Chapter 19
Mrs. Vidar-Tett hasn’t spoken in four minutes.
I’ve timed it on the clock positioned behind her.
Her eyes scan over my assignment, jump up to meet my gaze every few moments, then settle back on the page.
The longer this stretches on, the heavier my heartbeat thumps in my chest. My palms dampen.
I’m about to get chastised, I can palpably feel it, but I’m not sure why.
I completed the assignment last-minute even though I enjoyed it as much as a rash. The questions were layered with unnecessary introspection. How do you think others perceive you? What values are important to you? How does your current path reflect your individuality?
A giant waste of time.
She sighs, and it confirms my suspicions.
“Delaney,” she finally says. “What was going through your mind when you completed this assignment?”
I pause. This isn’t the question I expected.
“Uh,” I flounder. “That I should get it done?”
She sets my assignment down. “It reads that way.”
It’s not an insult, not really, but my heart sinks anyway. A stinging sensation creeps up behind my nose. I can’t place why. This isn’t worth crying over, but appeasing others has always come naturally. When I can’t get it right, I feel like a failure—because what else do I have?
Her gaze softens. “Everything I see here could have easily been answered by Headmistress Ellerby. This presentation ceremony is about you,” she says.
“You’re smart. You work hard. You’re focused.
Those traits are easy to see. What’s harder to pull from is your core.
Ambitions are impressive, but your value and integrity are what you’ll carry with you for a long time. ”
I lean back in my seat. “I don’t understand why I have to do this.” I’m frustrated. There are bigger things to worry about right now.
“I think,” she begins, “the world has a way of telling young women who they should be instead of giving them the agency and space to find out for themselves, and it’s unforgiving in letting them make mistakes with grace.” She studies me. “Why UPenn?”
“They have a good premed undergrad program,” I say automatically.
Her head tilts. “Why premed?”
“I’ve always excelled in science.” I shrug. “So my parents encouraged me to pursue dental medicine.”
“And it’s what you want?”
I consider this. When I was eleven, I played the tuba in our middle school band back in Pennsylvania.
Horrible isn’t a strong enough word to describe my lack of talent.
The sounds I produced were their own unique breed of the Funeral March, which is exactly what should have been playing as I disposed of my aspirations.
No matter how much I practiced, I didn’t get better.
I was not a naturally gifted musician, and Jared and Madelene began to moan every time I carted the tuba case into the living room.
My mom waited six months until gently asking me, “Is this what you really want?”
I’d made the wrong decision. I could hear it in her tone.
If I had any dreams of sitting first row in a professional orchestra, her question would have dashed them.
Instead, under my dad’s advisement, I’d enrolled in science club and came in third place at that year’s fair.
The ribbon is still tacked on our fridge.
That was it. The thing that made them proud.
It wasn’t only to oblige them though. I liked science club—and not because it felt forced by my parents. My dad’s love for studying the world around him and beyond had an impact on me, and my mom’s love for the library itched a scratch of researching topics I was interested in whenever I’d visit.
But they never asked if the premed-to-dental pipeline was what I wanted, not in the way they asked about band. Instead, they doubled down on praise every time it was brought up. As though it’d been my idea all along.
I cast my gaze to the floor. “I’m good at it.”
“But you didn’t take the A&P test,” she counters.
My focus draws to my hands in my lap. I don’t speak.
“My father is an attorney,” Mrs. Vidar-Tett continues.
“I grew up around a lot of expectation. He hoped I’d study law, but I was deep into my sophomore year at the University of Chicago when I realized it wasn’t going to happen.
It took moving out of my hometown and having space to reflect and understand myself for me to realize who I was and what I wanted.
” She pauses. “When it comes to you, Delaney, I think you’re more comfortable taking a passive role in how you’re defined. ”
An onslaught of annoyance flares within me.
That can’t be true. I’ve had two conversations with her, and she thinks she knows me.
It’s unfair. My mom, Headmistress Ellerby, my instructors who’ve taught me over the last three years—they know me well and therefore understand what’s best for me, so it makes sense to follow their direction.
That’s all. If I exist as that person, nothing can go wrong.
