Free What Brings Me to You by Loralee Abercrombie Page B

a spare?"
                  "Yeah, I've got a bunch."
                  "Oh, Teddy, Thank you!" She flung her arms around my neck so tightly I nearly fell over but I didn't let go. I couldn't. The length of her body pressed up against mine, breathing in her peaches and cream scent, in her sad bedroom was almost more than I could stand. I dipped my forehead down to touch hers and we stood there, eyes closed, breathing the same rhythm.
                  "Where did you get in?"
                  "Huh?" She asked, slightly out of breath.
                  "You said you got in? Where?"
                  "Oh, everywhere."
                  "What?"
                  "Everywhere I applied," she broke contact and instantly I missed her touch. She took two steps to her "desk", picked up a pile of papers and unceremoniously handed them to me.
                  "I thumbed through the papers while she rattled them off: "Yale, NYU, Boston, UCLA...everywhere."
                  "Charley, this is amazing!"
                  "Yeah."
                  "Where are you going?"
                  "USF."
                  “You mean the University of South Florida?”
                  “Yes”
                  “The state school across town?”
                  “Yes, that’s the one. Why are you looking at me like that?”
                  “WHY?”
                  "Paul won't pay for me to go anywhere, and it's not like grants and fellowships grow on trees. USF is the only place that'd give me a full ride, including housing."
                  "I don't understand."             
                  "Look, Adam went to Westpoint, and Caleb is got his doctorate in Judaic Studies at Stony Brook. There was no college fund for me. Hell, there was barely a grocery fund for me."
                  "So...then...why..." I didn't want to ask the question but I was compelled. I was trying to stop it from coming out but she knew.
                  "So why did bother to apply?"
                  "Yes."
                  "So I would know. So I would at least have that. I worked so hard in school. At first because, well, I thought, used to think, there was a way into their lives. I thought I could do it. Make them proud; make them see me. When that didn’t work I realized school was my escape from all this. Now it’s just to spite them. I guess I just wanted to prove to Paul or my mother or myself, that I could do it. Even though I don't get to go, I have these," and she pointed to the stack of letters in my hands. "I'll have this forever, the satisfaction of knowing."
                  "Knowing what?"
                  "That I'm wanted somewhere," My heart broke all over again for her. I was so pissed at her shitty parents I nearly threw the stack of letters.
                  "So your future has to suffer because this guy,  Paul   is an ass?"
                  "What are you talking about? USF is a great school!"
                  "It's no Yale," my need to fix this for her seemed to spring from nowhere. I was thinking of every possibility. There was no way she wasn't going to Ivy, not on my watch. What about your real dad?"
                  "What about him?" She literally scoffed.
                  "Couldn't he help?
                  She laughed derisively, "Are you kidding? Even if he wanted to, which he made very clear when he found out my mother was having his baby he didn't, I doubt he'd have any money to help me."
                  "Bastard."
                  "No, that's me, remember."
                  "That's not funny.  Have you ever met him?"