Chapter 9: Her Door

"Account ending in 4471," I said. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Shelby said. "I swear on Biscuit."

"Then who does?"

We both knew.

At five in the morning I texted my brother: "I know about the registrar. Open your door."

Colt lived on the second floor of a brick building with a broken buzzer.

I had been paying for that apartment since the day he moved in.

I knocked until he came.

He was in a gray T-shirt and sweatpants.

He took one look at my face and at Shelby behind me.

Then he sat down on the floor of his own entryway.

"You read it," he said.

"All of it."

"Okay."

He put his head on his knees.

For a minute the only sound was the refrigerator.

"I failed statistics," he said. "Sophomore spring. Twice."

He rubbed his face.

"I couldn't make it make sense, so I stopped going."

"Stopped going where?"

"Everywhere. I'd sit in my car in the parking lot for the whole class and cry."

"You never told me."

"I never told anyone. Dad had bragged to the whole shop."

"What did he say?"

"'My boy is the first VanCott at a real university.' He told people at the pharmacy."

His voice cracked.

"I called Mom to tell her I was dropping out, and she said no."

"She said no?"

"She said, 'Your father's heart can't take it. You don't have to fix this. I'll handle the money. You just keep smiling.'"

"And you did."

"For two years."

He looked up at me with wet, ashamed eyes.

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