by Molly E. Lee
The last of their conversation was muffled as the door closed. Anger sizzled in my chest, but I took a deep breath to steady myself. I had half hoped that on the last day of school, the rumor mill would be closed. I mean, damn. It was bad enough I’d had to hear crap like that for years, but today? Graduation? Didn’t they have anything more interesting to talk about?
I finished my business and washed my hands at the sink, jerking the paper towels out of the holder a little harder than necessary. I’d worked on that app for months, and never once did I ask a tech for help. Not even at my father’s company. And now it was free for everyone to download—it was a program that streamlined the studying experience. Log in, type what subject of study you’re currently working on, and an algorithm puts together a special playlist that is scientifically proven to help you remember what you read.
It resulted in hours, weeks, months of hard work, research, and legal hoops to jump through to get to completion. Screw anyone who said the thing wasn’t bred out of my sweat and sacrifice. I wasn’t taking a single dime, wasn’t running ads on the app. It was solely out of my love of academics and the art of downloading information into your brain on every sensory level.
And it was what had won me the scholarship in the end, though I knew Gordon’s program had helped increase his father’s profit margins because he’d told me once in one of our post-competition conversations. I totally enjoyed those—win or lose—because he was always such a challenge. If I beat him at everything, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun to compete.
Now that high school was officially over, that was in the past—well, except for the internship. While I was desperate to earn it, a small part of me hoped he would win this round to make us even. Luckily, the interview processes were over and it was totally out of either of our hands now. Only things pending were background checks and their decision. Nothing more to worry about on that front.
Happy with that assessment, I made my way back to my locker, and glanced down at my cell as it vibrated. A new wave of tension tightened my airways as I swiped the screen.
“Dad,” I answered. “I’ve got exactly two minutes and ninety seconds before I’m due in the auditorium.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m calling to say your mother and I won’t be able to make it there. We were called in to the office. Sorry, pumpkin.”
“You own the company. How can you get called in?” My heart sank, but I held my spine straight. The Handlers didn’t cry. The Handlers kept their chin—and often their noses—held high. A little too high for my liking.
“Curse of running the most successful family organic products company on the west coast, pumpkin. We’ve both heard you practice your valedictorian speech a dozen times. It’s elegant and inspiring.”
And it will be my one shot at quashing the rumor mill. Elegantly, of course. I’d been practicing for weeks, before I knew if I’d been selected.
I’d already seen tons of parents filing into the auditorium—the ones who showed up early to get the best seats like Braylen’s mom. At least she’d be here to see me. She always was. That woman was like my surrogate mother, always shoving brownies in my face and giving me those goofy thumbs-up that made Braylen’s cheeks turn red but I secretly cherished.
“I got the scholarship,” I blurted out instead of telling him how disappointed I was that he wouldn’t be here.
“Wonderful. Knew you would.” He cleared his throat, the sound of squeaking leather coming over the line like he was getting out of his car. “Now that you’ve done it, can we put this whole summer internship business to bed?”
I scoffed. “No.”
“Zoey,” he chided. “Don’t you think you’ve proven yourself enough?”
Not even close. “Dad, students would kill to be in the position I am for this internship. They’ve narrowed it down to me and one other candidate. I’m not pulling out now.”
“Your place is with us, at our company. Not fetching coffee for some VP half my age.”
I sighed. The argument never ended. He wanted me to take over the business when he retired, and while I wasn’t opposed to the idea, I was beyond sick and tired of hearing the snide comments behind my back that had followed me for years. The ones where the other kids thought I only ever achieved anything because of my father’s name, or that he threw money at it—just like the girls in the bathroom.
It was utter BS. I never asked my father for anything. I did everything alone. Even my own friends didn’t understand why I worked so hard. Why I chose to study or work or volunteer over going to parties and getting drunk.
Not that a drink didn’t sound downright delightful right now. That would make for an interesting speech.
I jolted, glancing at the time.
“I have to go,” I said and hung up without a goodbye. The argument over the internship could take hours and would end the same way it always did, with one of us leaving the room or the house in order to avoid the other. We never saw eye to eye on it. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to work part time at Handler Organix right away, and I couldn’t understand how he was blind to my need to earn a coveted position on my own. To experience something outside of the family business before I had to take it over.
I smoothed my hair down as I walked into the auditorium, hurrying backstage to wait until it was our turn to take the front. Butterflies flapped in my stomach. It didn’t matter that I’d spoken to my class a hundred times in the past four years, this was the big moment. The one I’d worked tirelessly for, the speech to end all speeches. The one that would hopefully inspire my senior class to take advantage of the future and squeeze out every ounce of life possible, as well as put to bed every snide comment ever said about me behind my back.
After the principal, football coach, and Mrs. Rollins had spoken their two cents, it was time. I took my seat to the right of the podium as Gordon sauntered across the stage. Heat flushed my cheeks as he adjusted his suit jacket, showing the pop of lavender—my favorite color—of the button-up shirt beneath it. He’d always been in my life, the best adversary a girl could ever want. He challenged me to do better, push harder, work longer. If I didn’t, I would’ve lost to him 95 percent of the time instead of the dead 50 percent it was now. Hell, I was worried about losing the internship spot to him. I may have won the scholarship, but hopefully he could see the role he played in getting me there.
