Page 24 of No Way Home
“Doubtful,” I whispered. “But thanks, Abs.”
I typed in the address for UVA’s student information system, winced, and clicked anyway.
A whopping 53.
My head fell back and my stomach turned sour. Even with the most gracious curve, that couldn’t come out to more than a C. Tears pressed at the back of my eyelids because Abilene was right. Bye, bye med school.
I clicked on the answer key that was now available and sifted through the questions, looking for where I’d gone wrong. Med schools didn’t want Cs in Organic Chem—the weed-out class. They wanted perfect.
I calculated what I would have to get on every test for the remainder of the semester, feeling more defeated by the minute. How was I ever going to pull this up?
“You did that good, huh?”
My eyes flew open to see Kevin standing at the edge of my desk, gloating. Fine, he wasn’t gloating. Kevin was a really decent guy. But I swear, he could sniff out tears.
He gave me a sad smile. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”
“What did you get?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know,” he said evenly, without a trace of ego. “High enough to mess up the curve.”
I let my head fall forward, muttering, “Of course you did.” I swear, Kevin was actually an android. There was no other explanation for how he was so good ateverything. I looked at his arm, searching for a hidden button I could push to download his brain like an update.
He must’ve thought I was eyeing his Rolex because he took a step back. Kevin wasn’t born rich, but he definitely planned on dying that way. I suspected it was his entire reason for wanting to be a neurosurgeon. Lucky for him, he learned faster than the rest of us breathed, which left him with loads of free time for side hustles: Uber, online math tutorials, freelance coding.
His phone honked, like a clown car. Everyone knew that meant he had a potential Uber customer needing a ride.
He pulled it out to check the notification. “Gotta go. Chin up, Mag-netron. You’ll do better on the next one.” I watched him go, fake sobs shaking my whole body.
Kevin was practically perfect—in a platonic, annoyingly impressive sort of way. Perfect manners, perfect hair, perfect vocabulary. His only downside? He kept all that perfection to himself. Group study sessions? Nope. Said we slowed him down. And if it didn’t pay, Kevin didn’t play.
As he bounded out, the helplessness hit hard. I thought of the rest of my class, probably scattered across campus, feeling the same crushing despair. How in the world were we going to pass Dr. Voss’s gauntlet of intellectual torture devices disguised as exams?
Another text came through on my phone.
Dad
?
I sighed, picked it up, and lied.
The grades aren’t up yet.
Then I texted Abilene.
53 Save some Americone for me.
I gathered my things and left. As I walked across campus, not even the falling leaves or the smell of a bonfire in the distance could cheer me up. And when I got to my car, there was a piece of paper tucked under my wipers. Great. I could add attempted kidnapping to my list of Crappy Things That Happened Today.
My dad had just sent me a reel with different strategies attackers use to incapacitate a woman as she gets into her car. Leaving something for you to pick up and lacing it with chemicals that knock you out was the first one.
In all seriousness, it was probably just a flier for a campus event like Serendipity Night. But a single woman walking alone after dark could never be too careful. So I pulled out my pepper spray and, with a finger on the trigger, crouched down to make sure there was no one under my car waiting to attack me.
Schew. The coast was clear.
Three girls were walking up the sidewalk, and a family of four was riding bikes down the street, headed in my direction. So I lifted the wiper and took the paper.
Oh, it was cardstock. Definitely not a flier. I flipped it over and nearly forgot how to breathe.
