“How did we raise someone with such low character?” Dad continues, looking to Ma for his next wind.

“That’s not fair, Jacques,” Ma says.

“You see character in this, Mimrose?”

She looks at me like she knows exactly when I sent that email. Like, she heard my footsteps going up to the Troys’ that day.

“We put a lot of pressure on him,” she finally says.

“Are you saying this is our fault?!”

She shakes her head. “This is a hard city to raise kids in, Jacques. You know that. That school, the dogs, college applications on top of it. It’s a lot.”

Dad shakes his head so vigorously his neck might snap. “No! No! Absolutely not! The son I know would never do somethin—”

“Don’t talk like I’m not freaking here!” I yell out, feeling something come to a boil.

Both their heads whip at me. Projecting has never been a problem for any Haltiwanger man. Especially not one with Greg-supervised debate training.

“Do you know how unfair the admissions system is?” I sputter. “Everyone gets people to write letters on their behalf or hires tutors or authors to write their admissions essays! The system is rigged!”

“Ah, yes.” Dad snorts. “The system where you luck your way into a full ride to a phenomenal school where you’re not bullied, have rich friends, and everyone loves you! The one where your classrooms are filled with top-of-the-line computers and you ‘just chill’ with the children of millionaires when you’re not playing with dogs.”

Did he seriously think that? Was that really what he pictured? That this has just been easy for me? That going to FATE has been fun?

“It’s not a fun thing to go to school with the kids of millionaires, Dad. Not when you have $38.43 in your checking account! And whoever told you that picking up dog crap at six a.m. every day is fun was choking on some amazing edibles!”

He shakes his head, and his voice lowers for the first time. “You’re so young.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t stop you from putting it all on me every freaking day because it’s easier than trying on your own, does it? At least I tried to do something instead of just waiting for—I don’t even know what—my son to buy me a mansion?”

“Henri!” Ma chimes in, aghast and suddenly wide awake.

“You lied; you stole that woman’s name!” Dad throws back, and thank God we’re on the ground floor, muffled by street sounds, otherwise that banshee Glanville might have already called the cops. “Where is your character that you can’t see how wrong that is?”

“I said I was sorry already! God! You want to go to Columbia that badly, go fill out a fucking application and see how easy it is!”

It’s mean. And vicious. And I immediately regret it.