Ellie Sandberg would love to reinvent herself. When she earns a spot at an elite boarding school for young inventors, it seems like the perfect opportunity: A summer away from home, away from her overprotective parents, and away from the hopeless cr...
I half-run, half-walk in my girlfriend's wake, but she isn't slowing down. I can tell by her stride—the way her wavy hair flounces with each step—that she's getting ready to rip me a new asshole. What exactly did I do this time? Honestly, I'm not sure I care. This whole routine is getting old.
I've gone through these motions too many times. It always plays out the same way. Our whole relationship is like some glitchy piece of code, stuck in an infinite loop, spitting the same output over and over and over.
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You know what, though? Sometimes there's only one way out of a broken loop... CTRL-ALT-DELETE. Force quit.
"Eleanor!" I call after her again.
She's headed for the library, about to disappear inside the glass revolving door. Enough's enough. I need her to turn around. I don't want to have the coming conversation inside there, under the scrutiny of the campus surveillance cameras. "Eleanor, cut the crap! Hold up!"
She spins around to face me in a swirl of whipping hair. Her icy glare demands silence. I know that look too well. It's designed to freeze me in place, like I'm some well-trained puppy dog commanded by its owner to stay.
I push the thought away. Eleanor Winthrop doesn't own me. Neither does her family – not even with their name emblazoned on this school's wrought-iron gates.
I didn't plan on having it out with her today, but I don't see any way around it. I can't spend the next year going through the same motions. The thought of making nice with Eleanor for the seventeen-thousandth time makes me want to gouge my own eyes out. I know what I need to do, and I'm prepared to live with the consequences. Even if it means spending my Senior year in a public high school.
"What do you want, Moxie?"
Eleanor and her nicknames... She's been calling me by that one since we were little kids, playing together in the sandbox at Riverside Park. I used to like it when she called me that. Who am I kidding? I used to love it. But hearing it now sets my teeth on edge.
Maybe because it's been a while since I showed an ounce of moxie in real life.
"We need to talk," I tell her.
"I'm really not in the mood."
She turns and pushes her way through the door, but I follow her. I grab her elbow and tug her toward the first study room we pass.
I click the glass door closed behind us. There's a camera mounted in the corner of the room, but I can't do anything about it now. At least it only records video. No sound. That's the closest we're going to come to privacy in this place.
