The Academy

Chapter One

                 

Everyone has a hunger to be pushed out of his or her comfort zone and experience adventure. For most people, they are able to keep that desire at bay, but for me, it only grew and grew until I became so bored of the life that I was living that every day seemed to be the exact same. Being an introverted only child in the small California town of Bunting no longer kept me satisfied. I yearned for more. I knew I could achieve more than what was being offered there.

         That's why I started to research boarding schools. To put it plainly, they interested me. Right as my junior year came to a close, I obsessively poured over the Internet, memorizing Forbes' Best Boarding Schools and clicking on each and every link provided.

         For some reason, as soon as I read about Beaumont Academy, my heart began to race.

         Beaumont Academy was an elite all-female boarding school in Boston, Massachusetts—over three thousand miles away from Bunting. Almost everyone that graduated there was destined for greatness, including billion-dollar companies, Ivy Leagues, and high statuses. I was a smart kid—I wasn't worried about getting into Beaumont Academy—but the thought of attending that school both thrilled me and scared the hell out of me. I had never been away from my parents for more than two weeks—church camp in the ninth grade—but yet I wanted to experience life without living right under their noses.

         As I read more about Beaumont Academy—and its brother school, Pentry Academy—I knew I had to go. It kept tugging at me as I tried to fall asleep, take a shower, or do practically anything. So, I made an elaborate PowerPoint, trying to persuade my parents into letting me go to—or at least apply to—Beaumont Academy. Fortunately for me, persuasion was one of my strong suits.

         "Kayleigh, this school is three-thousand miles away," my father said, squinting over his reading glasses to scan the handout I made to accompany the PowerPoint. I took this seriously. I had to be prepared.

         "I know, Dad," I replied, sitting on the coffee table beside my laptop, which was stationed directly in front of my parents. "But think about it. This is such a great opportunity. You guys want me to learn responsibility. I'm leaving for college in a year. This could help me learn how to live without you guys."

         "Plus," my mom said to my father, nudging him with her arm, "look at the Ivy League pipeline. Forty-six percent! That's amazing." She was always on my side.

         That was how family meetings usually went. My mother would agree with me, and we would practically gang up on my father until he finally caved in and came up with a compromise. I could feel his patience already running low. Good sign.

         My father took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and sat the handout on the coffee table. "This school can't be cheap, Kayleigh. You know we probably can't afford it." My father was the manager of Generals, a small grocery store down the street from our house, and my mom was a teacher, so they really didn't make that much money. I knew that he would bring it up, so it was a good thing I already researched financial aid.

         "Tuition is normally around forty-thousand dollars." I could sense my father's eye roll without even looking at him. "But, I calculated how much financial aid I could receive from our yearly income range, and after financial aid, it would be around four-thousand."

         "Well," my mom said, pulling a thin piece of caramel-colored hair behind her ear, "that's considerably less than forty-thousand."

         "Do you expect us to pay all that?" my dad asked, an eyebrow raised. "You can just continue to go to public school here for free."