“As salutatorian,” Gordon said into the microphone, “it is my duty to fully expose to my fellow students…Hampton Eagles, Class of 2017…the true nature of our valedictorian, Zoey Handler, in all her unforgiving glory.”
Something twisted my muscles. Did he just say unforgiving?
“Zoey. What can one really say about her?” he continued. “She’s perfect. You can’t ever say the girl isn’t perfect. Never late to class. Never missed a class. Never gives up. Never lets anyone else have their shot…”
Omigod.
I crossed one leg over the other, glancing at the stage floor. This couldn’t be happening.
“It’s not enough that she’s got an in with one of the largest companies on the west coast, she has to go farther than that. Bigger. Zoey will never settle for easy. You have to give her that. She wants the hard win and will work her butt off to get it, too. No matter who she has to step on in the process.” He flashed those brown eyes toward me, and I crossed my arms to try to stop them from shaking. “So, congratulations, Zoey.” He raised a hand toward me. “You truly are, and will always be, the best of us.”
All the air went out of my lungs, and a flush raked over my skin. My stomach churned as everyone in the audience clapped like he’d complimented me instead of flayed me to the bone. How could they not see that? Sure, he’d had a playful tone, but it wasn’t friendly jabbing. He was hurt, and he took it out on me in front of the entire class and their families. The words he used—he may as well have been the president of the four-years-running nasty rumor club.
Zoey Handler, the spoiled rich girl who ge
ts whatever she wants. Nothing could be further from the truth, and honestly, I thought Gordon knew me better than that. He at least saw how hard I worked for everything, even when it came to besting him. I knew that much from the times he’d be gentle when giving Branch back to me after he’d beaten me. He knew the sting of losing, especially when you worked as hard as we did.
My calves felt like rubber as I forced myself out of my chair and toward the podium. I couldn’t look at Gordon as I passed him; the sting of tears was too close. How could he think I’d stolen something from him? I hadn’t thought I’d done enough until Mrs. Rollins told me I’d been awarded the scholarship. Instead, Gordon had taken my victory as a personal attack on him. Not a matter of an academic board’s decision.
The notecards trembled beneath my fingers as the elation at earning something on my own crumbled. I scanned the audience, the expectant faces awaiting my speech. The words blurred on the lines—words I knew by heart—but in that moment, my heart wasn’t functioning properly. I felt awful and wretched, like some big monopoly man who liked to shit on the little guy.
That’s not me.
“Hampton Eagles, class of 2017.” I forced the words out, but my voice cracked on the loudspeaker from the mic under my mouth. “Good luck.” I managed to choke the words out before I rushed backstage.
The sound of stuttered applause clapped through the thick curtain that shielded me, and once I made sure no one else remained backstage, I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I sank into an empty chair.
I earned this.
I repeated the mantra over and over as I demanded my senses to get ahold of themselves. I was not this girl. I didn’t cry when I lost. I didn’t cry when things fell apart. I planned. I strategized. I found ways to work the problem.
Right now, that problem was Gordon effin’ Meyers.
When had he not been the problem? The one boy who could actually hack it with me had just stripped me clean in front of the entire senior class. He’d painted a picture that brought a decade’s worth of rumors to the spotlight, and not one of them was true.
And I hated him for it.
I sucked in a sharp breath, swiping the tears beneath my eyes, and smoothed down my hair. My spine straight, my chin high, I nodded to myself.
Work the problem.
An idea hatched in my mind, the pieces of the ultimate revenge coming together like the most beautifully twisted puzzle. He’d pay for robbing me of this moment—the moment I’d worked years for. He’d pay for making me feel no better than the rumors that had followed me my entire life.
He’d pay.
And I’d become exactly who he painted me to be. I’d step on him, and take the internship away from him by any means necessary.
I mean, why not? He already said I did as much anyway. If people wanted to believe that about me—if he of all people believed it—I may as well live up to the image.
Chapter Three
Gordon
The bell chimed over the glass door when I pushed through it, and the sound echoed louder in my head than it had this morning. There was a finality to it that made me physically ill.
Half my dad’s shop was filled with the senior class shoving their faces full of today’s special. Chatting, high-fiving, laughing, celebrating the newfound freedom from graduation. They had no cares in the world, only bright, sparkling futures to ride off toward.
At least when I thought about going to Stanford, I knew the shop would be all right. That it would always be here when I got back. My dad would be fine because he’d be doing what he loved. What he and my mother had started back when she was alive. Before the cancer took her.
Now?
Now this could be one of the last times I ever saw the place operational. One of the last times that I did the rounds, checking the functionality of the equipment, sliding on an apron to help Dad push out orders, fixing that damn cash register that continued to break no matter how many times I repaired it.
I moved through the tables until I found myself in the kitchen, watching my father hustle in front of the stove, whistling while he did. The smells of fresh produce and fried food mixed together in a chaotic way that somehow worked together. The familiar smells, sounds, and setting filled my lungs with desperately needed air.
