1
FRIDAY, MAY 23, 3:52 P.M.
This clock is trying to kill me.
Its faint tick . . . tock taunts me, like a literal bomb counting down to one of the most important and defining moments of the rest of my life. Maybe in a normal school, it would be the thought of summer. One last season with my friends before we all break apart for college. Melting ice cream cones and salt-textured hair; the scent of the ocean on our skin almost as strong as the sunscreen.
Despite my current rockiness in the friend department, there’s still a chance for my summer to look something like that. Except hopefully with my pockets padded with cash and the title of Wilde Academy’s Champion attached. But the only way to be named champion of the academy’s annual seniors-only competition is to win it.
And I can’t win if I’m not even chosen to compete in the first place.
“Hey,” a voice to my left whispers. Emmy whacks my arm lightly. “Chill out. You’re shaking the entire table.”
“I can’t help it,” I whisper back. “I feel like I’m going to puke.”
My heart thuds against my rib cage, keeping time with the ticking of the clock. Six more minutes until I can mow down every student in the hall to get to the bulletin board in the foyer to see if my name is on it. Maybe cry in relief if it’s there, and definitely cry if it’s not. Either way, tears will likely be shed.
“And don’t even think about skipping studying!” Professor Ruffalo reminds the class, snapping me back into the final anatomy lesson of my high school career. “Classes might be over for the year, but there are still two weeks of finals for most of you. Don’t start slacking now!”
Most of you. I scrutinize her features for any kind of tell that I’m not part of that, but her poker face is strong. Professor Ruffalo is one of the main faculty who chooses the twelve students—or, Challengers, as we call them—who compete in the two-week wilderness competition that takes place deep in the forest behind campus while the rest of the school slogs through final exams.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Emmy whispers. Her hand sneaks under our shared table to squeeze mine. My palms are slick with sweat from spending the entire class in fists in my lap. If she notices, she’s too much of a good friend to mention it. “If anyone’s going to get chosen, it’s you.”
Academically speaking, I should get chosen. In a school as elite as Wilde Academy, everyone is vying for the coveted top-of-class spot. We don’t have honors like valedictorian because there are too many of us highly ranked. That’s what getting named Champion is for.
“Students have been slighted before,” I murmur back.
Emmy shakes her head, her ginger Dutch braids falling off her shoulders. “You’re in the top one percent, you’ve taken every extra-credit opportunity, I know you get ‘a pleasure to have in class’ on every quarterly write-up, and you’ve aced every single test in the two years since you’ve arrived. You’re a shoo-in.”
An uncomfortable pang spreads through me. Almost every test. “It’s based on more than just academics,” I quietly remind her. “There’s also the essay.”
An eight-page paper specifying why we want to be chosen to compete as a Challenger in the competition, what we’d do with the $600,000 cash prize, and what the honor of being crowned Champion means to us. Eight pages in which I stripped myself bare for judgment, admitting that had I never begged my parents to send me to Wilde the summer before junior year, maybe they’d have enough money to pay my sister’s hospital bills without listing my childhood home as collateral.
Most of the students at Wilde Academy don’t need the money—not like I do. But those who apply to compete desire the distinction of being a Champion and the privilege of giving the only student-led speech at graduation. And while they don’t need the money, who’d
say no to six hundred grand?
“You wrote about needing the money to help your family and your sick sister,” Emmy says. “It’d be heartless not to choose you.”
My gut twists. “I—”
“Girls, do you have something to share?” Professor Ruffalo lasers in on us. We straighten in our seats. The hall floods with noise even though one minute slowly ticks down on the clock. Some classes got let out early.
“Just happy summer!” Emmy exclaims, brighter than a ray of sunshine.
Professor Ruffalo opens her mouth but is cut off as the bell chimes, signaling the end of class. Her poker face breaks into an easy grin. “I think I’ve tortured you all enough for one semester. I hope you have a fantastic summer, and to my seniors, I’ll see you at graduation.” I fly out of my seat, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. I think it hits someone, but I can’t stop to say sorry. Emmy’s on my heels, her arm looping through mine so she doesn’t get lost in the flood of students as we emerge into the STEM hall. Unlike Emmy, I have height on my side and can peer over most heads, but all it does is enhance my massive sense of FOMO. We have no choice but to ride the wave as everyone barrels toward the foyer.
“I don’t think you’re actually nervous about getting chosen,” Emmy says as we enter the foyer.
A sea of students separates us from the bulletin board by the stairs, blocking it from view.
“I think you’re nervous about what a certain someone will think if you do get in. When.”
“I don’t care what he thinks.” The words shoot out of me like missiles. As usual, Emmy has read me entirely too close for comfort. Her blue eyes bore into me, but I refuse to meet them. “He already hates me. It can’t get any worse.”
“You did throw a handful of mashed potatoes at him,” she unhelpfully points out.
“And he chucked a pork tenderloin at me!” I exclaim. “Everyone forgets that part.”
“I think everyone was kind of busy partaking in the most infamous food fight the school has ever seen.”
A food fight that resulted in my first real relationship shattering and landed me in Principal Watershed’s office. I was the only student to ever instigate such an atrocity at Wilde Academy, and I had to be reprimanded as such.
