I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Deposit

Joss refuses to switch schools to babysit her twin, and Mom reveals a Hartwell deposit already paid with a loan in Joss's name.

Nobody bent down to pick up the glass.

Lemonade ran across the tile toward my chair.

"Sixteen hundred," Gavin said. "That's not a real score. That's the ceiling."

"It's the ceiling," I said.

Mom turned my phone around and held it up to the room.

"You told us eleven-eighty."

"I did."

"You lied to your own family for a year?"

"Since October," I said. "So seven months."

Cade laughed once, the short way he laughed at substitute teachers.

Then he saw Paisley's face and stopped.

Her chin was shaking.

She stood up so fast her chair hit the counter behind her.

"You did this on purpose," she said. "You waited until tonight so everyone would see."

"I didn't tell anyone. Mom read my phone."

"You let me have a cake!"

Her voice cracked on the word cake.

"You let Mom buy me a cake with a little hat on it, and you sat there and ate a piece. Knowing."

That part was true.

It was lemon. I had two pieces.

She started to cry, the real kind, with her shoulders.

Cade wrapped both arms around her and glared at me over her curls.

Mom went to her. Then Dad.

Gavin stayed at the laptop, but he turned the screen so it faced away from me.

I was standing alone at my end of the table in a puddle of lemonade.

"Breathe, baby," Mom said into Paisley's hair. "Breathe. Nobody's laughing at you."

"She is," Paisley sobbed. "She's been laughing at me all year."

I wasn't laughing.

I was counting how many times I'd heard Mom say breathe through a bathroom door.

Mom kissed the top of Paisley's head and turned around.

Her face had gone smooth.

"Okay," she said. "Here's what's going to happen."

"Nothing's going to happen. I already submitted."

"You'll call Alaska first thing tomorrow and tell them you clicked the wrong button."

"I clicked the right button."

"You'll go to Hartwell with your brother."

She said it like she was reading a grocery list off the fridge.

"Hartwell is twenty minutes from Weston on the train."

"You'll go over on weekends and help your sister with calculus. And chemistry. The first year is hard."

Paisley lifted her wet face off Cade's shoulder.

"I don't need her help."

"Of course you don't, sweetheart. It's insurance."

I looked at Mom.

"I'm insurance."

"Don't twist my words."

"You want me to spend college on a train tutoring the person who got a thirteen-forty."

Paisley made a sound.

Dad finally spoke from the counter, where he was holding a dish towel he hadn't used.

"Joss. Come on. That's not nice."

"None of this is nice, Dad. I'm just the only one saying the numbers."

Gavin shut the laptop.

"You could've told me," he said. "I'm your brother. I would've been happy for you."

"Would you?"

He opened his mouth, and nothing came out of it.

I reached over and took my phone out of Mom's hand.

She let me, which surprised both of us.

The email was still open on the screen.

Welcome to the class of 2030.

"I'm going to Fairbanks," I said.

I said it loud enough to carry over Paisley's crying.

"I'm not calling anyone tomorrow. I'm not switching. I'm not tutoring. I'm going to live in a fire station."

Cade clicked his tongue.

"A fire station. You're going to carry a hose. You."

"I'm going to carry a lot of things," I said. "I'll be too busy to carry yours."

For a second nobody said anything.

The stove clock flipped to 11:58.

Then Paisley pressed her face into Cade's chest and wailed.

The whole room tipped back toward her.

I went to the closet and got the broom.

I was sweeping glass into the dustpan when Mom spoke again, quietly, right behind me.

"You can't go to Alaska, Joss."

"Watch me."

"No. You can't."

She came around the island and stood over the dustpan, so I had to look at her slippers.

"I never said I was going to Hartwell," I said.

"You got in. In March. I saw the envelope before you did."

She folded her arms.

"Somebody in this family has to be practical. So I handled it."

"Handled what?"

Mom glanced at Dad.

Dad looked down at the dish towel.

Gavin looked at the floor.

That was the first thing that scared me.

Gavin always looked at you when he was on your side.

"Handled what, Mom?"

She lifted her chin.

"You can't. We already paid your Hartwell deposit. It's a loan. In your name."

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