When I met with Mrs. Oh, our counselor at school, she asked straight out: “Tell me, who is Chloe Wynn Berringer?” like it actually mattered. When I stammered an incoherent response, she followed up by asking specifics about academics—my grades, the subjects I liked best and why, my extracurriculars, what I was considering as an essay topic, what I might want to major in. Then she got more personal. She wanted to know my favorite food. My hobbies. The best thing that’s ever happened to me. The worst.

“My grandma died a few years ago,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else; nothing bad has ever really happened to me. My dad’s mother lived on the other side of the country and was one of those old people who thought her age allowed her to say whatever mean thought crossed her mind without worrying about the consequences. On the rare occasions we saw her, she’d make comments like Joy, it’s a shame Chloe didn’t get your nose or Chloe, dear, remember: a moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips. Self-control is essential, darling. If you don’t work on it, you’ll turn into Hudson. Her dying was sadder in theory than in actuality. Isla and I didn’t go to the funeral because we had Hamilton tickets, which, in retrospect, was not our finest moment. “I guess I could squeeze an essay out of it.”

“I think the admissions people are tired of kids exploiting their dead grandparents,” Mrs. Oh said with a laugh, and her honesty made me like her. “Don’t worry. You’ll come up with something. I have faith in you.”

Since then, I’ve been scribbling ideas in a notebook. Sometimes I think about writing about Hudson and what it’s like to have a half brother who’s an addict—the sudden tightness in my dad’s face when his name pops up on his phone, like this might be the call; the way my stomach falls too—and then I remember that I can’t. It could be leaked to a tabloid in six seconds flat.

“As we discussed on the phone, it’s time to get Chloe an accommodation because of her learning issues,” Dr. Wilson says, looking at my parents, his attention so focused, I feel like a piece of the furniture, human clutter.

“What learning issues?” I interrupt, and both my parents shush me, as if I’m a little kid and not an almost-adult, here to maturely discuss my college options.