I first read a few professional emails that Chantale Troy has sent out over the past few weeks, quickly getting a sense of her writing style. She does not use contractions. There are no semicolons. Her sentences are short and to the point. She starts every new piece of correspondence with an I hope all is well, no matter how prosaic or dry the rest of the email reads.

I focus on the craft and the details and try not to think about the violation. Thankfully, there seems to be nothing personal in her email account. Only departmental exchanges, friendly correspondence with some students, and perfunctory ones with others.

After soaking up enough of it, I open a new email draft, locate the name of the person best suited for this request—Michael Connelly, Dean of Admissions—and quickly begin typing as Palm Tree stares me down from his doggy bed in the living room.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say guiltily, earning me no reaction from the dog.

The email is easy enough to draft. It’s everything I had hoped Donielle Kempf would have said on my behalf.

I hope all is well! I wanted to bring your attention to a prospective student I recently met! Talented high schooler, inspiring to see, hard worker . . .

I avoid mentioning anything too specific, like FATE academics, or veering too far away from Chantale’s academic tone. This is an informal nudge with all the institutional power that the right elbow can convey. I sign it all off: With Regards, capitalized R.

When I’m done, I sit back and stare at the screen, my finger hovering over the Send button. This is wrong. I know that. Jumping over turnstiles to get into the subway. Opening people’s kitchen cabinets when returning their dogs in their absence. Falsifying a letter of recommendation to an Ivy League college from your girlfriend’s mom.

Wrong and illegal. Wrong and invasive. Wrong and illegal, invasive and gross.

But this whole world is wrong and unfair, isn’t it?

Sometimes, the only way to climb out is to realize that there are people you can use as steps. That’s what Lion had said, right?

Everybody else uses what they’ve been given. Some people have money; others have connections, influence, or ridiculous supercomputer brains that can get a perfect score on their SATs in the middle of a yawn. Worse still, they have second chances: another train of opportunity they can catch, just minutes behind the one they just missed. They’ll reapply after a gap year; they’ll go to Dartmouth and transfer in a year. They’ll afford grad school in four years.