Most Likely (Most Likely #1) - Sarah Watson Page 0,39

time it wasn’t just the SATs or coming in last in a race. She’d failed another person.

CJ turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. She wondered if she’d ever come back. She decided it would be better for Dakota if she didn’t.

That night, Martha opened the envelope from her dad. In one column, he’d written his gross income, his debt in another. Martha looked at the numbers and felt like her knees were going to give out. She knew it wasn’t her dad’s fault that he was in such terrible financial shape. Not that long after his layoff, he’d been in a motorcycle accident. It wasn’t even that bad, he was only banged up, but this was back when he didn’t have health insurance. The ambulance ride alone had cost two thousand dollars. She’d overheard him complain about it to one of his friends. Wish I’d never even gotten in the goddamn thing.

Martha flopped back on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling, where she could still see the yellowed outlines where an entire galaxy of glow stars had once loomed. Her dad had bought them for her and helped her put them up on their first night in the new apartment. Martha was in her astronomy phase back then. For a few years, her dream was to fly to the stars. Now her dream was so much smaller. She just wanted to be able to pay for college.

Martha decided to call CJ. It’s not that Ava and Jordan wouldn’t try to understand, it’s just that CJ actually would. Not totally. Her family wasn’t nearly as bad off, but money was still tight. Her parents clipped coupons and complained about the economy and at least that was something. CJ’s parents had had to fill out these horrible forms too. When CJ didn’t pick up, she called Jordan. Then Ava. Then she tossed her phone across the room and clenched her eyes shut. She wanted to hide. From all of it. The debt and the anxiety and the stars she’d once thought she could fly to.

Martha’s phone rang, and she walked across the room to get it from where it had landed. She hoped it was CJ. It wasn’t.

“Hello?” she said tentatively.

“Hi,” said Victoria. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“No. What’s up?”

Victoria was probably calling to take more of her hours away. “Uncle Benny” had mentioned that he was going to rearrange the schedule again.

“I was just calling to talk,” Victoria said. “I wanted to see how you’re doing, I guess. You seemed… I don’t know. You seemed like you were having a bad day.”

“I don’t think you’d understand,” Martha said.

“Try me.”

“It’s financial stuff. That doesn’t really seem like a problem for you. No offense.”

“It’s okay. None taken. I probably wouldn’t understand. But I can still listen.”

Martha walked back to her bed. She climbed in it and curled up. Then she told Victoria everything while she stared at her stars.

Jordan had learned her lesson with the too-tight suit dress, so when she walked through the revolving door of the Hyatt Regency that night, she was dressed stylishly but comfortably in a pair of her own bright-red cigarette pants. She usually paired them with a funky printed tee and a pair of sneakers, but today she’d made the look more subdued with a simple black tank top and some heels. She felt more like herself—the adult version of herself—and that gave her confidence as she searched for Scott at the bar.

He was seated at a small table with a single candle flickering on it. There was a manila folder in front of him. Jordan’s heart leaped slightly when she saw it. She didn’t know what was in that folder, she just knew that it was going to change everything.

Scott stood when she approached and shook her hand. He was so unfailingly well-mannered. She could never imagine one of the boys in her high school behaving like this. “Nice to see you,” he said as they both sat.

“Is that for me?” she asked, eyes moving to the folder.

He slid it across the table. “That’s for you. You can’t reference any of it in your article. I could get in a lot of trouble for showing you this.”

“Totally off the record,” she said. “I promise.”

She opened the folder and saw that it contained a stack of about thirty pages. There were handwritten notes on torn-out sheets from a yellow legal pad and printouts of e-mails.