“I need you to assess me,” I declare as dramatically as possible, eyes to the ceiling as students around us start to quickstep to their respective classes. Luckily for me, we’re just working on our independent senior projects in my Bio class. Dr. Shapandar is working on her second PhD, and rigorous attendance has fallen through the cracks in the process. As long as assignments are turned in on time at the end of the week, students can stroll into the lab whenever they want.

Corinne eyes me up and down and tilts her head. “Run-of-the-mill overextended teen, possible anxiety; one part insecurity, two parts narcissistic tendencies masked as charming extroversion,” she says calmly before turning back to her locker to collect books for her next class.

I almost choke on a breath. “Jesus Christ!”

“What? You asked!”

“I meant, like, academically!” I sputter. “Like, my college chances! Not for you to dissect my personality and insult me. Also, everyone is a narcissist.” I can’t help but defend myself. “Every pair of eyeballs processes the world in the first person.”

“A little sensitive today, are we? I wasn’t insulting you,” she says as we start to walk together in the emptied-out halls. “We all have our issues. It’s good to be aware of them. So . . . colleges?”

“I know I won’t hear anything until the end of March at the earliest, but I’m still one good recommendation away from being as competitive as I need to be for Columbia.”

“Well, what does Vu say?”

I can’t contain my eye roll on this one. “Be patient, trust the process, words, words, words.”

Corinne throws me a look but says nothing, instructing me that it’s still my turn.

“I still haven’t heard back from any of my top choices. No forward motion, no nothing. I feel like I’m wasting valuable time spinning my thumbs. So I figured I’d ask you to—I don’t know—assess my chances? I was going to ask you not to hold back, but, er, maybe hold back a little?”

“I’m not a Magic 8 Ball, Henri,” she says. “I would need your grades, essays, and recommendation letters to give you my assessment if that’s what you’re asking. And even then, it would just be an opinion.”

She’s not wrong. Why did I want her reassurance so badly?

This might have been a phenomenally bad idea. Someone waves at us and I automatically wave back before realizing they’re waving to Corinne and not me. She frowns suspiciously but returns the wave as we keep on walking.

“Cori has certainly gotten popular,” I note.

“I have no idea who that was,” she mumbles. “I need to memorize those flash cards.”

“Those what now?”

She grins and reaches into her backpack, pulling out a stack of color-sorted rainbow flash cards. She dexterously begins to flip through them as we walk.

“Dear God, woman.”