|| First Draft ||
Upon a college campus just outside Washington DC lies home to the people of tomorrow, who all live relatively everyday lives.
This narrative accompanies Poppy, Sawyer, Abigail, Jared, and Nadine as they go about their lives after...
tormenting or teasing with the sight or promise of something unobtainable.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Jared Madden had been sitting in this office for over one and half hours. He had been pulled out of one of his lectures and told that the dean of admissions needed to talk to him. Confused by the whole thing, he tried his best to get there promptly. Once he walked through the office door and sat down, he spent that time being told he was under investigation, as were dozens and dozens of students around the country also in a similar situation. Jared did his best to act dumb, but he doesn't think he came across as very believable.
Since he was in his sophomore year of high school, Jared had taken the SATs in exchange for payment. Jared had wanted to get into a good school since he was young, but things quickly turned out when his parents divorced, and his dad lost his job. They struggled for a long time and the idea of him ever going to a decent college seemed to slip away slowly. He began doing SATs prep when he was a freshman and quickly learned that he tested well. By Sophomore year he would choose a score and aim for it; sometimes, he aimed low and other times, he aimed high, which is when he figured out he could help those around him and earn some money on the side.
Today his whole plan had gone wrong; they had found out somehow. There had been plenty of people, lists and lists of people anyone one of them could have slipped up. He had been responsible for helping people get into Yale, Harvard, and MIT. They had all been worthy, but for some reason, if you didn't have 1505, you weren't good enough to get into a decent school. You might have had a perfect GPA and countless amounts of extra curriculum, but they wouldn't even look at you if your score wasn't high enough.
The Dean didn't know what to do with Jared because, as far as the Dean could tell, everything about Jared's admission was by the book. He could threaten him with an explosion until Jared wrote down the list of names he had helped in the past. He might have done something wrong, but Jared brought a lot to the school. He was a member of multiple clubs, including the rowing team, which brought a lot of money to the school. He also tutored several athletes to help keep their GPAs up. He was an outstanding student, but that could all come crashing down in seconds.
Jared found himself wandering to Cain's apartment. He wanted to talk to someone, and although Poppy would be the better option, she was not exactly in a good state at the moment due to the constant ringing of her phone from various reporters.
Jared ran up the steps and knocked on the door with a loud bang; he stood there waiting for a few moments when Elliot opened the door. He was a little surprised to see Jared standing there; from what he knew, he and Cain were not close. Elliot let him in, and Jared saw Cain with his friends Ricardo and Clyde. Cain, much like Elliot, was surprised that he turned up but didn't say anything. Jared takes the accessible seat and, looking at his stands, opens his mouth to speak, but Clyde cuts across him. "I heard you got caught running a scam?" This wasn't true, but it is not a surprise that gossip is somehow distorted. "I thought you would end up with Poppy rather than us." Poppy was a mess at the moment, and Cain knew the law better even if they weren't as close.
"She has been dealing with reporters and such. I don't want to bother her that much."
"My dad is trying to help Walden clear up his mess. The whole of Washington knew it was a thing, but nobody will say anything about it unless it benefits them somehow." Jared had been a little annoyed he had to hear about the scandal from the pages of a magazine, but everyone had passed, and not everyone wanted to share. "Perfectly legal for Chicago. People want to hate Poppy because when it came to the media, she was painted in a light that she was put on this world to save the world. She had ranked up more charity work than most people get in their entire lives. She knew more politicians and celebrities personally than people who had been in those careers for years. She may be a mess behind closed doors, but put her on stage and give her a microphone, and she could charm anyone and everyone. "My bet someone climbing the ranks in New York overheard a conversion and sold the story to benefit them." He says causally.
"What about Walden." Cain laughs at this comment and shakes his head before adding the words.
"Walden is a boy scout; he ran soon after becoming a lawyer because he couldn't sit there and listen to people lie about committing horrible crimes. He couldn't defend the guilty." Cain shrugs his shoulders, and leaning forward a bit, he grabs a chip and eats it, crunching. "So what happened with you and the Dean?"
"I honestly don't know. It was a bit of a blur." Jared began to explain that he spent the first half an hour being shouted at and how he had let himself down, the school and his parents down. He then went off on a tangent before wondering aloud what he would do next.
"Fuck knows. He started being mad and impressed and told me to leave because he didn't want a scandal. I have no idea what he wanted. He wanted a list, then he did, and said to fuck off, so I just left." Elliot laughed at that comment. Out of all the guys in the room, he was the one who hated the Dean the most. He didn't have any reason; he just thought the guy was a complete prick and a bit of an idiot. Elliot thought he wasn't qualified for his job and regularly got sent for causes distributing and breaking university rules, often to great applause. "I don't think he knows what to do. I coach the football team whenever their grades get a bit low. I am on the rowing team and a bunch of other clubs. All I did was get paid to write a few SAT exams. My own is honest, and I think he is a little conflicted. He wants to report me but doesn't want me to get thrown out in the process."
"Guy's a whack job," Elliot says, getting to his feet and grabbing a couple of beers. He offers one to Jared, who gladly takes it, twists the cap open and takes a large gulp. "I mean, you shouldn't be affected; they make you tell the board about who you helped cheat, and they get a bunch of people thrown out instead of your place." Jared needed the money at the time and then invested it so that he had enough to pay for his tuition once he received his financial aid from the college.
"So why are you here?" Cain asks Jared, trying to steer the direction of Elliot and his rants about how much he hated Dean. "I mean, as it has already been pointed out, surely Poppy would be the logical person to talk to."
"Because after Poppy, you are the person with the best brain." Cain was surprised by this comment. He had always seen Jared as highly intelligent and shown that repeatedly, but Jared lacked street brightness. He was fine when he gave him a book and asked him to remember it, but he wasn't great with anything he didn't care about. He didn't care about the law; Jared thought although the law was important, it wasn't a worthwhile career, and Jared wanted to do something that meant something. Poppy and Cain cared about only one thing: making lots and lots of money to better their lives. They were on the path of politicians, and everyone around them knew it.
"Look, there isn't anything I can do. I could talk to my dad, but you didn't break the law. Yes, you helped a bunch of people cheat, but it doesn't change the fact that cheating is not against the law. I mean, you are not from New York, so you are fine," He says, shrugging his shoulders. "What did you get on your SATs anyway?" Cain asks, and Jared shrugs his shoulders and says.
"I got a fifteen-eighty." The other guys all caught one another eyes, a little shocked by that. That was a near-perfect score, and they all thought there was no way that the school would throw him under the bus for something like that.
"Yeah, they are not going to say anything," Ricardo said. "This is fucking America, and one thing we know is that private institutes are corrupt at fuck. It will be brushed under the rug. It is not like Poppy's situation, which is everywhere." Jared felt happy hearing those words. He didn't think they would do anything, but he couldn't help and listen to the voice in the back of his head. He didn't want to be thrown up; he didn't want to be smeared. He made a small mistake, but he had good intentions that were all that mattered at the moment.
Jared found himself back in the Dean's office a few days later. To his relief, the four boys had been right, nothing was going to happen, and they were going to look the other way because a scandal like this would forever hang over them and they couldn't afford that not when they were currently being known as murder campus.