But it did, a tiny voice says. You can do all the right things, and yet…
And yet.
“My dad died,” I say. “I don’t get to live up to his expectations because he’s not around to expect anything of me anymore.”
She acquiesces. “I’m so sorry, Delaney.”
I fight the tears, but they come anyway. “He always saw me for who I am, and this is the life he believed I could create for myself.” My throat tightens. “Stable, successful, rewarding. I can’t just—I can’t not move forward.”
He used the word practical. I was quick to pick up on things. A thinker, like him. Premed was a sensible option. Admirable.
“I picked a tough career,” he told me once.
He loved teaching, but he also loved research—which requires a place at a university, which also requires grants.
All of this within a competitive pool of astrophysicists or scientists or engineers who are all writing enticing proposals to obtain said grants from the government, the value decreasing each year.
He spent his twenties on that grind before applying for the teaching job at Ivernia, and after we moved to Pennsylvania, he didn’t reenter a research university because he needed a salary that could support a family. He loved it, but it wasn’t practical.
This is what he wanted for me. The path I’ve been following for so long it feels like a well-worn sweater.
Something in her expression cracks. I avert my eyes and gather my things, not caring we still have ten minutes left.
“Academics are often competitive and taxing on students in schools like Ivernia,” she says. “It’s important to make sure you’re spending time focused on yourself outside of it all.”
But focusing on myself isn’t what I need right now, not when William requires answers I don’t have, and Mads still won’t open up to me, and Ivernia might close its doors for good.
I can’t confide any of this to her, so I don’t say anything else.
Everything inside me feels thick and heavy with emotion, and I’m afraid I’ll cry if I try and speak, so I leave the room without a goodbye and head back to Hyde House.
I keep moving until I’m marching up the staircase, when the sound of my footsteps mixes with another pair.
“Delaney!”
I turn around, hoping any external signs of my inner distress have already faded.
Sabine jogs up to my level. “It’s not the end of the world, but the trophy is gone.”
My heart sinks. I know this is part of the game, the long back and forth of securing it, but we just pulled it off. With everything else going on, Capture hasn’t been at the forefront of my mind.
“When?”
“It must have been sometime today, because it was in the kitchenette when I left for class this morning,” she says. “I’m going to call another strategy meeting.”
My simmering irritation toward Mrs. Vidar-Tett has now found another channel of attack. I’d bet all my hostessing money Sumner had something to do with it.
Maybe this is one thing I can easily rectify.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Sabine, then retrace my prior route until I’m bursting out the double doors and heading straight toward Segner.
There aren’t many people in the commons at this hour since most students are at dinner.
Mumbling conversation emits from different areas of the room as the last of the day’s milky sunlight swims through arched glass windows and pools over well-loved furniture.
Students with AirPods in their ears ignore me when I pad across the burgundy carpet and begin scanning the bookshelves. I know it’s here.
The compulsion to find the trophy sidetracks me from my destabilizing waves of emotion. It’s fine. Everything is fine. This is something in my control. I can make this right for Team Hyde.
Suddenly, William’s posh trill mixes with Sumner’s gravelly cadence. They’re maneuvering down the stairs, still in uniform, William’s dress shirt buttoned and tucked while Sumner’s rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, sans tie.
My pulse quickens as I stride over. “You really had time to pull off an entire trophy heist on top of everything else we’re currently dealing with?”
Sumner looks momentarily taken aback. “Did I?”
“Yes,” I say as he steps around me. I follow. “You did.”
We’re halfway across the room before he bothers to glance at me. “That’s how the game works.”
The generic iPhone ringtone blares from his pocket. Sumner pulls it out and studies the screen before answering. “Hey, bud.”
It must be his younger brother. As he turns his back to me, I take the opportunity to keep scanning the room. I peek under throw pillows and look inside potted plants scattered in various corners of the room so I can rule out the most obvious spots.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it sorted.” Sumner’s following me leisurely, probably to make sure I don’t get my retaliation.
“Just tell me hot or cold,” I whisper as I move toward the unlit fireplace.
Sumner rolls his eyes. “No way, all the kids at school have them?” He pauses. “Only if you promise you’ll work hard.”