Hank had robbed my father of his life’s dream. His passion, and yet, here he was, humming a tune as he cranked out orders, the same gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he worked. As if this was any other day. He wasn’t off making grand embarrassing speeches to get back at Hank or phoning in the day and closing up the shop early. No, he was here, doing what he did best.
God, I’m such an asshat.
I rubbed my palms over my face, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck. The rage-red clouds that had filled my head cleared, and dread snaked through my veins.
Zoey.
I’d humiliated her on purpose. Selfishly. Yes, she’d lied to me. But I blamed her for whatever I had lacked in order to be denied the scholarship. I blamed her because I needed someone, something to take on the shittiness of this epically shitty day.
Ass. Hat.
“Pass me that red onion, will you, son?” Dad asked, pointing to a basket filled with them. I scooped one out and tossed it to him. He caught it, instantly dicing it up and throwing it into a sauté pan. “These kids are ravenous today!” he said over the hissing in the pan. “Graduation will do that to you, I suppose.” He smiled, spinning the spatula in his hand. “Tell me,” Dad said, keeping his eyes trained on the food. “Did you get it?”
My gut twisted, the smells in the kitchen suddenly not so comforting. I rubbed the back of my neck, the words frozen in my throat.
He spared me a glance. “Gordon?”
I shook my head. “It was close, Dad,” I said, the words Mrs. Rollins spoke only now registering in my head. “My counselor said it isn’t the end. And I have the internship pending, too.”
His shoulders sank for a moment, the pride and brightness in his eyes cracking. Damn. I didn’t want to put this on him. Not now. “Does the internship offer scholarships, too?” he asked, returning to the food.
“Sometimes,” I said, nodding. “It depends on how they feel about your potential when the summer is over.”
“Well,” he said, sliding the grilled red onion on top of an upside-down butter-toasted bun. “They’d be crazy not to pick you. And they’ll know after a week of watching you work that there is no one better, and no one who deserves more to go to the college of his dreams. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”
I mustered up a half smile and patted him on the back. “Thanks, Dad.”
Stacy—our one and only waitress—popped into the kitchen to pick up the orders Dad had just assembled. He smiled at her, and she took the baskets of food with a swing in her step.
She didn’t know yet, and somehow, I hated that Dad would have to go through the process of telling her. She’d worked for us for over two years now, and I might be biased, but Dad was the best boss on the planet. She’d be devastated she’d have to find another job. Maybe Mr. Handler would hire her as a barista in his new coffee shop.
“Come here a second, son,” he said after the kitchen door had swung closed. He wiped his hands on his stained apron, walking toward the back of the kitchen. He reached up and grabbed an envelope from the top shelf where he kept his coveted cookbooks—Mastering the Art of French Cooking, White Heat, and Joy of Cooking. Sometimes Dad would get in a funk with his own menu and flip through the pages of his favorite titles in order to reignite the passion. Of course, Hank had always kept him under strict rules, placing him in a box, since he’d controlled most of the money. I always wondered what it’d be like when Dad could buy out of the partnership, and finally switch up his menus as often as he wanted.
Another crash of heat rolled the acid in my stomach. Dad deserved better than this.
“It isn’t much,” Dad said, fingering the envelope before he hande
d it to me. “But we saved as much as we could.”
I scrunched my eyebrows at him before tearing into the paper. I pulled out the check that laid inside and choked when I saw the numbers. “Five-thousand dollars?”
Dad chewed on his lip for a second before shrugging, something like real physical pain flashing across his features. “I’m sorry it isn’t more, kid. I know that won’t make a dent at Stanford, but maybe if you pair it with something Mrs. Rollins finds for you…I don’t know.” He sighed. “Maybe it’ll get you a couple of semesters’ worth of books?”
I stood there speechless, my jaw opening and closing over and over before I finally wrapped my arms around him. “How did you… I mean… Dad.” All the words I wanted to say clogged in my throat, choking my airways and pinching the back of my eyes with tears I wouldn’t dare let drop.
Dad smacked my back a few times before he let me go. “Your mother,” he said, pointing to the check. “She made me stick that away after the first year we made a profit with this place.” He glanced around the kitchen, his eyes glazing like he was going back in time. “I argued with her over it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Said you weren’t even old enough for us to be thinking about college yet, but she won. She always won.” He sighed. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to start saving for you…it was just a rough year. It’d been a rough five years. We’d sunk everything we had into this restaurant, and we were barely scraping by. I remember a few months when we couldn’t even afford diapers.” He glanced downward, shaking his head. “We had to experiment with cloth diapers, and let me tell you, son, that was not fun.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice a whisper. I’d heard the stories before, knew the struggles my parents went through to take their dream into their own hands, but it was different hearing them while holding a check.
“Don’t be.” He clamped his hand on my shoulder, pointing to the money. “That should be more. If the hospital bills hadn’t taken most of what we had…and then Hank…” His eyes turned to slits before he smoothed out his face. “I feel like I’m letting you down.”
