I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 3 of 32
Chapter 3: One Bag
Joss reads the forged loan, learns Gavin knew, and leaves graduation for the airport; in Fairbanks a fire-station pickup is waiting.
"Show me," I said.
Mom kept the folder in the drawer under the microwave, with the takeout menus and the spare keys.
She handed it to me.
I set the broom against the island and opened it right there on the counter.
Private student loan.
Borrower: Jocelyn A. Carmody.
Principal: fourteen thousand dollars.
Interest rate: eleven point four percent.
Under that was a receipt from Hartwell. Enrollment deposit, paid in full. Fall housing, paid in full.
The date on the loan was April ninth.
At the bottom of page three was my signature.
It wasn't my signature.
It was close. Somebody had practiced.
But I make my J like a fishhook, and this one was a straight line with a little curl at the top.
That was how Mom signed my permission slips.
"You signed my name," I said.
"Parents sign things for their kids. That's what parents do."
"I turned eighteen in March. You signed for an adult."
"Don't say it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like a lawyer."
Behind her, Paisley had stopped crying to listen.
Cade was holding her hand and watching me.
Dad had disappeared. I heard the TV in the den come on, loud.
I turned the pages slowly and took a picture of every single one with my phone.
Mom watched me do it.
"What are you doing?"
"Keeping a copy of my loan," I said. "Since it's mine."
On the last page, in the box for a co-borrower's contact, was a phone number.
Not Mom's. Not Dad's.
Gavin's.
I looked up at him.
He was still at the end of the table with the laptop closed under his hands.
"You knew," I said.
He didn't pretend.
That was the only good thing about it.
"She asked me what Hartwell's housing form looked like," he said. "In April. I helped her find it."
"And the signature?"
He rubbed his buzzed hair with both hands.
"I saw her practicing it. On the back of an electric bill."
"And you said nothing."
"She said it was easier than fighting you." His voice went small. "She said you'd thank her in four years."
"Gavin, you were going to be on that campus with me. You were going to see me every week and know."
"I know."
"You were going to be my knight."
He flinched.
I closed the folder and gave it back to Mom.
She took it with both hands and put it in the drawer.
"Hartwell," she said. "Tomorrow we'll call Alaska together."
I went upstairs and didn't answer.
For five weeks I lived in that house like a guest nobody invited.
Mom spoke to me through Dad.
Dad spoke to me about the weather.
Paisley posted graduation-countdown photos with me cropped out of every one.
Cade's lacrosse friends started calling me "Sixteen Hundred" in the hallway, like it was a diagnosis.
At night I emailed the university in Fairbanks.
They told me the student firefighter program started the week after graduation. Training, then the pack test, then the roster.
I bought a one-way ticket with my graduation money from my grandmother.
Hartford to Seattle. Seattle to Fairbanks. Leaving at 3:40 on graduation day.
I packed one duffel bag and hid it in the trunk of the neighbor's old car, which Cade's mom never locked.
Graduation was on the football field, in heat that made the folding chairs burn the backs of your legs.
They read the names in alphabetical order.
Carmody, Jocelyn came right before Carmody, Paisley.
When the principal said my name, I heard one person clap.
It was Gavin, three rows into the bleachers, by himself.
When the principal said Paisley's name, Mom stood up and screamed.
Paisley threw her cap in the air early and the principal had to wait for her.
I didn't go back to my folding chair.
I walked off the end of the stage, across the track, and through the gate by the concession stand, still in my gown.
I heard Mom's voice somewhere behind me.
"Joss? Joss, where are you going? We're doing pictures!"
I got my bag out of the trunk next door.
The rideshare was already waiting at the curb.
At the end of the block I looked back once.
Gavin was standing at the gate in his Hartwell hoodie with his hands in his pockets.
He didn't run after me.
He lifted one hand, like a guard at the end of a shift.
I pulled the gown off over my head in the back seat and folded it on my lap.
I fell asleep somewhere over Montana.
When I woke up, the pilot was saying welcome to Fairbanks, local time twelve-ten a.m.
I looked out the window.
The sky was bright as four in the afternoon.
The sun was sitting on top of the hills.
Outside the terminal, the air smelled like smoke and pine and something wet.
There was one vehicle at the curb.
A dented red pickup with a fire department decal on the door and a station number painted under it.
3.
A man was leaning against the tailgate with his arms crossed.
Broad shoulders. Dark short beard. A burn scar down his left forearm.
He looked at my one bag. Then at me.
"Carmody?" he said. "You're the 1600?"
"Yes."
He pushed off the truck and took my duffel without asking.
"You're late for drill."
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