much did you hear?” I ask as my stomach plummets. I wanted to have this problem fixed before I told him about it.
“Enough,” he says. “Something about you not graduating on time.”
“That about sums it up.” I tip my head back and stare at the dusky sky.
Andrew looks at Macie, then back at me. “You’re going to have to do a better job of explaining.”
“Yeah, it can’t be as bad as all that,” Macie adds.
“It’s bad. Mom spent my money. Like, a lot of it.”
Andrew seems to understand without much more explanation than that, but Macie pulls her eyebrows together, furrowing her forehead. “Can she do that? Legally, I mean.”
“It’s the same account I had since I was a kid. It still has both our names on it, so I guess so. But that’s really beside the point. How is this happening to me? I can’t not finish school.”
“How much do you need?” Andrew asks, as if he’s about to whip out his checkbook.
“Nine thousand two hundred dollars. Less, I suppose, if I live at home next year.” The very idea of it makes my shoulders tense.
Andrew bows his head and stares at the ground. After a few seconds he says, “Well, you can’t do that. Listen, Katherine, let me help you.”
“No,” I say, while Macie nods her head so vigorously she looks like a bobblehead.
Even though a part of me wants to throw my arms around Andrew and thank him, another part of me is drowning in shame. This is my problem. I can fix it. And I need Andrew to know that I can handle my own problems. Even if I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to do that.
“It can be a loan,” he says. “I’ll charge you interest if it makes you feel better.”
“I still wouldn’t feel right about that.”
“But that’s a good idea,” Macie says. “What about a loan? From a real bank.”
“I’ve already taken the max.” Out of the corner of my eye I see Andrew’s mouth tighten.
His family has had no need for loans. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all my loans that keep him from wanting a relationship with me. Who’d want to be saddled with someone else’s debt?
“A scholarship?” she suggests.
“I’ve already got some,” I say.
“And it’s too late in the year to apply for them anyway,” Andrew adds gloomily.
“Listen,” Macie says, “this is not the end of the world. We’ll figure this out. For now, let’s tap that keg, okay? I do my best creative thinking when I’m hammered.”
Andrew looks at me doubtfully.
“It’s true,” I say. “She studied for her Shakespeare final with a papier-mâché skull in one hand and a bottle of Jack in the other.”
“That’s right,” Macie says as she squeezes my arm. “We’ll figure this out. We just need a little creativity juice.” With that, she heads back to the front yard of the fraternity house, leaving me and Andrew alone in the shadows.
“This is what was bothering you at dinner, isn’t it? Why didn’t you say something to me then?” His eyes are warm, and they look at me with genuine sensitivity. My heart melts. He’s right. I should have told him.
“I didn’t know what to say. I was still in shock, and you were going on and on about the acidic tomatoes and party planning…” I laugh a little, but he doesn’t. Frankly, my sense of humor does seem a little forced.
“When something like this happens,” he says, putting both his hands on my shoulders, “I want to be the first person to hear about it. That is, if I’m important to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My heart quickens.
“It means…remember that time senior year when we overheard my parents fighting?”
Of course I remembered. His parents were always the epitome of control and quiet confidence. It was one of the reasons I liked hanging out at his house so much. To see them losing themselves to their grief like that…well, it had been shocking to me, but it had destroyed Andrew.
He’d run out of the house, leaving me standing there. I had to chase him down, and when I caught up to him, he practically dissolved in my arms.
As many times as he’d helped me through things that year, I’d never let myself fall apart like that in front of him. The mere thought of it was demoralizing. I had never fully trusted Andrew with my vulnerability, but he had trusted me with his.
“It means,” he continues, “that sometimes I can’t help but think