They Thought I Failed—Until I Turned Down Harvard novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Nineteen
On the night I turned nineteen, my roommate was in Ohio at a cousin's wedding.
Flynn knocked on my door at nine with a cake in a plastic container.
"Don't look yet," he said.
"I'm looking."
"It sank in the middle. It's a rustic cake."
He set the container on my desk.
He took a single white candle from his pocket, the kind from a church.
"I used the card," he said. "Exactly as written. Almost."
I turned the card over in my fingers.
It was propped against my lamp, where it had been since September.
On the back, in a margin I had never noticed, someone had added in pencil:
More zest. Laney likes it sour.
I had read that line a hundred times by now.
I still had to look away.
"Hey," said Flynn, softly, and put the candle in the cake.
He lit it with the lighter from his keychain.
He turned off the overhead light, and the small room went gold.
"Happy birthday, Delaney."
"Make a wish?"
"I'm not telling you. It'll hurt your chances."
I blew it out anyway.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of They Thought I Failed—Until I Turned Down Harvard are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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