جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 14

My younger cousin had just started her freshman year of high school. Her grades were good; she was just careless sometimes.When she saw me pull a stack of notebooks off the bookshelf, her eyes lit up."Are those all your notes?""Yeah." I carried the stack over to her. "Do you want them?"She stared at me. "All of them?"I nodded. "I won't need my high school notes anymore. There are topic summaries and problems I got wrong in there. Just use whatever helps."She looked ready to throw her arms around me."Zoe, you're literally my hero!"I laughed.Those notebooks had once meant a lot to me, especially a few of them. Every problem, every mark I'd made had once had something to do with Yale.Now I placed them into the box one by one, as if I were packing away those feelings with them.The next day, I left for Capital University.College kept me busy. Classes, clubs, the library, my part-time job. I met new roommates and plenty of people who were every bit as accomplished as the students

"I only found out later."I wanted to call you."But I didn't have your number."I stared at him.It suddenly occurred to me that after three years as classmates, Yale and I had never actually exchanged phone numbers.Even at our closest, all we'd ever had were notebooks passed back and forth between the desk in front and the one behind it.We'd never even had a reason to contact each other that we could openly admit to.Yale went on. "I applied to a school in Capital City.""What?""A university near Capital University."He paused, looking slightly uncomfortable."My score wasn't high enough for Capital."But it's close to you."My chest suddenly ached."Weren't you trying to get into Southern University?"Yale frowned. "Who told you that?"I looked at him.Something seemed to click, and his expression cooled."That post?"I didn't answer.After a moment, he said, "I was looking up Southern University because you kept putting together information about it around that time.""I thought