“How to help you,” he corrects himself, because obviously he phrased that badly.

“I’m not the one who needs help.” This comes out without me meaning it to.

Dad looks away like he’s embarrassed that I would be this rudely straightforward. Like he doesn’t know me at all. The waitress comes for our order. Dad orders a huge steak and a Wallaby Darned, some kind of peach drink. I order a salad. Then we sit in awkward silence for a while, sawing off pieces of the dark rye bread that was served to us, chewing our thoughts.

“That’s tremendous news, about MIT,” Dad says finally.

“Yes. Tremendous.”

“Do you have any idea how much . . .” He trails off, and that’s when I understand what his hang-up is. He wants to know how much it costs. Of course he does. He has no money to send me to MIT.

“How much it will cost? Here.” I fish the fat envelope out of my bag and hand it to him. He rifles through the pages until he lands on the financial-outlook sheet.

“So . . . you have a scholarship.”

“A bunch of scholarships, yes. Which should cover tuition. But then I have to pay for housing, food, books, fees and other stuff, which I estimate will cost another fifteen thousand dollars a year. I can get a part-time job when I’m there; they have tutorships and stuff set up. And I have some savings.”

“You have savings?” he asks, like the idea of me with money defies all logic.

“I have a little under twenty thousand,” I admit.

His eyes widen. “Twenty thousand dollars?”

“No. Twenty thousand beaver pelts. Of course twenty thousand dollars.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I saved every penny I made from my summer jobs for the past three years. You remember when I worked at the Jimmy John’s downtown? That was eight dollars an hour, and a lot of sandwiches, so it was two birds, one stone that summer. I babysat for the Bueller triplets a bunch this year. I got birthday money from Grandma. It adds up. Specifically, it adds up to like $19,776.42. So, I can afford this. Without taking loans, I hope.”

I watch the tension leak out of him.

“Lexie, this is . . . tremendous news,” he says, and he means it this time. He breaks into a wide smile. “Congratulations, Peanut.”

Peanut.

All it takes for me to become his little girl again is to pay my own way into a top-notch university.

“I’m so proud of you, honey.” He points at the letter. “Did you read what it says here? You’re one of the most talented and promising students they’ve had in the most competitive applicant pool they’ve had in years. You’re one in a million.”

“I’m one in eleven,” I clarify. “There were 18,109 applicants and 1,620 students admitted, so that’s one in eleven.”

“Still.” He refuses to let me take the wind out of his sails. “That’s impressive. That’s amazing. That’s—”

“Can you stop?” I say.

He looks baffled. “Stop what?”

“Stop celebrating.”

“Why? This is it, Lex. What we’ve dreamed about for you, all this time. The life we’ve wanted for you.”

I can’t hold it in. “Is it? This is the life you’ve always wanted for me?” I gesture around us, at all the happy people eating their happy steaks, celebrating anniversaries or birthdays or paychecks. “This?”

The waitress shows up with my salad and looks uncomfortable, because we’re obviously having an argument.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “Take it back. I’m not hungry anymore.”

She sets the salad on the table anyway, then speed-walks away. I grab the MIT materials and return them to the envelope, then stuff it into my bag and start to gather up my coat.

“Peanut,” Dad says.

“Don’t call me that,” I bark. “I am not your Peanut. You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

His expression hardens. “What is wrong with you? You’re acting like a child.”

“I am your child, technically speaking,” I retort. “Or did you forget?”

He rears back like I slapped him. “Why are you so angry?”

Oh, let me count the ways:

Because this is not what I wanted my life to be. This is not the situation I pictured in my head when I told my dad I was going to MIT. We should be gathered around the kitchen table, Mom, Dad, Ty, and me. I would pass the letter around to them, and everyone would be smiling, and Ty would tease me about being an egghead, and I would fake-punch him, and we would laugh and celebrate my escape from Nebraska, but it wouldn’t feel like an escape from anything bad. I shouldn’t be telling Mom in order to get her through a crying jag and Dad at some crappy chain restaurant and Ty in the cold ground.

But that’s my life.

And can I say any of this to him? Can I say, You screwed up everything; it’s all your fault, the way I said it so easily to Steven last month? Can I tell him what I really think, call him a cheater? A liar? All the pieces of broken glass that night in the park with Ty after Dad left us?

Of course I can’t. If I told him those things, I would lose him more than I already have. I would lose him for good.

I can’t lose anyone else.

But I can’t tell him about the photo, either. About Ty wanting that space in the collage for him. I can’t.

He doesn’t deserve that.