“What? It’s the Rule of Attraction. Negativity attracts negativity. You should make a vision board. Put SCC right in the middle.” I’ve long thought my mom’s woo-woo-ness must come from her being in entertainment. When you’ve been as fortunate as she’s been on that front—regular roles on not one but two long-running television series—you turn to mystical forces to explain it. I mean, she’s a great actress in the sitcom world, don’t get me wrong, but so are a lot of people. It helps to attribute your success, at least in part, to a positive attitude, to some unseen way you’re more deserving. It’s an atheist’s prosperity gospel.

“I’m not going to SCC,” I say.

“What’s wrong with SCC? It’s down the road. We’d be able to see you all the time. Carrie could even pick up your laundry.”

“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s an amazing school. But I’m not getting in there. Mrs. Oh put it in the ‘likely out of reach’ category, and that was before today. She said all the schools we visited over the summer were out of reach.”

“Mrs. Oh doesn’t know everything, Chloe.”

“You and Dad need to be more realistic,” I say, my voice catching. I hate disappointing my parents, who have both worked so hard to give me this big, beautiful, privileged life. I will not cry about the SAT. I have my entire adult life ahead of me, and I have been nothing but lucky.

This is nothing. A blip. A minor fail.

I remind myself that their love is not conditional on a score.

“Don’t say that,” my mom says, and the hopeful look in her eyes breaks something in me. “I want what’s best for you. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry I’m not super academic like Isla. I wish reading comprehension didn’t feel like hieroglyphics. But that doesn’t mean I’m destined to be, like, a terrible failure at everything!” I scream this last bit. I’ve subconsciously opted for yelling over crying, a code-switch defense mechanism, and then I remember we’re in public. When we walked into the ice cream shop, Oville was blasting on the speakers and the scooper, a girl wearing a Bruins hat with a name tag that read JESSIE and who felt vaguely familiar from Wood Valley—was she a senior when I was a freshman?—immediately recognized my mother. When it came time to pay, she said, “When I was little, my mom and I used to love to watch you on My Dad, My Pops, and Me together, so it’s on the house,” and then she asked my mother to autograph a napkin. Before we even left, she whipped out her cell phone and said, “Ethan, you will never believe who just walked in here….”