Chapter Twenty-Three Sam
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SAM
It’s been two days since Alex and I broke into the admissions office, and I still haven’t caught my breath.
The pages with my mother’s name on them are fanned out on my bed.
I stare at them, hoping that the answers to the millions of questions racing through my mind will somehow materialize.
Hoping that there is any sort of explanation.
But they don’t, and there isn’t. And I’d know because I’ve been staring at them for hours, rereading things that aren’t new to me.
Name: Collins, Miranda
DOB: May 25, 1984
Address: 713 Bell Ave
We haven’t lived there since before Momma met Gary, but the memories are vivid.
Life was good back then. Just me, her, and my grandparents before they passed away.
She smiled all the time then, and was the light in every room she walked into.
We’d stay up all night with her braiding my hair and telling me about all the wonderful things waiting for me in life.
But she never told me this. Sovereign King’s University is not just the best school in the county.
Kids come from all over the country to attend.
Getting accepted into this school was the goal.
Of course, now that I’ve been here and have almost been assaulted and bullied damn near every day, I know that to be a farce.
It’s hell on this campus, but their track record for producing solid careers for their students is almost unmatched.
They have one of the highest ratings in the country, graduating ninety-five percent of each class. Students go on to become doctors, lawyers, politicians, business owners, and successful athletes. The connections you make can be priceless. Yet she never told me that she was a student.
But then it leaves another question. If SKU is so great at producing success in their students, what about her?
She had a decent job, but worked long, excruciating hours to do it.
She didn’t get the life they promised. She was rich with family, with love, with me and Desmond, but clearly not rich enough.
I reach out for one of the pages, her transcript.
She was smart, damn near a straight A student.
There’s no surprise there; I have to get my brains from someone.
A smile spreads across my face. It feels good to share similarities to her.
When she was alive, I got told every day how much I looked like her, so much so that folks in the old neighborhood referred to me as Lil Miranda, instead of Samantha.
“Lil Miranda, come here and let me look at you.”
“Lil Miranda, take this to your granny for me.”
A tear falls and I swiftly wipe it away. “God, I miss you, Ma.”
The bathroom door flies open, and Gracie exits wearing a towel. I don’t bother to look up, my focus glued to the pages, but from the corner of my eye, I see her moving about. She’s at her dresser, pulling items from the drawer.
“What’s all that?” she asks.
I shake away the emotions, letting my eyes meet hers.
Gracie turns forward again, her towel wrapped around her waist as she slips a sports bra over her head. When I don’t respond right away, she glances back at me.
“Earth to Sam.” She slips on her panties before removing the towel and tossing it into the hamper near her closet. “You’ve been staring at those papers like they’re possessed or something.”
“Sorry.” I take a deep breath. “It’s nothing.”
Gracie continues to dress, throwing on leggings, a T-shirt, and crew socks. “Bullshit.”
She lets her sock snap into place, the sound of the elastic hitting her leg sounding off through the room. She turns on her heel and saunters in my direction.
“You come in here every other day ranting about the boys. Stayed out later than usual last night. Skipped class today, which is hella sus considering you’re probably the only person I know that actually enjoys learning.
And don’t think I forgot about Alex getting between you and Aaron minutes before decking him in the jaw. ”
I open my mouth to respond, but the words never come.
“You’ve been staring at those pages all day, and please don’t think you’re hiding that massive hickey on your neck.” Gracie points at the spot where Alex marked me.
Nervously, I lift my shoulder and pull my collar up as if it will actually hide the damn thing. Gracie sits at the edge of my bed, one leg folded under her. Tilting her head, she reads one of the pages.
“Who’s Miranda?”
My shoulders slump, and something in me caves.
“My mom.”
Gracie snaps her gaze to me, but she doesn’t say anything right away. She only looks at me in that patient way that she does when she knows I’m trying not to spiral.
I pick at the corner of the page, nails catching on the edge like I’m trying to peel away the truth. “Apparently, she was a student here,” I murmur. “I didn’t know. All the years we talked about college, and how much fun it can be, and she never mentioned that she went here.”
Gracie shifts slightly but still doesn’t interrupt.
