Page 27 of Guess Again
Callie slipped her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans and quietly twisted the handle on her bedroom door. Her mother’s door was closed, and she saw the blue light of the television seeping from underneath it. Her mother and Damien were watching television in bed—their nightly ritual.
She closed her door and snuck down the stairs. She tried to make it past the family room without her sister noticing, but didn’t make it. Her younger sister was an up-and-coming volleyball star. Jaycee Jones was about to join the Cherryview girls’ volleyball team as a freshman, and her skills were rumored to rival Callie’s. There had always been a fair amount of jealousy, disguised as competitiveness, between the two sisters, and their relationship was hit or miss.
“Where are you going?” Jaycee asked.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“Just out. I need to get out of the house for a little while.”
“Mom said you got accepted to the DIRECT program.”
“Yeah. My acceptance letter came today.”
“Nice!”
“Thanks,” Callie said.
Today, their sister rivalry took a backseat, and Jaycee’s excitement was the first bit of genuine emotion Callie had felt about the news.
“If mom wakes up or comes down, don’t tell her I left. Okay?”
Jaycee waved. “If you get caught, leave me out of it.”
Callie said nothing more before slipping out the back door. She hurried through the night, her insides ready to explode. When she reached the park at the end of her street, she saw a car in the lot with its headlights on. She walked over and climbed into the passenger seat.
“Thanks for doing this, Coach.”
Blake Cordis smiled. “When one of my players needs me, I’m always there for them. Especially you, Callie.”
They drove the quiet streets of Cherryview for thirty minutes and then up to the bluff that rose above the south end of Lake Okoboji, where Callie’s house sat on the shoreline. Blake pulled his car into a secluded spot but kept the engine running so that the air conditioning could fight against the muggy summer night. A nearly full moon laid a silvery glow onto the surface of the water below. The Crest, an island in the middle of the lake that held a popular restaurant for boaters and two sand volleyball courts where Callie and Lindsay often played, was visible in the distance.
“I heard from University of Cincinnati,” Callie finally said.
“You did? And?”
She forced a smile. “I got in.”
“To the dual program?”
Callie nodded.
“Congratulations. That’s a big deal!”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Tell me what it is again. It’s a direct-to-medical school program, right?”
Another nod. “So I would basically do my normal four years of undergrad. But they would be heavily focused on science courses. You know, bio and chem and physiology. I wouldn’t take any of the elective courses. Then, after four years I go straight into the medical school at Cinci. The next eight years of my life, all planned out and wrapped up like a pretty little present placed under the Christmas tree.”
“Wow, Callie. That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, it’s . . . you know. It is what it is.”
Blake cocked his head. “You don’t seem as excited as I would expect.”
“I know it’s a big deal and it’s ultracompetitive and there are only a few spots in the whole country and I should be super excited, but . . .”
