“I was looking it up the other night, and Princeton dorm staff actually lets residents borrow cots when they have people visiting,” she says, putting her head on my shoulder. “I mean, those things have to be stained to high heaven, but it’s good to know, right?”

Hm.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say it sounds like you’re talking like someone who already knows where she’s going for college. With geographic certainty.”

Her eyes widen for a split second, and her recovery is even worse; she’s actually biting her lip now, aiming for casual. Someone seriously needs to teach this girl how to lie before we graduate high school. It’s irresponsible not to.

“Corinne, did . . . did you hear back from Princeton?”

She concedes a tight and contained smile that soon explodes into a booming shriek. “I’m going to Princeton!

“I’m going to fricking Princeton!”

Corinne slaps both hands to her mouth and whisper-shouts it a third time, although basically at the same volume as before. She cringes at her own words and then looks at me like I’m a puppy whose tail she accidentally stepped on.

“Congratulations!” I smile, though I get the distinct impression that, in trying to make it feel natural, it’s coming off like a strange Photoshop job right there on top of my chin.

“Are you . . . upset?” she asks.

“Of course not. I’m so happy for you. Why didn’t you tell me, like, immediately?”

She smiles. “Sorry. I guess I thought telling you would be a bit—I don’t know—insensitive. There’s an inherent competition to college applications. Even if two applicants aren’t courting the same school. It breeds jealousy—which stems from the Latin zelus for ‘passion’—which is in turn largely accepted as irrational, especially in cases of—”

I bring her in for a kiss because I suspect she will otherwise never physically stop talking. There’s suddenly a strange swell of pride in my stomach. My girlfriend is officially a Princeton-bound genius.

“You’re going to be great,” I say. “Really, Troy. You’re going to set that stupid campus on absolute fire and then take over the world with full Ivy League entitlement and all.”

“Thank you.” She smiles.

First Ming, now Corinne. Of course she got into Princeton. Corinne Troy was always getting into Princeton. No lackluster letter from Mrs. Carroll writing off all Corinne’s moral uprightness, honesty, and focus as “intensity” was going to keep her out.

She is intensely amazing, after all.

Twenty-Two