“There was no diploma lying around, no photos from her time here, nothing. But then I found this last night and nothing makes sense.” I huff, toss the transcript down, and pull one leg close.
To anchor myself, to keep from feeling like I’m living in the matrix, I scratch my nails over my ankle hard enough to feel but not enough to break skin.
“Where did you get this?” she finally asks while picking up one of the pages.
I pause, then exhale slowly, debating whether or not to share.
Not because I don’t trust her. She’s probably the only person at this school that I feel safe enough to open up to.
It’s just that so much has happened since stepping foot on this campus.
Things that bring more questions than I am able to answer, not without pissing some people off.
But if I keep it bottled in, it’ll fester and eat me from the inside out.
It’ll drive me crazy, until I don’t know where the truth ends and the lie begins.
I can trust Gracie. Right? I read her for a moment, taking in her features.
They’re soft as always, concern evident in the worry lines above her brow.
“You have to promise not to freak out.”
Gracie cocks a brow, jutting her head back just a little. “That’s never a good sign.”
I lean back against the wooden headboard, bringing my knees to my chest. “Alex and I…”
“Fucked,” she blurts.
I frown and shake my head. “Eww, no—well, not exactly. He did give me this hickey but that’s beside the point.”
“Okay,” she drags out while repositioning herself so that she is fully seated, crisscross applesauce, at the foot of my bed.
“We broke into the admin building.”
Her head jerks back. “You what?”
“You’re freaking out,” I hiss.
Her eyes are wide now, but there’s more curiosity than judgment. “No. I’m just shocked. But I’m listening.”
I release a breath. “My acceptance here is suspicious. Nothing was making sense, and I needed answers.”
“What do you mean?” Gracie swallows hard, the bob of her throat visible as she shifts uncomfortably, much like she does wherever Christina or the guys are concerned.
“I was previously rejected. Which was fine. People get denied their dream school all the time. But then a year later, I received an out-of-the-blue acceptance and a scholarship.”
Gracie shrugs. “I’m not following. Why is that bad?”
“It’s not, although strange. But then, they aren’t just covering my tuition.
” I snatch up my phone, unlock it, and scroll to the photos from last night.
“My dorm, meals, supplies—everything is fully covered. They put me in the junior/senior dorm instead of the lowerclassmen building. And let me off for breaking that asshole’s knee with just community service, when it was very clear Mr. Kincaid wanted to press charges. ”
Gracie’s eyes slide away at that as she rubs her arms nervously.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry. Had a chill.” She pauses and rubs her palms over her arms. “So, what do you think?”
I frown at her changing the topic but decide not to push it. I’m the last person to get on someone for keeping things to themselves.
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t add up, and whenever I ask the staff to give me details of this scholarship, they get cagey or dismissive. So, I went to Alex.”
“Before or after you didn’t really screw and he left that love bite,” she teases.
“It’s not a love bite. But after the not really screwing part.”
“But before he sucked your neck like a Popsicle.”
I huff. “Can I finish?”
She holds up her hands. “My bad.”
“I asked him to help me find out information. His father runs the school and if anyone could get access to stuff, I figured it would be him.”
I click on the picture of the cost summary and turn the phone for her to see.
“This is what we found. The chancellor signed my offer letter instead of the dean of admissions. And not only is there not a scholarship, someone paid over two hundred grand to make sure I got in.”
Gracie takes the phone and sits up straight, flipping through the images as if she’d be able to make sense of any of it.
“While I was looking for my file,” I say, my voice thinning, “I saw my mom’s.”
Gracie’s lips part and her shoulders go rigid.
“I think it has something to do with the fact that she was a student here, too,” I admit, the only thing that makes sense to me.
She shakes her head. “Wow. This is… a lot, Sam. How can you be sure?”
I inhale, my shoulders pinned by my ears. “I can’t. But something deep down won’t let it rest. My mother was a student and, nineteen years later, some anonymous benefactor covers two and a half years of my education. What aren’t they telling me?”
I sigh.
“I thought getting my records would shed light on things, but it’s only left me with more questions.”
“Have you tried the library archives? They keep everything. Yearbooks, old club records, alumni information, school paper articles. If she was a student here, she’s in there somewhere.”
“You really think so?”