It was a dizzying sea of blue graduation gowns—most still creased as if they’d been taken out of their plastic packaging just moments before the ceremony—and matching square hats, yellow tassels dancing around the faces of the 125 former Allen Academy seniors as they cried and hugged and laughed their way through the throng of family and friends flooding out of the auditorium.
She’d spent only one semester at the Allen Academy before the lofty tuition no longer made up for her poor academic achievement and the headmaster suggested she transfer to the local public school to finish out her freshman year, as it would be “more appropriate” for her level. No donations from her dad, no promises of improvement, not even her brother’s status as star athlete and valedictorian candidate could save her, and so Persey had started as a transfer freshman at West Valley High School, where she knew no one and her last name meant nothing to anyone.
Entering the West Valley campus that first day, Persey had smiled voluntarily for the first time in months.
Her dad had refused to speak to her during the drive to school, which was actually pretty perfect. They’d barely exchanged a dozen words since midterms, so she was used to the silent treatment. Besides, it gave Persey a chance to compose her thoughts. After months of being the stupidest girl at her fancy private school—population five hundred—she was looking forward to just being the stupidest girl amongst the twenty-five hundred West Valleyians. Where no one would notice.
She didn’t mind the loneliness: being at school with no one to talk to was actually a helluva lot easier than being at home with no one to talk to, because at least at school there was a practical reason for it—no one knew her. At home it was just her dad’s pettiness, her mom’s drunkenness, and her brother’s absence that accounted for the silence. There had been a two-week stretch over Christmas break while her brother was off skiing with friends in Gstaad where Persey had gone fifty-seven hours without saying a single word.
There was no way West Valley could be that bad.
Being back in the Allen Academy quad, even under completely different circumstances, was enough to heighten Persey’s stress level, but as much as the buildings and the outdoor spaces and the perfectly poised students themselves reminded her of the misery earlier that year, she clearly didn’t jar anyone’s memory. No one’s eyes flashed in her direction or lingered confusedly on her face as if trying to place her. She was a nameless nobody today, and that was just the way she wanted it.
Unlike her brother, who she finally spotted in a large circle of friends, all congratulating one another as if they’d just won the championship game. He, as always, was in the middle. The most popular of the popular.
He had everybody wrapped around his finger. It was tough to watch.
“Hey, Boss! How does it feel to be a high school graduate?” Persey’s dad asked, slapping her brother on the back in a display of machismo that felt appropriately staged. A this is how guys act, right? kind of gesture that was just 100 percent her dad.
Her brother immediately turned on the charm. “It feels like the beginning of the rest of my life.” He flashed his thousand-kilowatt smile.
“You’re going to love Columbia,” Dad continued. “And I’m not just saying that because you chose my alma mater. Being in the New York financial community will give you so many business contacts. I’m glad you picked it over Harvard.”
“Picked it?” Persey couldn’t help herself. They were the first words she’d spoken all day and they came flying out of her mouth on instinct. They think he turned Harvard down?
Her brother smiled at her. Not the cold, fake kind he used on their parents, but a genuinely warm one. He’d always had a soft spot for her, even now, when she had almost blown his cover, and it was a sentimentality he believed that she returned.
Not so much.
“Yeah, don’t you remember? I told you about all my acceptances: Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Cornell, Penn, Georgetown as a safety.” He nodded for each one as if willing (demanding) Persey to remember. Remember the lie.
“Sorry,” she said. “Yes, you did.”
“That’s what a fourteen eighty SAT score will get you, Boss.” Her dad beamed as he said it, as if those numbers could somehow encompass all his paternal pride. “Acceptance anywhere you want.”