After I pulled the “my sister has cancer” card, Principal Watershed finally settled on five days of in-school suspension that wouldn’t go on my permanent record. I had to spend it picking the spring harvest in the greenhouse, then catch up on the lessons and work I missed. But it could have been so much worse.
“Did you know I found a green bean in my bra that night?” Emmy continues as we push closer to the bulletin board. “A place where green beans don’t belong. Ever.”
“If you wanted to stuff your bra, I’ve heard tissues work great,” I suggest.
“Shut up.” She laughs, jabbing her elbow into my rib. “For what it’s worth, I can’t wait to see his face when your name is on that list.”
I can, I think to myself. I want to hurt him as badly as he’s hurt me, but not like this. Because no matter how in the right I am for wanting—no, needing—to apply for the competition, it doesn’t change the fact that he was equally valid for not wanting me to.
“I can look first, if you want,” Emmy offers as we finally cross the center of the foyer and the grand marble staircase that curves down directly across from the giant entry doors. On the floor beneath us is the Wilde Academy crest—a raven’s feather crossed with a fern branch. The feather symbolizes intelligence and wisdom, and the fern symbolizes wealth and prosperity. It’s the same design that’s on the top left of our Oxford shirts.
“Maybe that’s a good idea,” I whisper, my lunch threatening to come up.
Only a few bodies stand between us and the bulletin board on the wall to the left of the staircase. Another step brings me closer, but someone knocks into me, forcing me to stumble back.
“Watch it,” Dodge Chenney says, his usual sneer reserved just for me painted across his bullish features. “You’re looking at a future Champion.”
Of course he got chosen. Dodge, and probably all of his friends, had nothing to worry about when applying for the competition. Their politician parents are famous and wealthy and graciously donate large amounts of that wealth to the academy.
None of them are here on scholarship like me.
Partial scholarship, I reminded him one time after his on-and-off girlfriend Soph Gonzalez made a nasty comment about how those fronting full tuition are paying for my education. I’m one of the only students not covering my own entire enrollment, and they never let me forget it.
Unlike them, I don’t spend my summers vacationing in the Hamptons or Christmas break skiing in Aspen. And honestly, I couldn’t care less. Growing up in the miniscule town of Creekson in the shadow of Rosetown, a place full of some of the most ridiculously ostentatious displays of money in Massachusetts, made me realize most of the stuff rich people do is just for show. Not coming from outrageous wealth was never a sore spot for me. Until Cece’s diagnosis.
The thought of my bubbly fourteen-year-old sister sitting in a hospital with a stiff gown falling off her too-thin shoulders makes my throat close. I mentally shake away the thought.
“Congratulations,” I tell Dodge, not letting an ounce of emotion leak into my voice. He’s already brushing past me, leaving enough room for Emmy and me to push into the front line.
“Moment of truth,” Emmy says, stepping up to block it from my view.
As the milliseconds pass, hope and despair brawl inside me. My name has to be there. It just has to.
But when Emmy turns to look at me, her face is somehow paler than normal. Even the late-afternoon sun shining through the skylight overhead doesn’t warm her, instead highlighting her freckles stark against her ashen face.
“I’m not on it,” I assume, trying to keep my voice steady. I will not cry in front of everyone. But it must be the truth. Nothing else would warrant such a horrified look from her.
She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. She looks more like a fish out of water than my best friend. “Um . . .”
I push her aside, needing to see for myself. My eyes skip down the list. As expected, Dodge is the first senior listed, followed by Soph, then most of his friend group. The name that follows is one I also expect, but it jumps out like a punch to the throat nonetheless. KEANA JAMES. As the other third of my roommate trio with Emmy and my former best friend, I knew she applied. But seeing she’s actually been chosen leaves a tang in my mouth, our fight from last month springing to mind. We haven’t had a real conversation since.
After Keana is another name that sets my teeth on edge. CARLOS WOOLF. We spent all of junior year and the first half of senior year in our tight-knit friend group. Woolf, as he goes by, was as much my friend as anyone else. But then the Breakup happened, and his loyalty clearly didn’t lie with me. He went from laughing with me to laughing at me, his teasing turned to taunting. He hates me nearly as much as Dodge does. They can bond over that while participating in the competition I should have been chosen for.
The next few Challengers aren’t necessarily a shock, but my money wouldn’t be on any of them to win. I can’t believe they’d get chosen over—
My breath stops, eyes finally flicking to the second-to-last line.
CHLOE GATTI.
“That’s me!” The words burst out of my mouth. I turn to Emmy, who’s watching me warily. “I’m in, Em! I got chosen!” Relief floods my body as a grin splits my face. I can’t wait to tell Cece that I’m now a Challenger in the annual Wilde Academy Wilderness Competition.
I don’t even care that I’m up against Keana, Woolf, and the likes of Dodge and his crew. Getting chosen was half the battle. The other half, I’m prepared for. I’ve studied past competitions, read up on every Champion, and pored over yellowing school newspapers dating back to its inception at the turn of the twentieth century. This is just another test to ace.
But Emmy still looks at me like I’m a bomb about to detonate.
“Why aren’t you happy for me?” I ask, trying not to let her kill my buzz.
She grabs my shoulders, turning me back to the list. “Look who’s competing with you.”
My eyes follow her finger to the paper, stomach sinking to my toes as I finally notice the name below mine.
The last Challenger is none other than my bitter, brooding ex: Hayes Stratford. ...
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