‘Mona.’ The metallic twang of his voice burrows into me and expands into a longing to hear it in person. He’s an absent father but he’s still a father, the only remaining extension of myself, and a part of me wants to be close to him. I’ve never been further away. I move my free hand on top of the one holding the phone without thinking. Dad says my name again. I’m embarrassed by it, for some reason. ‘What have you done?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I don’t care that you’re fine. I care that you’re gone.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I looked up Sandown – what on earth are you doing there? And so soon before college – when were you planning on coming back? You only have, what, two months before you move in?’

I needed to tell him eventually. ‘It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it.’ Peyton doesn’t understand and is still flashing me a wicked smile, a conspiratorial glance of Oh, parents, some response to my ardent teenage rebellion that understates what’s about to come.

‘Of course it is.’

He has to find out eventually. ‘Dad, please, can I call you back? My room-mate is –’

‘You need to come home.’

He has to find out. ‘I need you to listen –’

‘I mean, you’re not there for money, obviously. So what is it? You’re not … finding yourself, are you? Finding yourself is a lie perpetuated by –’

‘I didn’t get in.’ The line crackles. Peyton cranes her neck up like a bird.

Dad breathes. ‘You didn’t get in where?’

‘Harvard. I didn’t get in.’ Silence. I’m sorry I’m not Celeste. I’m sorry the one you loved is gone. I’m sorry I’m all that’s left.

I’d wanted to apply to other schools but Dad said it’d hardly be necessary – legacy students have a forty-six per cent greater chance of getting admitted. He’d always encouraged that in me, a sort of ugly, bullheaded confidence, scoffing at fallbacks or contingencies (in Celeste, as well, but it suited her better). Celeste was accepted no problem, of course. My application was solid. I’d written a perfectly mawkish essay about Celeste and my ‘journalism’, but the night before it was due I’d removed every reference to my sister and satisfied the word count requirement by, at the end, writing ‘o what a tangled web we weave’ two hundred and fifty times. To be honest I don’t remember doing this; I only realized what I’d done after checking a couple of days later to make sure the application had submitted. I didn’t tell Dad.

‘Maybe,’ I say, ‘I can reapply next year. Either way, right now I’m here and that’s the way it is.’

A beat. ‘I’m coming to get you.’