Beyond the Reasons || JUSTIN FOLEY

Twenty

PRESENT TIME
IMOGEN JENSEN'S ROOM
THIRD PERSON'S POV

Imogen quickly closed her laptop when she heard a knock on her door, which slightly scared her until she heard her dad's voice. "Hey, honey... I just wanted to check-in. Any word from Sanderson or where else did you apply? UCLA?" Dad asked and she shook her head.

"Uh no, no word from either. I think they really enjoy torturing us until the very last second." Imogen said which made him laugh a little.

"Yeah, I'm sure it can feel that way, but I know you'll get in, definitely to both of them. And I was going to wait until later to give you this, but... I think you need them now." Mat said and he held up two hoodies in his hands. One for Sanderson and one for UCLA.

"Dad..." She said as she stood up and gave him a smile. "Thank you, Dad." She said.

"My sister had actually been rejected by her top two schools, and she was still waiting to hear back from Sanderson. It wasn't because of her interview. Her interview actually went well. She took her SATs for the first time two days after Bryce got probation, and she took it the second time a week after he died."

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JENSEN KITCHEN
IMOGEN'S POV

I felt really bad when my dad gave me those hoodies. UCLA and USC rejected me because I didn't do well on my SAT's, but I didn't have the heart to tell my dad that because I knew it would break his heart. I could only hope that my dad being a professor at Sanderson might help me get into the school.

"What's going on?" Clay asked our parents when they walked into the kitchen at the same time that I did.

"Justin got a letter this morning." Mom excitedly announced.

"Holy shit! Uh... I mean, sorry..." Justin said while shaking his head and it only made both of my parents laugh. Okay, whenever Clay or I would cuss, they would have something to say about it, but it's like Justin gets a free pass on it.

"Don't be sorry. But please open it, or Lainie will. It's taken everything in my power to stop her." Dad said which made me laugh a little. Mom does kind of blur boundaries when she's excited. The boys and I all sat down for breakfast and Justin grabbed his envelope which Mom had displayed at the center of the table.

Clay went to get himself a cup of coffee as Justin read the letter. "Dear Justin... I...-I got in." Justin said which made all three of us smile. I was so proud of him, truly.

"Yes!" Mom exclaimed.

"Way to go, kiddo," Dad said which made me smile because I could see how proud they were of Justin. "That's fantastic."

"We are so happy for you. You have done so, so well." Mom said to Justin and then she looked to me and Clay as Clay sat down. "Both of yours is coming, okay? I know it." She said to try and reassure us.

"And you're both doing so great with Dr. Ellman, and Dr. Sharpe, and... We should celebrate, huh? Medgie's for dinner this weekend?" Dad asked.

"Or we could treat the kids to something special? I, uh... I hear there's a Gordon Lightfoot concert coming to town that all the kids are talking about. When is that?" Mom asked and that's when the three of us gave each other the same look. They are using our phones to spy on us. Gordon Lightfoot is the codeword that we use in our text messages whenever we need to meet up and talk about the Bryce/Monty situation. Well, we use it as a code to meet up and talk about anything we don't want our parents to know about. But we set up the codeword as bait.