Chapter 1
The afternoon after our SAT exams finished. Main left work early to pick
“Mom, it’s literally boiling out beve,” Rosalia complained, somehome making it sound adoralde instead of whiny.
Mom smiled. “Well, I’m taking my girls out for a proper celebration dinner.”
“You’re the best?” Rosalia squealed, instantly claiming shotgun while I slid in the bark seat without a word
With the AC cranked to max, I stared out the window at the food of students, all looking like they’d just been relesed from a year long store
I’ve always been the quiet type, nothing like my sister’s loud, bubbly personality.
Mom and Rosalia chatted away up front.
“How’d the test go?”
“Totally aced it,” Rosalia replied, practically glowing with confidence.
“That’s my superstar.” Mom beamed at her, then asked almost as an afterthought, “What about you, Liana?”
Liana will at least get into community college, right? Rosalia turned back to look at me.
Ifidgeted with my jeans and gave a casual “Yeah, sure.”
Rosalia was STEM all the way. Beautiful, killer pianist and violinist, perpetually in the top three of our class at Minnetonka High
With all these achievements in her pocket, she’d become Minnetonka’s golden girl, constantly name–dropped by teachers and stadens alike.
People on pedestals don’t exactly make a habit of looking down.
Which is why she still saw me as the same sophomore year Liana who barely scraped Cs and teared up over every line thing
She had zero clue how hard I’d been grinding these past two years.
sighed. “Community college is fine too. You’re good at humanities anyway. Just work hard enough to land sose commerity service job alter graduation”
“Mom, where are we eating?” Rosalia quickly changed the subject
“Our usual spot,” Mom replied, checking the traffic light. “Jessica will be there too. You should definitely ask her for college application advice–ber son goes 10–DCTA Temember?
My breath caught in my throat.
Outside, the Minneapolis sunset blared
across the sky, like spilled orange soda.
I heard Rosalia ask with fake i
casualness, “Se… will the there Iou?”
“ile’s home for summer break,” Mots said, pulling into traffic. “It’s crazy how that boy glo’d up.”
Chapter 2
