Page 21 of The Do-Over
He released her and stepped back.
She looked up at him, searching his gaze. She’d been determined that she wouldn’t make him comfort her, but now she found she wanted his comfort after all.
“You didn’t get in?” he asked.
Thea shook her head. “My SAT score was okay,” she said. “It must have been my grades.”
“You could take the SAT again and reapply,” he suggested. “If you got your score up, it would probably be enough to compensate for your grades.”
“I told you I could only afford to take the test once,” she reminded him.
He reached out and took her hands, shaking his head. “It doesn’t cost that much,” he said. “We can get the money together. I could—”
“I’m not going to let you pay for it, Rob.”
“I’ve paid more than that for us to go out to dinner,” he reminded her.
“That’s different.”
“Not to me. This is about our future. About our life.”
“I can’t,” she said. “It feels bad enough that they rejected me, but if you were paying for my SAT and I did badly, I’d feel like I had failed you. I wouldn’t be able to stand that.”
“It wouldn’t be that way,” he protested.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Then you can earn the money yourself. You could work at your parents’ restaurant, right? They’d let you waitress. You could make tips. A couple of busy Saturday nights would get you there.”
“It wouldn’t matter, Rob,” she said bleakly. “Even if I got a perfect SAT score, even if I reapplied and they let me in, they’re not going to give me a scholarship after rejecting me. And there’s no way I can afford to go to school out of state without a scholarship. We’ve always known that. It’s over.”
Rob pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, burying his head in his hands.
“It can’t be over,” he said. “There has to be a way.”
“It’s not going to happen,” she said. “I’m sorry, Rob. I really am. I know this is what you wanted. I feel awful.”
He looked up at her.
“But we can still go to Iowa State together,” she said.
Rob shook his head slowly. “I’m not going to Iowa State, Thea,” he said quietly.
Thea felt as if all the air had been punched out of her lungs. She sat down slowly at the table.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and she was surprised when her voice came out steady.
“I told you that I wanted to go to Larrimore,” he said. “I told you that was my dream. I’m not going to let go of that now.”
“But…” She swallowed. “We said we were going to go away to college together, Rob. We agreed on that.”
“I wanted that too,” he said. “You don’t think I wanted it too? But now—”
“But what?” she demanded. “I can’t go to Larrimore. You know I was willing to go for your sake.”
“You weren’t sacrificing anything to do that,” he said. “Larrimore’s a great school. I wasn’t asking you to give anything up.”
“You weren’t asking me to give anything up?” she repeated incredulously. “I would have had to leave my home state. I was going to leave my parents and my brother behind to go to Illinois with you. And I never even questioned it. Because I love you, Rob. Because the most important thing is that you and I are together.”
