“Hey.” Oddly enough, Alice’s voice is soft. “Having trouble over there, Bernstein?”
“I want to be Woodward,” I mutter, slamming the restart option on my computer again. “And yeah, I think I’m dying. I want this to be perfect before I send it out.”
Even though I owe Ms. Jacobson a draft of my Marius profile, I can’t bring myself to open the document. It literally hurts to look at it. Instead, I’ve been working on the Lennox story. I already have three other drafts. Maybe I should add a personal anecdote about what happened to me in middle school at the beginning. The plan was to send it to Penny, but I don’t even know if I should do that anymore.
“You mean the profile?”
“I—well, no, I was working on the Lennox piece. But I’ll get started on the profile as soon as I’m done.”
If I’m ever done. My computer is moving along at a glacial pace. I run a hand through my hair and yank at it, hissing. There are tears in my eyes. I honestly shouldn’t have committed to either one of these things. I’m not mature or talented enough. I should just go back home and hang out with Maggie and Cash and never leave the house again.
Alice walks over, bending down next to my chair. I don’t know why I force myself to write at the desk in our hotel room. At home, I write on the couch. Maybe it’s my form of self-inflicted punishment.
“I think you should take a break,” my sister says. “Working on the same thing for hours won’t get you very far if you’re just frustrated the entire time.”
“I can’t, Alice,” I say, scrubbing at my face. She pulls one of my hands away. “I have deadlines and people counting on me.”
“You can’t get anything done like this, though. That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she says. “You’re literally pulling your hair out. What does your doctor tell you to do? Those breathing exercises, right?”
“I know,” I snap, even though I hadn’t thought of doing them. I couldn’t tell that this was anxiety. It feels more like a million emotions blended together and a lack of sleep and the feeling I had on the math portion of the SAT. I force myself to take deep breaths and count.
Alice moves to the other side of the room, shoving things into her suitcase. I close my eyes. The article is fine. It has to be. I’ve been working on it for what seems like a month now. I’ll send it to Penny and hope Lennox hasn’t threatened her, and we’ll see what she wants to do next. And then…the profile, I guess.
It was already hell to go through the recordings where women talked about being sexually assaulted and harassed. I don’t want to listen to all the conversations I had with Marius. I can’t listen to his voice. It’ll just make me feel bad. Maybe I should feel bad. It was wrong for me to assume. I thought Lennox only targeted women, but I was wrong. Now I can’t stop wondering. Did Lennox pick Marius because he knew he was bi? Or was it just because Marius was the youngest person on set? Are there other boys?
All I can think about is what he said. Talking about it won’t solve anything.
This has to work. It just has to. I don’t know what we’ll do if it doesn’t. I’ll spend the rest of my career making sure that people call Lennox out for being one of the worst people in existence. If I have to spend the rest of my life making sure directors can’t harass workers on the job, I’ll do it. I’ll do it without a second thought.
My phone beeps and I frown down at it. There’s a new email from Spelman. I feel a flutter in my chest, despite everything. I open my email up on my laptop so I can see. It’s not like I need to see the acceptance letter now, but it might make me feel a little better, make me feel like less of a failure who has no idea what she’s doing.
Dear Josephine Wright,
Thank you for your interest in Spelman College. We received many interesting and excellent applications, only some of which we were able to accept. We reviewed your application very carefully and noted several strong features. That said, there was rigorous competition for entry into our undergraduate programs this year, and your application was not among those that we were able to accept.
We wish you every success with your studies and beyond.
Yours truly,
I don’t see the rest because my eyes have blurred with tears.
How could this have happened? I had it all—top grades, great SAT scores. Is it because I wasn’t in enough clubs? But I had all my writing stuff. I thought that would stand out. And I’m a legacy applicant. Everyone in my family has gone: Grandma, Auntie Denise, Mom, Alice—
Alice. How the hell did she get in when I didn’t?
I toss my computer to the side. Alice glances up at me. She’s still packing clothes away in her suitcase.
“Did something happen?” Alice asks. It sounds more like a statement. She already knows.
“Shut up, Alice,” I snap. “God, why do you have to be the worst?”
“Is this about the boy? Marius?”
I clench my hands into fists. I still feel shitty for hurting him. How am I different from the people who called Julia a liar when she first came out with her story years ago?
“No,” I say, even though it is, partially. “It’s about you applying to Spelman when you didn’t even want to go and taking my spot.”
I know it’s stupid—there wasn’t a spot reserved for me—but it feels really good to say.
I’m expecting her to yell at me, but
