Page 14 of Always Knew It Was You

“Didn’t really need to know that last part, Mrs. P,” I say mildly. I’ve never understood why Mrs. Peach felt the need to share intimate details about her bowel movements, when “I need to use the bathroom” alone would have sufficed. But I don’t mind much. She’s the only one, apart from Emma, who I can go to when I’m down. She’s understanding but doesn’t hover and doesn’t let me catastrophize either. She just lets me talk things out and work through it at my own pace.

I know what she’ll say if I tell her what happened.“It’s not the end of the world, dear. We’ll just have to find a way to make you money so you can attend school in the fall.”

Easier said than done in a town like this. While the raise Emma offered is certainly generous by Laketown standards, it would still be months if not years before I’m able to save up enough to pay for the cost of tuition.

With Mrs. Peach gone, I get up and head to the kitchen, still wondering how one single failed test could change the trajectory of my life so totally. Especially when I was so close. I am in my final year, set to graduate soon. I was doing so well in every other class, on track to graduate Magna Cum Laude. A single failed test, and it’s like everything I worked for the past few years means nothing.

I’ve told very few people that I’m in college, mostly because I don’t want to bear the weight of any expectations. Not that people expect much of me anyway. As the child of a drunk and a thief, whose cousin was part of a high-profile pearl-smuggling operation, it is good enough to most that I am not a criminal. But that isn’t good enough for me. I’m sure some of them think I’ll follow in the rest of my family’s footsteps, which is why I want to prove them wrong.

But I want to do it quietly so that no one mocks me for my dreams. A dream I’ve sustained even through shitty weeks of being whispered about because my cousin was inadvertently involved in the deaths of multiple people in town.

That combined with my mother’s tantrums and my father’s drunkenness was what made it impossible to study for the stupid test.

A flush and I hear the bathroom door open. That’s when I realize I’ve been stirring the soup staring into the air for minutes. Mrs. Peach walks into the kitchen and wipes wet hands on a random rag.

She gives me a sympathetic look. “You ready to talk about it now, hun?”

I nod through the lump in my throat. “I’m losing my scholarship.”

“Oh no.” She walks forward with her hand over her mouth. “How?”

“I failed a test. The professor is refusing any redos, so even if I ace every other test and assignment in that class, in the couple of weeks before we vacate, I’m still down to get a C in the class. And a C isn’t good enough for me to hold onto my scholarship.”

“Oh, darling, that’s horrible. You can’t take out student loans?”

I shake my head. “My mom already destroyed my credit. She got a loan in my name when I was fifteen.” I didn’t know she had done it until I got sent a letter from a collection agency. I was seventeen when I found out and remember being furious at her.

But Mom, as usual, had no remorse.

“I did it for you,” she explained. “You needed school supplies. Where on earth was I supposed to get the money from?”

“You should have told me.”

She rolled her eyes completely unrepentant. “Well, I’m telling you now.”

I swallow back the memories since they’ll only depress me more. In any case, student loans are out of the picture.

Mrs. Peach hugs me and rubs my back and the tears start flowing.

“I can’t believe I’m losing my scholarship,” I sob, chest tightening. “That means everything was for nothing. Unless I can somehow raise the tuition for the next semester, I’ll have to drop out and become the failure everyone thinks I am.”

“There there,” Mrs. Peach says, sliding her hand over my hair and I inhale her peppermint scent, trying to find comfort in it. A cough interrupts and we both glance at the living room door.

Tate Moon is standing there, looking a little uncomfortable.

I immediately straighten, wiping my face and looking away. Tate isn’t the last person I want to catch me crying, but she’s certainly not high on the list.

Tate is Emma’s other best friend and while that should probably make us friends too, it doesn’t, despite us often hanging out together due to Emma. We’re not enemies, but we’re not friends either. Like Declan, Tate is a little intimidating although in a different way. She’s very plainspoken and has no qualms about saying whatever outrageous thing she thinks of. Like the first time we met at Emma’s house, she asked me, “Is it true your momma stole donations from the church?”

Emma admonished her then and she apologized instantly, but it didn’t stop her asking rude questions on other occasions. One time, upon noting how much time I spent at Emma’s place she asked, “Why are you never home? Does your house not have a ton of space?”

And then another time, during Emma’s birthday party when I was twelve and she was fourteen, she told me, “You should tell your father to lay off the booze.”

And the worst part is that she didn’t say any of it in that mocking way that the other kids used to. She said it like she was either genuinely curious or genuinely concerned, but it just made me more quiet and withdrawn whenever I was around her. Consequently, I avoided coming over to Emma’s when I knew she was there.

It didn’t help that Tate was also gorgeous with her long, luscious red hair, and she was smart too, earning numerous academic awards in high school. She was valedictorian of her class, went off to a state college and now she’s a PT who works with patients at the local hospital and also holds free yoga sessions every Saturday morning.

It’s hard not to feel like a failure next to her.

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