It’s not art. It’s not beauty.
Stephanie is kind and flatters me with compliments about my grades and my résumé, but I want to tell her there are more important things than student council and tutoring. There is supporting your family and there is hard work. There is resilience in the face of adversity. There is love. I bite my tongue and try to accept her compliments gracefully, I try to sell myself. I try. But when I hang up the phone I am relieved it’s over.
But it’s not over. Zenn will do his interview and even though he is charming and funny and his talent is creative and interesting, they may decide that math is practical. They may think somehow my gift is more “important” than his. A young woman interested in STEM may be the trend du jour and they may pick me instead of him.
I’m not sure I can let that happen.
I spend a lot of time thinking about Zenn. Not just horny thoughts about his mouth and his skin and his eyelashes, but about him — how hard he works, how talented he is, how much he’s had to struggle. I keep thinking about how much he really, really needs the scholarship. Without it, he won’t go to college, period. He will be stuck painting motorcycle fuel tanks or working at the Piggly Wiggly or raking the lawns of other people’s mansions. He deserves better than that. He deserves everything.
I think about how it would feel if I got the scholarship instead of him. I imagine getting the call or the email, and my heart clenches. Instead of feeling happy or excited I just feel sad. Guilty and undeserving.
It’s funny how I could want something so badly just a couple months ago, and now feel physically sick when I think about getting it. All I can think about is Zenn and how to give him a chance at his best future. If I wait to see who wins, it will be too late. If I win I won’t be able to just give it to him; there are rules against that kind of thing, though I doubt anyone has been stupid enough to win the scholarship and then give it away before. Even if I could, there’s no way in hell he would accept it. I know if things were reversed, I wouldn’t.
There is no good solution other than him winning the scholarship flat out, and there’s no way for me to make sure that happens. But there is a way for me to increase the odds.
Two days after my interview with Stephanie Rayner, I send her an email to withdraw my application. I’m not sure how I’ve become this kind of girl — the kind of girl who ignores her friends or lies to her family or gives up her dream for a boy. A part of me hates that girl.
But a part of me is proud of her because I’m not sure I’ve ever done a truly selfless thing in my whole life. I help my parents because I’m a decent kid and I love my brothers and sisters. I do philanthropic work through church and school because it’s all arranged for me, and it looks good on college applications. But truly selfless, generous acts? I can’t think of any. Until now.
It almost feels like I need to do this as much for me as for him, like maybe this is what love feels like. Like maybe this is what growing up feels like.
Chapter 34
Although Zenn has been coming to school, it’s been snowing a lot and during his non–school hours he’s been shoveling sidewalks for the landscaping company. We haven’t seen much of each other and every single part of me misses him. He does drive me home from school today and pulls over before he gets to my house so we can make out for a couple of minutes before he has to rush off. It almost makes it worse, though, to have a taste of him and then have it taken away. His truck windows are a little steamy and the snow is coming down hard when he drops me off. He doesn’t come in — he doesn’t really have time, and the minivan is in the driveway. We’re actively trying to keep him away from my mom.
When I walk in the house, my lips still swollen from his kisses, my mom is waiting for me at the kitchen table. The house is silent, which is creepy and unusual.
“Where are the kids?” I ask, plopping my backpack onto an empty chair.
“They’re at Bethany’s.”
I nod and try not to look panicked. Bethany is a neighbor my mom only uses in desperate circumstances. Something is going down here.
She doesn’t beat around the bush. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”
A knot of anxiety twists in my stomach. She’s not smiling. She’s not happy. She knows I sabotaged myself, somehow. She’s going to give me a big-ass speech about giving up a hundred thousand dollars for a boy.
“How could you …” she starts, but doesn’t finish her sentence. She’s barely holding it together, her jaw clenched, her hands folded tightly in some sort of prayer under the table.
I don’t confess to anything yet. Teenager 101: never offer up more than you need to.
She rubs her forehead with her fingertips. “You know, don’t you?”
Wait. What? Know what?
“Who Zenn’s father is?”
It’s not about me giving up the scholarship. I try to keep my face neutral, which is nearly impossible.
She studies me for a moment. I look away.
This is it. The end of the line. I think about playing dumb, but I am a smart girl. Nearly a genius on some levels. I don’t think I can get away with that.
I nod, just barely.
My mom’s head drops, her shoulders sag.
“Eva.” Her voice is pained.
“I know, Mom. It’s messed up. But ... we didn’t know at first.”
“But you do now. You’ve known for a while now, haven’t you?”
I want to ask her how she found out, but there are too many ways. Fuzzy memories that became clearer, Google searches, a connection between a last name and an old newspaper article, Zenn’s vaguely exotic looks reminding her of an old mug shot. Who knows? There are a million ways she could have found out. Most likely she just looked, like I did. She may not be my mother by birth, but she’s still my aunt and we share some of the same curiosity genes.
“It doesn’t matter to you? That his father killed your parents?” I can tell it is taking everything to keep her voice calm.
“Zenn had nothing to do with it, Mom. He wasn’t even born yet.”
“His father killed my sister!”
“It was an accident,” I offer weakly.
“He drove drunk! He chose to drive drunk! That’s not an accident. It’s murder with a car!”
I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm and rational, trying to see this from her point of view. But I can’t. I think of Zenn growing up without a dad. I think of Michael’s sad eyes. His jacket. The fractal.
“He spent eighteen years in jail, Mom. Zenn’s life has been totally screwed up because of that accident.”
My mom looks at me incredulously and I realize I’ve said exactly the wrong thing.