I’d gotten perfect grades in everything except gym, which was the expected A-minus.
Perfect exam scores.
Mr. Abernathy, who was also our homeroom teacher, handed me my twenty-five-page paper. There were a few notes in the margins, but at the end, he’d written I’m proud of you, Nora. And the grade—an A.
“Nora Stuart, please, come to the office,” said the school secretary’s voice over the PA. “Nora Stuart, to the office, please.”
I had a phone call—the admissions officer from Tufts, congratulating me, telling me they looked forward to seeing me at Accepted Students Day and how well all of the Perez Scholars had done. They had no doubt I would do the same.
It was really happening.
At lunch, rather than risk the cafeteria, where supervision was thin, I power walked down to the hotel, where my mother worked. “Mom, I got it!” I said, bursting into her office, sweat trickling down my back, thighs stinging from chafing the whole way there.
“Got what, Nora?” She looked up expectantly from her desk.
My God. She didn’t know, because I hadn’t told her. This whole semester, and I had never told her I was ranked second in our class.
“The Perez Scholarship. I’m going to Tufts.” I started to cry. “They called me. Tufts. I got in, and Dr. Perez is paying for everything.”
Her mouth opened, then shut. “Is that right?”
“Yes. I have the highest GPA at my school.”
“Oh, Nora!” She got up and gave me an awkward hug. “Good girl. You’ve always been a hard worker. I’m proud of you.” She paused. “Well. You’d best get back to school, hadn’t you?”
So that was it for celebration. It didn’t matter. I was leaving this hellish little place, just like my father. And maybe, once off island, he’d find me. Okay, that was far-fetched, but anything was possible today.
I walked back to school, hoping this wasn’t a dream. I would make the most of it. I’d become a doctor. I’d reinvent myself, lose weight, have fun, maybe even have a boyfriend. I’d sit in the front of every class and raise my hand and not be shy about being smart. I’d introduce myself to my professors on the first day, and—
“Think you’re hot shit, huh?”
It was Luke, waiting for me with his gang in front of the school. The cold wind gusted, cutting through my puffy winter coat.
“Hi,” I said, my eyes darting around.
“Hi,” he mocked in a whiny voice. “Don’t say hi to me, fat ass. That scholarship was mine.”
“Apparently not.” Seemed my confidence had been given a boost.
“You cheated, didn’t you? I don’t know how, but you cheated.”
“I studied, Luke.” My cheeks started to burn.
“I studied, Luke,” echoed Joey Behring.
“You know what?” Luke said, a snarl twisting his face. “You might have won that scholarship, but you’re never gonna be anything other than a troll. You know that, don’t you, Nora?”
“Leave her alone,” someone said. It was Sullivan.
“Fuck you,” Luke said. He came closer to me and poked me in the chest, hard, even through the down. “You’re a troll. You’re fat, you’re ugly, and everyone hates you. Even your sister.”
I flinched. Alcohol made his breath sweet and sickly. I tried to go around him, but he wouldn’t let me pass.
“You scared? You should be.”
“Luke, knock it off.” Sully’s voice was harder now.
Luke failed to comply. “You better watch out, Nora. Something shitty might happen to you. You might get fucked-up. Bad things happen when guys get pissed off. I think you know what I’m saying, right?”
I did. Rape. Assault.
Worse.
“Luke, get out of here,” Sullivan said, coming up to his brother. “She won fair and square. Leave her alone.”
“Where the fuck is your loyalty?”
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Abernathy, thank God, was coming in from the parking lot. “Get inside, kids.”
“Fuck you,” Luke said.
“And you’re suspended,” Mr. A said. “Nora, you okay? Come on, dear.”
“Watch yourself, Nora,” Luke called. “You never know what could happen.”
Mr. Abernathy stopped dead. “I’m attributing this to your deep disappointment over not winning the scholarship, Luke. Threaten her again, and I’ll make sure you’re arrested.”
And then, horribly, Luke began to cry. “She cheated. I don’t know how, but she did. You did, Nora. You know it.”
Guilt twisted and flailed inside me, but it didn’t get past the hardness. I’d won. Luke could’ve done that assignment, and he chose not to. So fuck him. Let him cry. I’d cried plenty, and no one cared about that.
Sully went to his brother, put an arm around his shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s take the rest of the day off, go over to Portland, okay?” He looked back at us. “Mr. A, could you tell the office?”
“Sure thing, Sullivan.”
Sully’s eyes stopped on me for a second, and I thought he was going to say something.
He didn’t. Mr. Abernathy walked me inside, clucking about the passions of teenagers.
* * *
Sullivan and Luke Fletcher did go to Portland that afternoon. They stayed at a hotel and Luke used a fake ID to rent a car.
At three in the morning, driving home from an all-night diner, the boys were in a car accident. It was a weird echo of my English class oral presentation, but in this version, the real version, Luke was the driver. He’d also snorted coke and had an alcohol level twice the legal limit. The boys had been doing more than eighty when they went off the road, bounced along the ditch for fifty yards and then hit a tree.
Luke was fine.
Sullivan sustained a head injury. He was in a coma. We were asked to pray for him.
This was all told to us two days after the Perez Scholarship was announced, the second assembly of the week. Amy Beckman wasn’t in school. The Cheetos were sobbing. One fainted. The soccer team was crying, as were several teachers.
Sully was well liked.
I thought about how he’d stuck up for me. Took his brother out of town for me.
I stared at the floor, feeling the hot, sharp hatred of the student body slicing into me like arrows. This was my fault, they thought. Of course, they did. I stole the scholarship.
I sort of had.
Never had I felt so alone. As the assembly ended, someone spit into my hair. A boy kicked my chair. I got an elbow to the head.
Rather than going back to class, I went outside, not even bothering with my coat or backpack. Walked the four miles home in the raw, damp weather, the wind making my ears burn with pain, pushing tears back into my hair.
The second I walked through the door, I picked up the phone and called Tufts. I had enough credits to graduate; would it be okay with them if I started classes this semester?
It was. The Scupper High guidance counselor, who’d ignored me for three and a half years, said she thought it was a good idea when I called her, too. She contacted Dr. Perez, and that was that.
And so, without a lot of fanfare, I left Scupper Island three weeks later, taking the Boston ferry with a suitcase and two boxes of my belongings. My mother and I stopped at a department store and bought supplies—that white comforter, the throw pillows, the whole lot, putting it all on the credit card Perez scholars were given.