Page 106 of Stolen Summer

Chapter Thirty-One

The days that followed were empty and numb. I went through the motions of day-to-day life, but I wasn’t living. I felt nothing.

With only a few weeks left before the next school semester started, I needed to figure out what I would do. I should be filling out applications for four-year colleges and completing forms for financial aid, grants, and scholarships. I needed every cent of aid I could scrape up. At the end of last semester, I applied to a few schools, but they were out of my league now. Even if they accepted my transfer, I wouldn’t be able to afford the tuition.

I didn’t have the brainpower for problems. But also, I didn’t want to stay stuck in this town. Especially if my neighbors decided to stick around. As far as I knew, Crew and Cole were still in residence, but they should be getting ready to return to school.

That should make me feel relieved, eliminating the chance of running into them at the supermarket or on the beach, and yet, it didn’t. If numbness didn’t consume me, then I teetered on a fine line between rage and heartbreak. I needed a cure, and time wasn’t cutting it. I had to find a way to cut out all thoughts of Crew and Cole, and sitting in my room doing nothing was not the antidote.

Despite having no enthusiasm or drive for college, I sat down in front of my secondhand laptop and began the process of deciding what came next for me. It at least kept my thoughts from wandering to the very guys I wanted to erase.

An hour later, someone knocked on the door, pulling my attention from the computer screen. I glanced up to see Dad wheel into my room with a large white envelope on his lap. “This came for you last week. It got buried under the mail.”

I took the letter, reading the return address stamped on the corner. Whitley University, the school I’d been most eager to hear a response from. I assumed when nothing showed up I hadn’t gotten accepted, especially when Frankie got hers two weeks ago. She’d been ecstatic, squealing about our plan finally happening. In our sophomore year of high school, we’d made a pact. If we both got into Whitley, we’d go no matter what. The list-maker I was, I’d written out a draft of how’d we get there.

Years later, here we were. Except Frankie wasn’t with me. And nothing had gone according to plan.

“Are you going to open it?” Dad eagerly asked, both of us staring at the envelope clutched in my hands.

“What’s the point?” I mumbled, unable to get my fingers to move.

The dusting of gray hair at his temples seemed bolder, brightening his eyes almost the same shade. “Arie, I know things have been rough for you the last few years, and I know something happened this summer you won’t talk about, and before you get defensive, I won’t ask for the details. I have a pretty good idea. Heartbreak hurts. No one knows that better than me, but it will get better. I promise.”

He meant well. I just wasn’t in the mood for a motivational talk.

I thumbed the corner of the large flat envelope, which was typically a good sign, but I couldn’t get my hopes up. It wouldn’t matter if I got in or not.

Since it didn’t appear Dad would leave until I opened the letter, I tore the corner, sliding my fingers underneath the seal and shredding the seam. When I glanced up, Dad nodded encouragingly at me, and I could tell he hoped what was inside would jerk me out of my slump.

I didn’t want to disappoint him.

If he ever found out that I’d slept with the driver responsible for the accident…I shuddered to think.

Pulling out the cover sheet with the WU logo embossed at the top, I quickly scanned the first paragraph.

Congratulations! You’ve been admitted to Whitley University for the fall term.

I smiled, and the small movement felt funny on my lips as if it had been years since I last curved my mouth in joy. “I got in,” I whispered.

Dad clapped his hands together and grinned. “No one deserves it more than you. We need a drink to celebrate.”

The elation slipped from my features, and it had nothing to do with the offer of booze we both knew he didn’t need. “What’s the point? I’m not going.” I crumbled up the acceptance letter, dropping it on the bed with the rest of the letter’s contents. The pamphlet inside was useless to me.

Dad’s expression went from wanting a celebration drink to I need a fucking drink. “What are you talking about? You’ve dreamed of going to Whitley since high school.”

I shrugged. “Things change.”

“Does this have anything to do with the boy next door?” he asked, giving me a pointed look.

Wonderful. So even my father picked up my apparent not so secret relationship with Crew and Cole. What else had he heard? On second thought, I didn’t want to know. “No. And besides, nothing is going on between us.”

An emotion I hadn’t seen from my father in years moved into his features. Determination and strong resolve. “You’re going to that school, Arie. If this is about the cost, I’ll figure it out, but you are going. I know how much getting into Whitley means to you. It’s the first time I’ve seen you genuinely happy in weeks.”

Guilt sliced through me. I never should have made a deal with the devil. Now I was paying the price, and if I didn’t go, I risked disappointing my father, something I couldn’t do.

Not again.

The rest of the week, I wrestled and mulled over my future, wavering between going to college and getting a full-time job. Each day, the mailbox produced another transfer letter from other schools. I’d forgotten how many I’d applied to at the end of the term.

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