Broken

Chapter 60

"Adelaide, I don't think this is a smart idea."

I clenched the back of the chair, my jaw setting determination. Harry's shirt hung from my body and my heart pounded wildly in my chest, adrenaline rushing through my veins, my legs aching from sprinting so fast so far.

"Listen Cal," I said, clearing my throat and rounding the chair, plopping down on the plush material. I pushed my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my left ear. "I'm not here to know if it's smart, I'm here to know if it's possible."

Cal leaned back in his chair slightly, folding his fingers, his cool eyes regarding me closely as he tapped a finger against his lips. He shifted and rolled closer to his desk, folding his hands under his chin as his elbows rested on the surface of the large desk.

"You know, honestly something like this hasn't ever happened in my history of being here." he said. "I've looked over her grades and some of her work and yes I agree, she does deserve something like this."

I nodded quickly. "That's why I wanted it to be her specifically."

He squinted. "You do know what you're giving up, right?"

I looked down at my thumbnail, chewed from hours of thoughts and pacing, rubbing the tip of my finger over the jagged edge. I shrugged and looked back. "I mean, I've thought about this decision for at least four hours."

He raised an eyebrow and my stomach sank. "Four hours? That's it?"

"Well," I said slowly, "I don't really have much time."

"I understand that." he said. "But I want you to understand that going where you are going, you most likely won't get an offer like this. I would honestly be surprised if they let you in this late in the summer. It's only three weeks or so until the school year starts."

I groaned. "I know. I know it's a lot but I'm willing to wait a year and try again if I have to."

His mouth set into a line, the clock ticking on the wall the only sound you could here. "Tell me something Adelaide." he said. "Why are you doing this?"

"I feel like what I have to gain where I want to go is more than what I'll lose here." I said, picking at the fabric of the armrest, avoiding his gaze.

"This is a boy, isn't it."

My head snapped up, my eyes meeting his. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

"You're going to give up a chance for a future for some boy?" he asked, bewildered.

"He's not just some boy." I said through gritted teeth, trying to keep my cool.

Cal chuckled and my annoyance spiked. "No I can see that." he said, crossing his arms across his broad chest. "It's that boy you were with the time your school visited a few months ago wasn't it?" he asked. "The one with the curly hair. Oh, what was his name? Henry, Hudson-"

"Harry." I cut him off. "His name is Harry."

He snapped his fingers and pointed at me, his eyes lighting in recognition. "Ah, yes that's the one. So this is all for him?"

I nodded. "Well, and for me. It's for both of us really."

"Have you talked to your parents about this?"

I gave him a sheepish look. "Kind of. It wasn't much of a discussion rather than a session of me telling them what was going on, my mom asking a million questions and my dad repeating 'that boy has brainwashed my daughter' about a thousand and one times."

Cal laughed again and shrugged. "Who can blame them? This is a big decision."

"I know that." I said, frustrated. "I've heard that a lot in the past hour. But it's my decision and it's something I'm going to stick with. I'm eighteen, a legal adult and I will come to choices I have to make in my life that are really hard and I can't go on and change what I've decided to make other people happy. Life is a risk, a game you always have to be on your toes to play but what no one ever tells you is that you're actually holding all of the right cards and the dice will always fall in your favor, but because no one ever hears that, they're stuck playing with the crappy cards, you know the twos and threes? Cards no one wants. And they're stuck rattling the dice in their fingers, never letting it go because everyone has told them that if they do, it's always going to land on a one and they're constantly going to get stuck on that tile that makes you to back one space until you're stuck in the same place forever and I'm not willing to do that because I learned that I'm holding all aces and rolling a six every time so at this point I'm not worried about losing."