibit hall for Randall and Sarah.
I want them to be happy for me, too.
It takes me a second to find where they are, kneeling with their heads together.
They’re smiling, and laughing, and hugging … Rhodes.
They’re celebrating with Rhodes. But before long, they’re pulling me into a huddle, too, hugging me and patting me on the back, eighth graders I don’t know and Randall in that awkward, endearing way he tries not to make too much physical contact.
Sure enough, I find her name listed at the very bottom.
When our eyes find each other over the tops of Sarah’s and Randall’s heads, it’s every bit the confirmation I needed:
Rhodes Ingram’s going for the Capstone Award, too.
* * *
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:21p: did you make it in
I-Kissed-Alice 9:23p: yep
I-Kissed-Alice 9:23p: did you?
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:23p: yep
I-Kissed-Alice 9:24p: looks like we’re meeting whether we like it or not
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:24p: jesus.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:24p: don’t get too excited, Alice.
Curious-in-Cheshire has logged out of the system.
* * *
FIVE WEEKS UNTIL THE CAPSTONE AWARD
CHAPTER 8
RHODES
Username: I-Kissed-Alice
Last online: 30m ago
There are only two Saturdays between now and the project proposal.
Dusk and I can’t find a way to make our schedules work for a face-to-face appointment before I head to Nashville, so we settle for therapy-session-by-video-chat instead. The rooftop garden seems to be the safest place for this—if someone climbs the ladder I’ll hear it long before their head appears over the side of the rooftop wall, and this time of year there’s hardly anyone in the mood for gardening.
The kale is overgrown now.
A cold snap last week means the pea vines are withered and brown.
My laptop is open next to me, set carefully on top of my backpack to protect it from the dirt below. The sky threatens rain like it always does this time of year, but it’ll give way to blue skies by the time the morning is over. The only other person in the rooftop garden is my younger brother, Griffin, but he doesn’t count: He’s the only person who gets a rundown of my appointments with Dusk after they’re over. He’s the only one who knows how bad this really is, and the only one who believes me when I say there’s no way I’m going to pull myself out of this.
“It just feels like the universe is conspiring against me,” I say to Dusk through the computer. I’m lying flat on the ground, and the little rectangle on the corner of the video chat screen only shows a view of dying vegetation. It feels good to be invisible, like I’m not really here.
Dusk is in her preferred state, rambling pseudoscience-y psychobabble to the kale since she can’t see me on-screen. Her hair hangs in silvery black waves around her face, and in lieu of her usual artistic piddling during our sessions, she’s plucking at a ukulele.
“I can’t see you. Can you sit up, please?”
“Nope, I’m good,” I say.
“Okay, then.” An awkward not-quite-note twangs through the speakers. Dusk adjusts a knob and strums again. “So you think the