Michael Connelly, the Dean of Admissions, contacted him thirty minutes ago. My file had been flagged either shortly before or shortly after the acceptances had gone out but after the online list had been submitted. I imagine a perfectly embossed blue envelope with my name on it being snatched from a pile of such envelopes mere moments before the mailman rolled them out to his truck.

Mr. Vu shakes his head a lot, joins his hands together in front of him, and then quickly untangles them. As the anger seeps out of him, so does the confidence. He opens an email on his desktop and reads it out loud. I make out my name, but that’s about it. I want to be paying attention to what he’s saying—I need to be paying attention—but my mind is reeling.

“I’m sorry . . . what?” I ask when Vu repeats the same word enough that it pierces through the miasma.

“Rescinded. Your acceptance has been rescinded, Henri,” he says, finding his way back to his regular hue, having exhaled all his frustration.

“No, it can’t be,” I finally manage to will into syllables. “I got the email, see? I saw it with my own eyes. . . .”

I frantically take out my phone and try to reload the portal to prove it to him. C’mon.

C’mon. C’mon.

After I make the third try in which the page comes up blank, Mr. Vu extends a hand forward to stop me from refreshing again.

“Never mind that right now. Just listen to me, Henri. I’m . . . I’m trying to get them to leave it at the rescinded acceptance, but this is bad,” Vu says. “Do you get that? Just how bad this is?”

Words are on the margins of my brain right now, so I say nothing as I lower the phone.

“I feel like I’ve failed you.” Mr. Vu sighs, and I hate how it sounds so close to pity. “I know you were under an extraordinary amount of pressure, but why would you do this?”

I sigh. “You know why, Mr. Vu.”

Because there’s no such thing as “competitive” in the end, is there? I want to say. You’re either in or you’re not. Everyone who “almost got in” ends up in the same pile as the people who didn’t even spell their address correctly. The world is binary. Success, failure.

“How did you do it, Henri?” Mr. Vu asks. “You falsified a recommendation but from who? Donielle Kempf?”

“Corinne’s mom,” I finally give, closing my eyes. I suddenly feel very tired. “Corinne and I are, y’know, together, and her mother is a Columbia dean.”

“Chantale Troy.” He nods slowly, with the brief satisfaction of someone solving a crossword puzzle that’s been nagging at them.

“They were both out of town. I walk their dog, Palm Tree, sometimes, and Chantale hadn’t logged off her computer. . . .”