My plan had been to be quiet during our walk to school in case, you know, he wanted to ask me something.

Now that’s the last thing on my mind.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Neil throws out into the silence.

“It’s …” My mind is still trying to figure it all out. “I applied to schools yesterday.”

“Congrats,” he says as he nudges my elbow. “It’s hitting you, huh? We’re going to college.”

I shake my head. “No, I got an automatic reply from all three schools.”

Neil raises his eyebrow at me. “Oh, is that how it is? They don’t even need to look over your application. They see that the Allison Smith from Valley Falls has applied and boom! You’re automatically accepted.”

I wish.

I guess I should just be grateful I didn’t check my e-mail last night.

Yesterday was weird enough, even though when Dad came back after his walk he acted like nothing had happened. Our conversation and his agitation had been erased like any memory I had of my past life.

So I had collapsed into bed with Baxter and tried to sleep. Even though I slept poorly, I wouldn’t have gotten any if I’d been aware that there were three e-mails in my in-box that were going to unravel everything.

“No.” I take a deep breath. “My social security number was rejected. They said it’s invalid. My applications didn’t go through.”

Neil doesn’t miss a beat. “You probably put the wrong number in. I do that with numbers all the time. I switch digits around.”

“That’s what I thought, but it’s the right number. I double-checked.”

“Did you ask your dad for the card? Maybe it was copied down wrong.”

“He was already gone by the time I got up.” Not like I feel I could ask him anything regarding college applications after yesterday.

“It’ll be okay. It’s probably a glitch with the university’s system.” Neil pats me on the shoulder, his hand hovering a beat longer than normal. “You should talk to Ms. Pieper.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m assuming. I’m going to her office as soon as we get to school. I’m more frustrated than anything at this point.”

I spent so much time filling out all those forms and answering these big questions about my life. Getting all the paperwork and tax forms. Ensuring everything is filled out exactly so. Meeting every single deadline.

Man, adulting totally blows.

“It’s going to work out fine. It has to be on their end.”

“What’s on whose end?” Dana approaches us from the sidewalk that intersects our route.

“Nothing,” I say. Dana is the last person I want to know about my problems.

The corners of Dana’s lips curl ever so slightly before she turns her attention to Neil. “So how was your weekend?”