Drive Me Wild

Four

"Dinner was wonderful Mrs. Gibson. I've never had lasagna that tastes so good!" I say as Emma takes our plates to the dining room.

After Ashley and I had our little nap (that ending up being five hours long) it was dinner time and in this house they take dinner very seriously.

Okay, maybe not very seriously. But it was way more structured than my I've ever experienced dinners. There was three courses and it started at seven on the dot where you would have drinks while Emma and Jonathan set up the dining room.

At home, mother and I rarely ate together because our schedules were so different and at boarding school we're allowed to eat dinner anywhere between six and eight.

"Thank you dear, but please call me Karen." Mrs. Gibson says and I nod.

We were sitting in their dining room. Which was incredibly extravagant. With it's chandelier and excessive amount of portraits. The dining table was in the middle of the room. It was incredibly large showing that it was meant to take more than just the four of us. I think they must have the other chairs in storage seeing as unless they have guests they didn't need it.

"So, Ashley tells me that you're interested in Duke University." Mr. Gibson asks me suddenly.

"Yes, sir." I nod.

"She's a total genius dad!" Ashley starts talking proudly. "She has like a 4.0 GPA and she in so many activities! What are they again?" She asks before she start counting my extracurriculars . "Volleyball, soccer, basketball, speech and debate, drama club, her school newspaper, French club, student council, she founded her school's gay-straight alliance -"

"Okay, Ashley I don't think he cares that much." I laugh shyly.

"Oh, the contrary." Her father says before taking a sip of wine. "How do you have time to do all of that?"

"I drink a lot of coffee." I joke and they all laugh.

"Why are you working so hard?" He asks seriously.

I shrug "I just want everything to go to plan. Having a perfect GPA and good  extracurriculars should help. Plus I actually just enjoy school."

"You're the textbook perfect student. I'm certain you will be accepted." Mr Gibson says and I smile widely. "Have you ever consider early admissions?" I shake my head.

"What's early admissions?" Ashley questions taking a sip of red wine, which is illegal considering she's 19 but when in Raleigh I guess.

"If I apply for early admissions then I know my results in December instead of like May and if I get accepted have to go to Duke," I say turning my head to look at Ashley and she nods. I turn back to look at Mr Gibson's. "I've considered it but even though Duke has been my first choice I wanna keep my options open."

"What other options do you have?"

"My mother and I have decided on Duke, Berkeley, University of Toronto, UCLA, and Columbia," I say counting off my five choices.

"Ambitious." Mr Gibson says and I nod.

"What does your father think of all this?" Mrs Gibson asks.

"I've never met him." I shrug "My mum says he came to see me about an hour after I was born but she kicked him out and that was about it," I say not wanting to speak too much of it.

He and my mother were deeply in love up until about three months before I was born. My mum doesn't really like to talk about it so I don't really know the details.