Chapter 32 Thirty Percent and What It Cost Him

Chapter 32 Thirty Percent and What It Cost Him
Declan

The paper felt like a punch. Not a light one. A gut shot. My name was on it, second place, right there in the middle of a school hallway I thought I knew. My essay title below it. The one I didn’t want anyone to see.

Ms. Aldridge stood in front of me, quiet, holding the printout out like it was a gift. I grabbed it. My fingers felt numb on the glossy paper. I read the words. Then I read them again, just to be sure. 

“I said no,” I told her. My voice was flat. 

She didn’t flinch. Her eyes, usually so sharp, were a little softer now. “I noted your objection.”

“Ms. Aldridge.” It wasn’t a question. It was a warning. A low growl. My eyes narrowed, seeing the defiance in her posture. She never backed down. That was her thing. And it was my weakness, sometimes, that I found myself respecting it.

“Second place, Mr. Moss,” she said, ignoring my tone. Her gaze dropped to the paper in my hand, then back to my face. “The first place essay was written by a graduating senior at a private school with a full time writing tutor.”

I stared at her. The words she said didn't matter. What mattered was what she did. “You submitted it without my...”

“You wrote it. I entered it. The work was yours.” Her voice was firm, no wiggle room.

“The decision wasn’t,” I shot back. The hallway was starting to fill up. Bell was about to ring. People walking past, not looking, but they would. Soon.

“No,” she said. Her voice was quiet now. She meant it, I could tell. “It wasn’t. I’m sorry for that part.” She paused, then added, "Not for the result.”

I looked at the printout again. My essay. About Gatsby. About me. A ghost story I didn't want anyone else reading. I folded the paper once, then twice, making hard creases. The edges bit into my palm. I shoved it deep into my jacket pocket.

“Does anyone else know?” I asked, my voice low.

She shook her head slightly. “The school is required to announce it.”

“When?”

“Thursday.”

Thursday. Two days. Two days to figure out how to put the armor back on. Or to run.

The bathroom was empty. That was a small win. I walked to the back, to the furthest stall, and locked the door. Didn’t need to go. Just needed to be alone. I sat on the edge of the sink counter. Two hundred people. Two hundred people were going to read that essay. My words. My guts.

I wrote it about Gatsby. About how he reached for that green light, just like I reached for… for something I couldn't even name. Something better. Something away from the mess. I wrote it about myself without saying my name. About how I watched everything, understood everything, felt everything, and kept it all inside.

And now Aldridge, with her good intentions and big ideas, had ripped the damn bandage off.

I thought about Juni. In the park. The six minutes of silence after she read it. The way she’d looked at me, just knowing. “You wrote this about yourself,” she’d said. No judgment. No making it weird. Just a quiet understanding, like she already knew the words even before she read them. I’d been carrying that knowledge, that she knew. It hadn't been easy, but it hadn’t been impossible either. Her knowing was different. She had a right to know. She saw the cracks in the armor anyway.

Nate found out at lunch. Of course he did. Carson’s group chat was faster than the school announcements. He came charging across the cafeteria, dodging tables, a wild grin on his face.

“Second place!” he yelled, skidding to a stop in front of me.

“I know,” I said, not looking up from my tray. 

“State competition!”

“I know.”

“You wrote an essay that placed second in the...”

“Nate.” My voice was flat. A warning.

He stopped, but the grin didn’t leave his face. He just bounced on the balls of his feet, eyes wide. “I’m going to need a moment.”

“Take your moment somewhere else.” I didn’t have the energy for his explosion.

“You’re the smartest person I know,” he said, then. His voice was different, softer. Like he was finally letting himself admit it out loud.

“Go away.”

“I’m telling Juni.”

I finally looked up. “She already knows.”

Nate froze. The bouncing stopped. The grin faltered. “She read it?”

“She edited it.”

His jaw dropped a little. “She edited your state placing essay.”

“She fixed one clause.” I tried to sound dismissive, but even to my own ears, it sounded weak.

“She fixed one clause of your state-placing essay,” Nate repeated, slowly, letting the words sink in. Then the grin was back, bigger than before. It wasn’t a regular grin. It was the specific delight of someone who had been right about something for a very long time. About me. About Juni. About everything.

Hargrove forwarded the email at 3:47 PM. No message, just the email. 

I was in the truck, parked a few blocks from school, trying to clear my head before going home. The screen flared, bright and unwelcome.

Subject: Scholarship Board – Supplemental Portfolio Review Request – Declan Moss

It was from the Osei Foundation. The scholarship people. They wanted more. Another review. In ten days.

I read it once. Then again. Then a third time. My mind raced, trying to find the angle. This good? Bad? I couldn’t tell. It felt like a door opening, a chance I hadn’t expected. Or maybe it was a trap closing. A slow, quiet tightening around something I didn’t even know was there until it snapped shut.

I texted Juni. Supplemental review. Ten days. I need to think.

Her reply came back in ninety seconds. Fast. Reliable. Think out loud if it helps. I’m here.

I didn’t text back. Just started the truck. Drove to the park, out of habit. The empty parking lot was quiet. I sat there for twenty minutes, staring at nothing, thinking out loud to myself. Words bounced around my skull. Scholarship. Essay. Two hundred people. Lily. Osei. It was all a tangled mess.

I went home. Lily already knew. Of course she did. Nate’s pipeline was faster than Hargrove’s email, even. She was at the kitchen table, a printout in her hand. Not the one Aldridge gave me. This one was fresh, crisp, somehow already obtained and printed. Ms. Aldridge really did post it on the school literary site. My breath hitched.

She didn’t say anything when I walked in. Just slid the paper across the polished wood. I sat down heavily, the stool groaning under me.

“Second place,” she said. Her voice was calm. Too calm.

“I know.”

“Mom’s going to lose her mind.”

“She doesn’t know yet.”

“She’s going to lose her mind.” Lily let that hang in the air for a second. Then, her eyes found mine. “I read it.”

“How?”

“Ms. Aldridge posted it on the school literary site.”

I closed my eyes for one short second. Just one. Let the frustration wash over me and then push it down. “Of course she did.”

“Dec.”

“What.”

“It’s good,” Lily said. And it wasn’t the kid-sister version of good. It was the real version. The one that meant she saw something in it. Something in me.

“It’s a school essay.” I tried to sound bored. Tried to sound like I didn’t care.

“It’s you,” she said, cutting right through me. Her gaze was steady. “It reads exactly like you.” She slid the paper back across the table, closer to me. “Juni helped you write it.”

“She fixed one clause.” I heard myself say it, felt the defensiveness in my voice.

“She fixed the rhythm,” Lily corrected, her voice soft but firm. She knew. She understood something I barely let myself admit. “That matters more.”

I looked at the words on the page. My words. And then at the place where Juni had made it breathe. The rhythm. The beat of my own hidden heart, now out in the open. Now two hundred people, soon my mom, and now this scholarship board, they all had a piece of it. A piece of me.