I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: Co-Signer

Mom crossed the packed snow toward us in boots with little heels.

She held her arms out halfway, then let them drop.

"Happy birthday, Joss."

"How did you find me?"

"Dodie posted the cake." She said Dodie's name like it was a brand of cereal. "And the girl at the station said you'd gone to the ice thing."

Emory moved half a step closer to my shoulder.

Mom looked at him, then at my mouth.

Her eyes narrowed.

"Can we talk alone?"

"No," I said.

She took a breath and smiled for the people around us.

"Fine. It's your birthday. Paisley's too, by the way. She spent it in bed. Cade won't answer her calls."

"I'm sorry she's sad."

"Are you?"

"Yes," I said, and it was true, and it didn't change anything.

Mom opened her purse.

She took out a long envelope and a pen.

A pen.

She'd flown three thousand four hundred miles to my birthday with a pen.

"Weston froze Paisley's merit scholarship until the hearing," she said. "The spring bill is thirty-one thousand dollars, and it's overdue."

"And?"

"And your father lost his job."

The words hit me harder than I wanted them to.

"When?"

"February. The insurance company let his whole floor go." Her voice wobbled, then steadied. "You'd know if you ever called."

She held out the envelope.

"The bank won't do another loan on our names. Not with your father out of work. But they'll do it with a co-signer who has income."

"I'm nineteen."

"You have a fellowship. It pays. The lady at the bank said that counts."

"You told the bank about my fellowship."

"I told them my daughter is a perfect scorer with a paid research position." She said it with pride, like it was hers. "It's one signature, Joss. Your sister is going to lose everything."

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