BooksBarbecue
Back Admission
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Julie Buxbaum
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. CHAPTER ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER FIVE
  10. CHAPTER SIX
  11. CHAPTER SEVEN
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  22. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  52. EPILOGUE
  53. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  54. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  55. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  56. What’s next onyour reading list?

“It doesn’t matter. You need to protect yourself. You can be charged as a coconspirator.” I stare at my sister, who has always been a complicated package. Freckled nose, tiny ears on the outside, and combustible, tightly wound inside. She always plays the long game, takes the hardest route out. Once, she insisted on making all of us a three-course meal entirely from scratch, even the bread, a process that took a whole week. This was not born from some real passion for cooking. She wanted to prove to herself that she could do it. In other words, she’s made of the same stuff that makes people do bizarre, exhausting crap like triathlons.

“I didn’t know,” I say again, and hate that my voice is shaking. That my face is already wet again. “They can’t charge me if I didn’t know.”

“Really? Is that how the law works? You say you’re innocent and so they believe you?”

“Whatever, Judge Judy,” I say, using my sheet to wipe under my eyes. I take a deep breath, try to sound like I’m in control, like everything is fine. “Listen, it’s going to be okay. I’m not going to jail. And neither is Mom. There has to be some sort of mistake.”

I’m not sure what sort of mistake I mean. There hasn’t been a mistake. Not really. They say the devil is in the details. When I took the SAT the last time, my score went up by 240 points. If it’s true what the newspaper reports—that I applied to SCC as a pole vaulter, that somewhere along the line, Dr. Wilson changed my application and my parents paid off a coach to vouch for me and make a space—then that’s not a mistake. That’s a lie.

And apparently, a crime.

That’s news to me.

Maybe what I mean is not that there’s been a mistake so much as there’s been an overreaction. The View called. Why would The View be interested in this? In me?

My little sister, who is not so little, is wearing flannel pajamas covered in cartoon bunny rabbits and her night retainer. I’m older and wiser, if only by a year. It’s my job to rein in her anxiety.

I grab her hand and squeeze.

She pulls away.

“I’ll get you a list of lawyers,” she says, and marches out of the room.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Then