✸ ANYONE ELSE chapter twenty-seven ━━ that's your dream!
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IN THE END, the four boys were ahead. It turned out that Skye (and Cam, although he wasn't as good as them) had a talent at dancing. They won Belly's team a point, and so did Belly when she beat Conrad at Shoot Your Shot.
That meant that the boys were forward one point. That didn't matter though, as the last challenge, the Finale, was worth two points. Whoever won the go-kart race would win the whole competition.
Julie and Steven had decided to be judges, as each team only had space for three contestants and Julie was absolutely terrible at driving go-karts.
Nobody had asked Steven whether he was alright with skipping the race—he used to love driving in the small cars—but nobody seemed to think that it was necessary as he looked pretty content next to the blonde.
"3, 2, 1," Steven counted down, holding the flag high up in the air. "Go!" He shouted.
The four go-karts (Jeremiah was sharing with Cam and Taylor with Skye) started upon his start shout, and soon enough they were out of the two (ex?)lovers sight.
"I hope they don't crash," Julie commented as she sat herself on a bench to wait for them to drive a whole round.
"I think you're the only one in the world who's able to crash a freaking go-kart." He laughed at her make pretend glare. "That shit is easy to drive."
"Yeah, super easy," she agreed sarcastically.
Steven didn't get a chance to make further fun of her, because the others came around for their first round. Julie sprung to her feet to cheer on Taylor and Skye as they rounded the corner as the last ones.
Steven cheered on the boys too but silence fell upon the two once again the two as soon as the cars where out of their sight.
"Congrats on getting into Princeton, by the way," Julie smiled at him, and he felt like his whole world was getting better. She hadn't smiled at him for way too long.
"Oh, yeah, thank you," he sat on the bench next to her. "Did you get into any of the colleges you wanted?" He realised that he actually hadn't heard if she'd been accepted to any of the places she wanted to go to.
"Oh, um," she hesitated for a moment. "I got into Yale and Finch. Still haven't decided which one I'll choose..."
"Julie!" He turned to her with a surprised expression. "You got into Yale! That's your dream! Why are you considering Finch?" His eyes were wide as he almost shouted at her.
"You wouldn't understand." She replied.
"Try me. Maybe I can help you with whatever dilemma you have," he lifted his eyebrows as to ask why there even was an dilemma.
"Jere's going to Finch."
"And so what?" He asked. "The two of you never wanted to go to the same college."
"Sometimes I just feel like he's all I have left and if I leave then I'll lose him too." She brought her fingers to her mouth to bite her nails but decided against it in last moment and pulled a hand through her hair instead.
"You're not leaving him. It's an eleven hour drive, but so what? You can make time to see each other." He tried to smile reassuringly at her. "And for the record, he's not all you have left. You have Conrad. You have me and Belly and my mom. We're always here for you."
Just as she was about to reply, Conrad drove over the finish line and yelled out in victory. Belly was right behind him, and behind her came Cameron and Jeremiah. Last came Taylor and Skye, who looked glumly towards the boys.
"Guess we win, then," Jeremiah boasted.
They all began talking loudly among each other, unaware of the tense atmosphere that they had entered.
"You know what that mean Bells..." Conrad smirked.
Belly threw her hands over her eyes and groaned. "Oh no," she mumbled.
"The Tower of Terror!"
They all laughed at Jeremiah's shout, and soon they were making their way towards the ride that Belly would ride as her penalty.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
THE RIDE LOOKED way smaller than Julie remembered it. It wasn't at all as terrifying as it had been when she was twelve, but Belly seemed to have a different opinion.
She looked as frightened as Julie had done five years earlier, and Jeremiah took pity on her and offered to ride with her.
The rest of them stood on the ground and waited for them. Julie was in between Taylor and Cameron who were talking about something that she hadn't quite figured out yet. She wasn't really listening, so it wasn't a surprise that she was completely obvious when Taylor asked if she agreed.
She hastily nodded her head, but her mind was elsewhere. It was stuck on her conversation with Steven earlier. He was right in some way, but he didn't really understand it all.
Yale had been her dream. But it felt weird to live her dream without her mother there to see it. When she got the letter, her mother hadn't been there.
They had waited together for months, but it came a week after her death. Her mother never found out that she got into Yale, but Susannah was there when she got into Finch and it therefore felt more right to go there. It was hard to describe, but it seemed that nothing had been easy for her to describe in the last months.
✸ author's note ✸ i'm so sorry for the lack of updates, but i started school last week 😓😓
