Chapter 6 Plan BMaybe C? #2
This isn’t just about me looking good on a degree audit. This is Dr. Healy taking his reputation, his committee capital, and sliding it across the table with my name paperclipped on top.
I swallow. “Which one would you pick?”
He studies me over the tops of his glasses for a long moment. “If all you cared about was staying in your current lane and keeping your father comfortable?” he says. “I’d say Option A. It fits the blueprint. It’s clean, it’s predictable, and you will absolutely succeed there.”
My jaw tightens, just a little.
“But you didn’t claw your way into Northbridge just to be predictable,” he adds, quieter. “You’re very good at what you do, Harlee. Option B would stretch you. Different industry, more chaos, more visibility. If you can handle it, it opens more doors.”
A laugh catches in my throat. “Love that we’ve moved from ‘you’re in a very tight corner’ to ‘here’s the door labeled chaos.’”
“The corner doesn’t disappear,” he says mildly. “I’m just telling you where the exits might be.”
I look at the two invisible stacks in front of me: Option A, safe and familiar and brutal. Option B, weird and loud and risky and exactly the kind of thing my dad would call a distraction.
“So Option A is the smart choice on paper,” I say slowly. “Option B keeps my graduation date and blows up my comfort zone.”
“That’s a fair summary,” he says.
I think about the Florida clean-energy project Herman already tells people I’m “slotted for” like it’s a done deal.
I think about another year in limbo if anything goes wrong with an overloaded schedule.
I think about being four years deep into proving I’m not the girl who chased a boy and lit her whole trajectory on fire.
Then I think about being done. Early, on time—whatever you want to call it. Just done.
“Send my packet for Option B,” I say, before I can talk myself out of it. “Keep Option A warm as backup if you need to, but… if the external partner bites, I want the shot.”
For the first time since I sat down, his smile reaches his eyes. “I thought you might say that.”
Heat creeps up the back of my neck, but it’s not shame this time. It feels suspiciously like… pride.
“I’ll pursue both,” he says. “I’ll let the engineering firm know you’re available for the summer practicum, and I’ll send your materials to the external partner this afternoon. They already have your academic record; I’ve spoken with their program lead in broad strokes.”
“So they know I exist,” I say.
“They know you exist,” he confirms. “And they know I don’t spend this kind of capital lightly.”
That lands too. “I won’t waste it,” I say, more firmly than I feel.
“I don’t think you will,” he replies. He closes the folders with a soft thud. “Your job, in the meantime, is simple: keep your grades where they are, keep your nose clean, and when this program lead calls? Answer on the first ring.”
I huff out something like a laugh. “Yes, sir.”
He nods once, then gestures toward the door. “Get some fresh air, too. You’ve been carrying a lot. Let me worry about the paperwork for a few days.”
That almost makes me tear up, which is absolutely not happening in this office. I push back my chair instead, gripping the strap of my backpack like a lifeline.
“Thank you,” I say. It feels inadequate, but it’s all I’ve got. “Really.”
“You’ve earned the effort, Harlee.” He gives me one last, steady look. “Now go be the student I told them you are.”
I step out into the hallway, the door clicking softly shut behind me.
Shawl is gone. The corner is real. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.
But somewhere out there, there’s an “approved external partner” with a student program, a stack of numbers that need a brain like mine, and a decision to make.
Fifteen practicum credits. No extra year. One narrow bridge between here and done.
And I just chose the door labeled chaos.
The sun hits my face like a heat lamp as I walk out of the building. I make it to the nearest bench and sit hard, metal burning my thighs through my skirt.
I scroll to Wynter and call.
She answers on the second ring. “You better not be calling me with bad news, Harlee Simone.”
“Define bad,” I say. My voice sounds wrung out.
“Mm. That’s Saturn-in-your-business bad. Okay, talk to me.”
I give it to her straight: fourteen credits away turned into twenty-four, Shawl yanked, an extra year I literally can’t afford. She curses on my behalf, swears she’d be in that boardroom singing protest songs if she were here.
Then I tell her about Option A and Option B.
“Option A is energy-firm boot camp and an overloaded year,” I say. “Option B is this media-analytics practicum spread across three terms. Fifteen credits, normal course load, same graduation date if they take me.”
“And you picked chaos,” she says, proud. “Of course you did.”
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t even hesitate. “Good. You’ve been playing life on Expert Mode since Fairfax. If there’s a path where you don’t have to kill yourself just to walk in May, I want you on it.”
“That’s the thing, though,” I say, picking at the peeling paint on the bench. “Even if Option B hits, the money doesn’t magically appear. Dad is only covering what he already agreed to. No extra year, no extra checks. Rent is still rent. Groceries are still groceries.”
