So when I go visit Tarver the day after Rone and Dre give me their gift, I’m expecting to see a construction site. Bulldozers, scaffolding, orange cones, workmen busy painting, lifting, and digging. Instead, when I arrive, I am shocked to see that the school has already been restored and looks brand-new, sparkling. I walk around the perimeter, stunned. There is no football field, but the building itself looks regal. I wish Rone, who decided to sleep in, had come to explain how this all happened so quickly.

What? I say to myself in disbelief. Huh?

“Skipping school today? Get on in dere, girl, and get yo education!” someone yells from a car whizzing by. “I’m an Ivy League graduate!” I retort, even though it’s not true.

When I get back to the front of the building, I trace with my eyes the glistening silver letters above the entrance that spell the name of the school. I imagine what it would have been like to go here now. I suddenly feel a twinge of bitterness. I feel cheated. If I had been born in the right place, like so many students at Dartmouth, this could have been my reality all along. It’s not fair, I say to myself.

As soon as I step inside, there is total silence. Underwater silence. I am standing in the vestibule between doors. The first entrance door behind me, the second in front. When I walk inside, I see frenzied students and teachers hustle past me through freshly painted hallways. Their mouths move, but everything is quiet. I feel like I’m watching a silent movie.

I hear it on my right side first. A low hum that steadily grows. I spin around to see where it is coming from. It gets louder and louder until it’s right above me, as if it’s catching up somehow and has to be synched to the present moment. A cacophony of noise. Cheerleaders practicing. A teacher yelling at a student for running through the hallways. Lockers slamming. Freshly polished sneakers screeching the floor. Just like at the hypnosis event, the sound cloud starts to descend and then—boom—bursts all over us. Everyone becomes animated with new life.

“Young lady, are you lost?” someone says from behind me.

“Oh no. I’m a former…”

I turn around and stare into the eyes of the prophet himself, Mr. Walsh. There is so much I want to say: You! You’re the reason I failed. Your prophecy destroyed me, planted seeds that yielded a soiled harvest. Now look at me. I’m nothing, just like you said. Thoughts race, but no words leave my mouth. I am overcome standing in front of a man who has lived rent-free in my mind for a year.