The Sullivan Sisters - Kathryn Ormsbee Page 0,45
a dart sticking her skin:
LONG-TERM DREAMS > SHORT-TERM PROBLEMS
ELECTRIC SUCCESS IS ONLY GENERATED BY POSITIVITY
A BABY STEP IS BETTER THAN NO STEP AT ALL
DREAMS DON’T WORK UNLESS YOU DO
DON’T PLAN FOR FAILURE
The itch in Claire’s fingers grew stronger. Maybe a lowly intern had made a data-entry mistake, and they’d only caught it a week later. Maybe it was worth checking the portal one. More. Time.
Claire was too weak to resist temptation. Her fingers tapped the phone screen in what had become habit. Moments later she was on the webpage, staring down a fate that remained unchanged: not accepted. Rejected. Spat out.
Early admission application hadn’t changed a thing. Neither had chairing five student council committees, nor working long hours at the Emmet soup kitchen, nor hounding three AP teachers to write additional letters of rec.
Claire wanted to face a flesh-and-blood human at Yale, not a URL. She would be polite, and she’d only ask one question: “Where did I go wrong?”
She needed to know. The lack of an answer was driving her mad.
Claire opened her texts, tapping on the abandoned thread between her and Ainsley St. John.
Ainsley’s last text glared at her, a blue-bubbled accusation:
Hey, you alive?
“Yeah,” Claire whispered, “but my dreams are dead, thanks.”
She knew she was being melodramatic. Maybe that’s all it had ever been, this weird Harperette connection between her and Ainsley: melodrama. Claire had concocted such an elaborate story, for so long. She and Ainsley would both go to Yale, would be roommates there, and Ainsley would get Claire, and then she’d realize Claire was irresistible, and they would fall in love, and Claire would get her first kiss, and everything would be fine, would be right.
Never mind the photos of Ainsley and her new girlfriend. Never mind that she and Claire lived thousands of miles apart. Was Claire really that desperate? Just because no other girls were out at high school, and because Ainsley was the first person Claire had felt remotely connected to in a long time?
Delusional.
The word rang in Claire’s ears.
She’d thought that she was excelling. She’d thought that if she reached for the moon, at least she’d fall among the stars. Yale wasn’t impossible to get into. And even if Ainsley had a girlfriend, she’d have to leave her behind for college. Everything was going to work itself out.
That had been Exceller mindset.
Or, it had been a pipe dream.
As Claire stared at the phone, a notification banner slid into view. It was an e-mail informing her that Harper Everly had uploaded a new video. Claire tapped the banner, following the heading to the full e-mail. That’s where she saw the title of Harper’s newest vlog:
STAYING POSITIVE THROUGH LIFE’S STORMS.
“Wow,” said Claire.
She couldn’t.
She simply couldn’t.
Claire wrenched the phone from its charging cord and hurled it across the room. It smashed against the opposite wall.
Then Claire was on her feet, preparing herself for what she would find. She wanted to look away, pretending this temper tantrum had never happened.
It had, though. And the screen was shattered, splintered into a dozen spider web strands.
When Claire attempted to turn on the phone, nothing happened. No light flooded the screen. No life.
She’d paid $800 for this phone.
She’d saved for two years.
The supply trips to Michaels, the hours spent forming delicate bracelets beneath her desk lamp, the hundreds of trips to the post office.
In one second, she’d smashed—literally smashed—all that.
The worst part was this: She was laughing.
At plans.
At golden moments.
At Harper Everly.
She laughed so hard that her arms began to shake.
She tried turning on the phone again, and again. The screen remained dark.
She thought to herself, I’m alone. I am cut off from the world.
And all she could do in the face of that truth was laugh.
EIGHTEEN Murphy
Do you hear that?” Murphy asked.
“What?” said Eileen.
“Someone’s laughing.”
“Not funny.”
Her sisters sure loved saying stuff like that: Not funny, it’s not a joke, stop being dramatic. Which was great for a performer’s morale.
This time, though, Murphy wasn’t trying to be funny.
“Leenie, I’m serious—”
“We’re not on Scooby-Doo, Murph. Shut up.”
Murphy liked Eileen better than Claire. She always had. That didn’t mean she actually liked Eileen, though. When she chose to, Eileen could be a stone-cold bitch, and she’d only gotten stonier over the years. Sometimes, Murphy wanted to jump to Eileen’s way-high eye level and shout—for Eileen to notice her, to be nicer, to give Murphy some good memories to hold on to.
That was the big goal, wasn’t it? Operation Memory Making. But how did you make memories with people who barely acknowledged