That Summer (Completed)

Chapter 15

It was the worst day of my life.

The day I got my rejection letter from Stanford University.

I came home from school to see the envelope with the Stanford emblem sitting in the mail pile and felt my stomach coil up from anxiety. This was it. This letter held my fate; my future. Everything I had been working my butt off for was in this little white envelope, sitting innocently on the counter. I picked it up, my heart in my throat, and stared at it for a while.

It was now or never.

I ripped it open and took out the neatly-folded letter. After counting to three, I slowly opened it up and started reading.

Dear Miss. Lauren Jules,

The Stanford Admissions Committee has completed it's evaluation for this year's candidates. I write with sincere regret to inform you that we are not able to offer you admission to Stanford University.

I put the letter down, not bothering to read the rest, and felt my body go numb. I sat down on the couch, still unable to process what I had just read. This could not be happening.

I was officially rejected from Stanford. Everything I had worked for, all the nights I had stayed up studying, were all a huge waste. And that was precisely when I started crying.

I didn't even here Miranda and Jake walk into the house because I was so scatterbrained. My first instinct was to grab the letter and hide it out of their sight but I was too late. They saw my tear-streaked face and stopped short, their voices trailing off.

Miranda saw the letter on the counter and a look of understanding came over her face as she connected the dots. She nudged Jake to leave and he looked over uncertainly before reluctantly walking away. She came up and sat down beside me on the couch, the letter in hand.

"How bad did it hurt?" It was a question we'd asked ourselves often as kids. A scale to measure emotion and pain. We always stopped at eight, going over meant nothing worse could ever happen.

"Eleven," I said, my eyes going to the letter.

Miranda scrunched her nose and pleaded, "C'mon Lauren, please don't let this ruin your summer. It's just one university. You got accepted to all the other ones."

"Yeah, well, I wanted Stanford. I wanted it so badly," I said, sniffling.

Miranda patted my back awkwardly, trying to comfort me. "Hey, all these Ivy League schools are all great, Stanford isn't the end all and be all."

I wiped my face with my shirtsleeve and took a deep breath. "I know. It just sucks to fail at something you dedicated four years of your life to."

"You did not fail," Miranda said sternly. "You have got to be insane to think that. Do you know how many people got rejected from Queens? 70% of the applicants. And you have an acceptance letter in your hands."

I gave her a small smile. "Thanks. Trust me, I know how lucky I am to get into those universities. It just hit me hard is all."

"I know," Miranda said sadly. "Be sad about it. But then stop, don't let it ruin the excitement of your other acceptances."

"Ok," I said simply, leaning into her. It felt so good to talk to her openly about something. It felt freeing.

******

While we were eating dinner later that night, I told Mom and Miranda I wouldn't be able to make it to the beach house. I had a really important interview scheduled with my academic advisor the day we were leaving. The rejection from Stanford had sort of thrown me in for a loop.