Chapter 15: What It Cost

Caleb's POV

The message on my phone said, "Your Sundell Ohio Scholar award has been placed under administrative review."

Under it, it said, "Please call the financial aid office."

I had read it on the stone wall with Abigail's hand in mine, and I had told her it was nothing.

I knew that was a lie while I was saying it.

She had given me one rule an hour earlier, and I had broken the spirit of it before the sun moved.

So I went to find the man whose name was on my scholarship.

He was at a table in the lobby café of the lake hotel, with a laptop open and a glass of water he had not touched.

Four other guests sat around us eating eggs. I was glad of them.

"Mr. Alderson," Hailey's father said, without looking up. "My daughter is in the car, crying."

"I assume you came to apologize."

"No, sir."

I took the printout from my jacket and laid it flat beside his water glass.

It was the notebook page. HOW TO KEEP THEM, blue pen, a careful child's handwriting.

"I came because I thought you'd want to see it first," I said. "Before she shows you a different version."

He read it.

He read it all the way through, and his face did not change, which I understood later was the worst sign.

"A fourteen-year-old's list," he said.

"She followed it, sir. Item three is what she told Abigail. Item two is thirty-one dates in my phone."

"Children write melodramatic things." He pushed the paper back with one finger.

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