“Which is why,” she says, like we’re on reruns, “you let me pay the rent.”
I groan. “Stop.”
“No.”
“Wynter—”
“Harlee,” she fires back, matching my tone. “I am not offering pity. I’m offering protection. And I know you’re about to argue with me because you think struggle is a personality trait.”
A cracked laugh escapes me. “You’re so dramatic.”
“And you’re so stubborn.” Her voice softens. “Listen. This is giving Mercury retrograde: paperwork chaos, people acting stupid, systems failing, and you still somehow landing on your feet. Let it be a reroute, not a curse.”
I swallow past the tightness in my throat.
“You hear me?” she presses. “You are not behind. You’re being recalibrated.”
“I just don’t want you wasting money on me,” I whisper.
“My money isn’t wasted if it keeps my sister alive,” she says, flat like a fact. Then, quieter, almost like she’s singing it into my ear: “Sometimes survival is the only success your spirit needs.”
My chest aches. In a good way. In an annoying way.
“Rent is not the hill I’m dying on,” she continues. “You scrambling for three jobs on top of Option B is the dumbest timeline. I’m not watching you martyr yourself because your dad installed guilt like an app you can’t delete.”
“It’s where my pride lives,” I mutter.
“Your pride can come visit me on tour,” she says. “You pay what you can. I’ll cover the rest. Temporary. And when you’re up again, you’ll pay me back in whatever weird Harlee way you do. Books. Spreadsheets. Emotional labor. I don’t care.”
A laugh slips out, small but real.
She adds, voice turning warm: “Babe, your energy is fried. Your aura is loud. Like… ‘I haven’t exhaled in ten weeks,’ loud.”
“Wow. Thank you.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “You don’t get points for suffering in silence. You get wrinkles.”
I wipe the corner of my eye with my thumb before the tear commits. “I hate that you love me so much.”
“No, you don’t,” she says, smug. “You love it. You’re my sister. I would literally die for you, bitch. Let me spot you rent.”
The laugh that comes out is half-sob, half-snort. “Fine. ‘We’ll see.’”
“I’ll take the fake agreement for now,” she says. Then her tone shifts, cautious, gentler. “Also, transportation. If Option B hits, we are not having you commuting home at midnight on vibes alone. We’re revisiting you driving my car.”
My whole body stiffens. “We are absolutely not.”
“I told you: get your license renewed, take my car,” she insists. “It’ll be sitting.”
“Yeah, and so would I,” I say. “Frozen behind the wheel having a panic attack.”
She exhales slow. “Okay. We table it. For now.” A beat. “But I’m not letting you pretend the scar doesn’t exist just because you learned how to smile over it.”
My throat tightens.
“You survived Christmas Eve,” she says softly, voice steady and sure. “That doesn’t mean you owe a steering wheel anything. It just means you get to live. Period.”
I press my lips together hard.
“And listen,” she adds, slipping back into Wynter, the one who turns truth into music. “You can be afraid and still be brave. Those aren’t enemies. They’re… harmonies.”
I close my eyes. Let it land.
“Pick a struggle, though,” she says, teasing through the tenderness. “Because if you start spiraling, I’m blaming the moon. It’s giving ‘waning gibbous and your feelings are feral.’”
I snort. “You are insane.”
“And correct.” She pauses, then her voice drops into that songwriter register that always makes me feel seen. “You don’t have to earn rest, Harlee. Rest is a birthright.”
The knot in my chest loosens a fraction. “Okay.”
“Good,” she says. “Now go eat something that grew on a plant or had a mother, not just caffeine and anxiety. Text me when you hear anything about Option B. And if you start spiraling, picture me throwing a combat boot at your head from Copenhagen.”
I actually laugh. “Size ten.”
“Exactly. I love you,” she says.
“I love you too.”
“Alright, I gotta go yell at this guitarist before he butchers my intro again. Talk later.”
When the call ends, the world creeps back in: footsteps on the sidewalk, some guy’s tinny Bluetooth speaker, the smell of cut grass and exhaust.
I sit there another minute, breathing. The stakes are still high.
But I don’t feel quite as doomed.
By the time I cross campus toward my favorite café, the sun is sliding down and my heel repair is hanging on purely through the power of prayer.
The bell over the door jingles when I step inside. Cool AC and the smell of espresso hit me at once.
“Hey, Harlee!” Sam calls from behind the counter. “Looking a little murdery today. You good?”
“Define good,” I say, dropping my bag on the counter. “The usual, please.”