Page 50 (1/2)

Kalina doesn’t say anything for awith herself on the other end of the line “Look, Marin,” she says, and her voice is very quiet “Ultimately the admissions board received soht be a better fit elsewhere, that’s all”

All at once I stand up a little straighter, a sensation like a spider scuttling up along my spine “What information?”

“Marin, I really can’t—”

“What infor about e—” I shake limpse of theof the newspaper office out of the very corner of od Was it Bex?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Mr Beckett,” I say “Jon Beckett, e donors, and—” I break off “Is that who it was?”

For a long time Kalina doesn’t answer, and that’s how I know that it’s true

“For what it’s worth, I went to bat for you,” she tells me finally “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out”

“Yeah,” I say, di in the distance I tiltwith tears “Me too”

Thirty

I stuht and ulps I feel like I could rip tree trunks in half with my bare hands or burst into flames in the middle of the hallway In the back of ue university is the very definition of a chane problem: after all, there are plenty of o

ther colleges There are plenty of other paths

But this is the one I wanted This is the one I earned

And he justtook it

There’s only one concrete thought in my head as I careen down the hallway: