Chapter 3

The next day, Mrs. King called me, Ethan' s mom.

Her voice was strained, full of worry. "Sarah, dear, please, you have to talk to him. This is insane, leaving Harvard? For a high school girl? He won't listen to me, or his father."

She sighed, a heavy, defeated sound. "If he' s really going to do this, at least make him focus on his own SAT retakes, he needs to get back in, this can't be permanent."

I felt a pang of sympathy for her, she sounded genuinely distressed.

So, I agreed to go back to our hometown that weekend.

I was at "The Daily Grind," our old favorite coffee shop, waiting for Ben, when I heard her voice.

Chloe Vance, holding court at a nearby table with a few other high schoolers.

"Oh, Ethan is just brilliant," she was saying, loud enough for half the coffee shop to hear. "Harvard was just, like, too easy for him, you know? He's taking this time to mentor me personally, it's such an honor."

Then, quieter, but I still heard it, "His old girlfriend? Yeah, she goes to Berkeley or something, a state school. It's cute, I guess."

My face burned.

Ben arrived then, sliding into the booth opposite me, his expression grim.

"You heard about Ethan, right? He' s not even studying for his own SATs. He' s at Chloe' s house every day, supposedly tutoring her, but I saw them at the mall yesterday, laughing like they didn' t have a care in the world."

Just then, Ethan walked in, spotting us. He sauntered over, a confident smirk on his face.

Ben didn't hold back. "Dude, shouldn't you be cramming for the SATs? You're retaking them, right?"

Ethan waved a dismissive hand. "Relax, I got this. Hey, Sarah," he turned to me, "Remember those exclusive prep materials from the Stanford Academy? The ones you got for me last time? I need another set for Chloe, she' s really struggling with the verbal."

I remembered, alright. I' d spent weeks networking, calling in favors, even trading my notes from a popular psych class to get those materials for him when he was first applying to Ivies.

"Why don't you try getting them yourself this time, Ethan?" I asked, my voice even.

He actually scoffed. "Are you serious? I don't have time for that, I'm busy with Chloe. You're good at that stuff."

The pop-up comments were back, almost gleeful.