Free Prep School Experiment by Emily Evans

more. So much more. A universe more. The paternity test wasn’t a lie. Michelle Wentworth and Senator Steven Wentworth were his parents. He knew it as well as he knew his own face.
    The couple sat down too, as if taking their cue from him. The lady said, “Michelle called and told us about you.”
    “Finally,” the older man said.
    The lady met the man’s eyes before turning back to him. “We don’t agree with some of the decisions Michelle and Steven have made and wanted to meet you, ask you to stay with us.”
    “We feel even more strongly about that now, having arrived and hearing about you going missing,” the man said.
    Rhys’ gaze flew between them. They wore a confidence that came with money and a self-possessed certainty that came with age and success.
    “Come stay with us in Manhattan,” his newly-discovered grandfather said.
    Manhattan, like Kaitlin. All the consequences flew through his mind, and he landed on the most problematic. “My mom hasn’t been told about the paternity test. I leave here, and she’ll find out.” Cutting off her stipend would make the beer cans fly.
    A frown settled on the man’s forehead. “We don’t agree with the secrecy either. Poor woman should be told. But that’s not our call. We figure if she’s okay letting you live far away, she won’t mind you moving to New York. We’ll keep the checks going.”
    “It’s up to you, Rhys.” Clarice Shay-Brentwood, his grandmother, searched his face. “But it would mean the world to us if you’d come stay.” She covered her pink-tinted lips for a second and then clasped her hands together in front of her, waiting for his decision.
    Rhys assessed her and got the impression she had steel inside.
    “You have the Shay-green eyes.” Her own gray eyes lightened. “They’re from my side of the family, you know.”
    He didn’t, but his chest eased. Finally, the reason for his eye color. Shay. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Shay. “Kaitlin, my classmate, went to a school called Shay Prep in Manhattan. She’s going back there.”
    His new grandmother smiled. “Shay Prep was founded by my family.”
    “The finest preparatory academy in the city.” The old man’s head tilted, and Rhys saw shrewdness in his eyes. “We can get you in. You can finish your senior year there with your friend Kaitlin.”
    His jaw tightened. “She’s not my friend.”
    “Your enemy then.” The woman spoke as if in response to his expression. “There’s nothing like greeting your enemy under a sign that bears your name.”
    These people were wily. He liked them. There was so much more though. He drew a pattern on the table and, giving no thought to confidentiality, told them some of the rest. “The school’s been giving us performance enhancers. And The Scientist who was giving them out, well, he might come after me. I don’t want to bring that down on you.”
    His grandfather’s jaw worked. “The abuses government programs pull when no one’s watching them.” He put his hand on the back of a chair. “We have security. We want you to come home with us.”
    Rhys stared at the shine on the table. He noted the pattern in the tabletop and pulled at the collar of his sweatshirt. The smell of the stale coffee overwhelmed the small space.
    He had to tell them the rest. He looked past them, at the wall. “I’d have liked that. And maybe. Maybe you’d have liked me once, but with that drug, well.” He waved a hand at his head. “I don’t quite process things like I used to. It’s like I’m hyped up, like…I don’t know, and I don’t know when I’ll shake it.”
    Clarice Shay-Brentwood put her hand on his arm, drawing his attention to her. Again, he got a steely impression. “Whatever’s going on with you, whatever challenges. We’ll get you whatever help is out there. If that doesn’t work, we’ll find a way to cope. That’s what families do.”
    Hadn’t he been doing that for years with Mom? He drummed his