Chapter 2I Hired a Boyfriend

Liam and I grew up across the hall from each other. He was always one of those intensely self-disciplined people, while I was born to drift. When other kids were playing outside, he was forcing me to do homework. He’d stand over me, his face serious, his lips a thin line.

“This is wrong. Write it out ten times.”

It was torture.

In high school, he requested to be my desk partner, pushing me every single day.

“You have to work harder,” he’d say. “We’ll go to Northwood together.”

His ears would turn pink when he said it, his normally cool composure cracking just a little. He kept repeating it, “we together.”

For those two words, I studied like my life depended on it.

We both got into Northwood’s top-ranked Computer Science program. My parents cried with joy. They said Liam was a blessing, that without him, I would have ruined my own future.

The day my acceptance letter came, everyone was beaming, so proud of me. But on that sweltering July afternoon, I felt a chill spread through my body, a cold so deep it made me tremble.

Because in the list of majors I had painstakingly chosen and submitted, Computer Science wasn’t anywhere on it. And my scores were more than good enough to get my first choice.

Someone had changed my application.