Chosen by Jessica Burkhart Page A

smart girl. Yates is not an easy school, and you’re taking the most difficult and fullest course load possible there. I know how hard you work.”
    â€œWhat about falling?” I asked again.
    Dad laughed. “Where’s the girl I just picked up from practice? The one who got in the car and told me how she kicked everyone’s butt at jumping today?”
    Smiling, I leaned back into my seat and stared out the window at the cars and trucks whizzing by on the highway.
    â€œShe’s right here,” I asserted.
    Now I wanted that envelope to come more than ever.

LAUREN’S ADDICTION
    I ♥ wknds! So xcited 2 hang w Tay 2nite!
     5:18 p.m .
    Once I updated my Chatter status, I put my phone on my desk. Taylor and I
     were going to the movies and then out to grab a slice of pizza. His dad would be here to
     pick me up at seven. I needed something distracting—seven seemed so far away!
    I picked up my baby blue leather messenger bag, letting out an ooof! as I set it on the bed. It
     was so full, it barely closed, and I was sure the straps were going to break. I pulled
     out the books I needed for the weekend’s homework. Each book was bigger than the
     one before.
    Math.
    Science with workbook.
    French II textbook.
    English textbook and Animal Farm .
    Art history.
    American history.
    And those were just the books I needed to read from. The rest of the
     weekend’s homework was posted on Yates’s Web site. To top it off, at some
     point I needed to log in and post a discussion question for creative writing and offer replies to at least
     four other students’ questions.
    In general, weekends definitely weren’t work-free in the
     Towers’s household. Becca had started her homework early this morning, so she was
     already out with her bestie, Casey. I’d decided to ease into the day. I slept in,
     watched a little TV, then spent some time on IM chatting with Ana and Brielle.
    I stacked my books in a neat pile on my desk and decided to dive into the
     art history that would be due on Tuesday. But for me, homework was a finely tuned ritual
     and I could not even write one word until I had my go-to homework drink. Brielle’s
     was Diet Coke. Ana loved cappuccinos with sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. I’d
     actually gagged when I’d
     accidentally taken a tiny sip from her cup once. That was a mistake I’d never make
     again for fear of going into a sugar coma.
    I headed downstairs to the kitchen. I could tell by theshiny marble tiles that Ellen had been here this morning. I looked around the
     house. Everything was sparkly clean, exactly the way I liked it. I reached into the
     light wooden cabinet above the stove and took out last year’s Christmas present
     from Aunt Cathy—a stainless steel Krups teapot with a black rubber handle. I
     filled the pot with water from our Brita filter and turned the gas stove on high until
     the tips of the mostly blue flames licked the outer circumference of the teapot.
    Next, I opened another cabinet door and took out a wicker basket that had
     been painted bronze. I carried the basket to the breakfast nook and sat at the small
     round table, peering into my basket. I treated the basket as if it contained diamonds,
     but what was really inside was tea. Tea, tea, and more tea. I had boxes and bags of
     every imaginable kind—herbal, black, green, red, white.
    I’d started drinking tea back when we lived in Brooklyn—mostly
     because our house was a three-floor brownstone with just one tiny radiator to heat the
     entire place. It had always been so freezing that the entire family started drinking
     tea, just to have a warm cup clasped between their palms at all times.
    Tea, Dad always told me, kept you warm from the inside out. Back then,
     Becca and I were too young and,therefore, banned from caffeinated
     tea. So Mom always had a box of our favorite flavors of caffeine-free Celestial
     Seasonings on the