Chapter 4

Antonia lunged for the phone.

"It's not what you think."

I stepped back out of her reach.

"Then what is it?"

"That night Dale had me pull the admissions data for Southbay. I thought he only wanted to reorder the choices."

"Delete what?"

Her lips moved. Nothing came out.

Dale planted himself in front of her.

"Come at me."

Even now, he was still shielding her.

I took out the printed forgery of the screenshots.

"You said the system crashed."

"Then where's the submission record?"

"Why does this screenshot have no confirmation receipt?"

The whole table went dead silent.

Dale dragged me out of the private room.

"We'll talk at the hotel."

"Right here."

"Sadie, don't push me."

"Am I the one who pushed you to change my applications? Or to lie to me?"

I slapped the printouts against his chest.

The pages scattered across the floor.

"Dale, I want the truth."

He stared at me for a long time, then finally let go, leaned against the wall, and lit a cigarette.

"I changed them."

Four light words, wiping out six years of everything I'd held on to.

"Why?"

"Your scores weren't stable."

"I was thirteen points over Southbay's cutoff for the program."

"Over it last year doesn't mean you'd definitely get in this year."

"So you made Rutherford my first choice?"

"They offered you a two-hundred-thousand scholarship, and their applied meteorology is a state-key program."

Dale blew out a stream of smoke.

"Going to Southbay might not have worked out better for you than staying in Rutherford."

"Then why didn't you go to Rutherford?"

He looked away.

"Antonia needs me."

"You need me too."

I laughed out loud.

"So you go to Easton to keep her company, I graduate and join your family's company, and then I marry you?"

"What's wrong with that?"

Dale's voice shot up all at once.

"The job, the wedding house, I've prepared all of it for you."

"We marry the moment you graduate, and I take care of you for the rest of your life."

"People beg for a life like that and never get it. Why do you have to make trouble?"

School, work, marriage. He had arranged all of it long ago.

He'd just never once asked whether I wanted any of it.

"What you're afraid of isn't me failing the exam."

I looked at him.

"You're afraid that if I really went to Southbay, I wouldn't need you anymore."

His pupils tightened all at once.

After a moment, he actually admitted it.

"That's right."

"I just didn't want you to go."

"You'd meet new classmates, new professors, people better than me. Would there still be room for me in your eyes?"

Dale stubbed out the cigarette and laid his hand against my face.

"Sadie, I only wanted to keep you close."

"And Antonia?"

"She's different."

"Do you love her?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"I can't stand to see her suffer."

"But the one I love is you, and the one I'm going to marry is you."

His gaze went so deep it was almost tender.

"When Antonia comes to me, I go soft."

"But as long as you turn back, I'll always be here."

"I've given you the place of my wife. Why do you have to force me to cut her off completely?"

I looked at this face I'd loved for seventeen years, and all at once the anger was gone.

"I don't want it anymore."

Dale's hand froze in midair.

"What?"

"You. The place as your wife. The future you planned."

"I don't want any of it anymore."

His eyes darkened.

"There's a limit to how much of a tantrum you can throw."

I turned to pick up my mother's manual.

But Antonia clutched the project bag to her chest.

"Dale already agreed to lend it to me."

"Give it back."

I reached out to grab it.

In the struggle, the project bag hit the floor hard, and Antonia's thermos, its lid never screwed tight, rolled out.

Scalding coffee poured straight into the manual.

I dropped to my knees to save it.

Antonia scrambled for tissues.

The waterlogged pages tore down the middle with a rip.

My mother's handwriting bled fast into a blur.

The photo tucked inside soaked through too.

It was the last picture of my mother and me together.

Antonia apologized, her eyes red: "I didn't mean to..."

I raised my hand to slap her.

Dale seized my wrist.

"Enough, she already apologized!"

"Let go."

"If it's ruined, I'll find someone to fix it."

"She can't breathe right now. Do you have to push her until something happens?"

"That's what my mother left me!"

Dale's voice rose too.

"She's been dead for six years!"

"Are a few pages of paper worth more than a living person?"

The hallway went completely still.

Dale seemed to realize he'd said the wrong thing; his face shifted slightly.

"Sadie, I didn't mean it like that."

He crouched down to gather up the manual.

I knocked his hand away.

"Don't touch it."

Antonia suddenly clutched her chest and slid down the wall.

"Dale, I can't breathe..."

Dale rushed over on reflex and pulled her into his arms.

I asked him: "If you leave with her today, we're finished."

His jaw clenched all at once.

In the end, he still lifted Antonia up.

As he passed me, he lowered his voice: "Don't try to scare me with a breakup."

"Wait for me at the hotel. I'll come make it up to you tonight."

I didn't go after him.

I only knelt there among the spreading stains, gathering my mother's ruined manual back together, page by page.

That night, I got on the train back to Rutherford.

As the car pulled out, I filed a formal named appeal with the state examinations board.

My father reported it to the local police and applied to have the electronic evidence preserved.

I turned off location sharing, canceled the family phone plan, and changed the number I'd used for six years.

At two in the morning, Dale swiped his way into the hotel room, a strawberry cake in hand.

The room was empty.

On the table sat only the crane-and-moon necklace, and the receipt for the canceled phone plan.

In our shared photo album, all two thousand three hundred and seventeen photos had been wiped clean.

By the time he reached the station, the last southbound train had already left.

The wind on the platform flipped the cake box over.

The cream spilled across the ground.

His phone suddenly buzzed.

In his inbox, a scheduled copy had just arrived.

【Formal Named Appeal Concerning Dale Stephens and Antonia Winfield for Suspected Identity Fraud in Altering College Applications】

Footsteps came from behind him.

Antonia had chased after him, her phone screen still lit.

In the chat window was a line she'd sent a friend half an hour earlier.

【Sadie's finally gone.】

Dale read that line three times.

When he looked up again, there wasn't the slightest trace of pity left in his eyes.

"So from the very beginning, you were waiting for her to leave?"

For the first time, the tears on Antonia's face bought her none of his softness.