“Give me a second.” I close my eyes. I think: I am lucky. I am lucky. I am lucky.

I list all my good things: Levi and me on the beach, him saying I like you. I think of Shola, how even if we end up at colleges on opposite ends of the country, she’ll still be my invisible safety net. I think of my health, and my parents’ health, and Isla’s. I think how I’ve never known food scarcity. How I could have been born in Syria or South Central, instead of Beverly Hills.

I think about the word privilege, the good edges of it, the reassuring ones, and how it applies to me on every front in every way.

I think: This doesn’t matter. This doesn’t matter. This doesn’t matter.

“It does matter,” my mom says, which makes me realize I must have said this last bit out loud.

“I know,” I say, defensive. “I’m trying to keep things in perspective.”

“A little late for that,” my dad says, and laughs, though I have no idea what he means. I think I’ve kept my panic hidden pretty well, all things considered.

“I swear, if you don’t press that button, I’m going to do it for you,” my mom says, and so I click.

My scores appear on the screen.

Reading, 720. Math, 720.

Wait, what? I double-check again that it’s my name on the top and that this isn’t someone else’s file.

There has to be some sort of glitch.

A total score of 1440—720 reading, 720 math. That’s two hundred forty points higher than the last time I took the test.

Two hundred forty points.

“Holy crap! Yes! Yes! Yes!” my mom cheers, and kisses my cheek, and then does a happy dance, which in her case, apparently, takes the form of some sort of cha-cha.

“Well done,” my dad says, and hugs me tight from the back. I don’t turn. I’m still staring at the screen, bewildered and frozen. I check the question breakdowns, and I must be remembering incorrectly, because it seems like there are way fewer marked wrong than I guessed on. How could that be? Could I have had some bizarre, magical sixth sense when randomly picking? I click over to my percentiles: 97 percent across the board.

“These are wrong,” I say, without thinking. I don’t understand. “They must have mixed up my scores. I have to talk to Mrs. Oh.”

“Chloe,” my dad says. “Look, it’s right there. You did it, honey. All those practice tests. All that early morning studying. You did it!”

“We’re so proud of you,” my mom says, grinning, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. She was more nervous than I was. “See? Hard work pays off.”