Chapter One (Ellie)

On the day of my final interview for the Yale scholarship, my childhood best friend, Carter, handed me a carton of chocolate milk.

I drank every drop, touched that he’d remembered. When I woke up, the hair I’d been growing for ten years was scattered all over the floor.

The prettiest girl in school twirled her scissors and smiled at him. “Your mom’s sleeping pills work great. I practically shaved the pig bald.”

He leaned against the doorframe, his voice flat. “It’s not like you were ever pretty anyway.”

When I was eight, he promised to marry me once my hair reached my waist.

That day, I dried my tears and gave back the ring his grandmother had saved for “Carter’s bride.”

Later, he waited outside his Yale dorm all day, only to learn that I’d gone to Stanford, three thousand miles away.

 ——

Chapter One (Ellie)

Ever since I got fat in high school, Carter Hale hadn't said a single word to me at school unless he had to.

But on the morning of my final interview for the Yale scholarship, he handed me a carton of chocolate milk in the library study room.

"Drink it." He didn't look at me. "Your stomach always hurts when you're nervous."

I held the carton in both hands, my heart pounding.

He remembered.

I finished it and put my head down on the table to look over my interview notes. Before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep.

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was the floor.

It was covered in hair. Long, chestnut-brown hair. I had been growing it for ten whole years.

Brooke Whitman was sitting on the table, twirling a pair of scissors, smiling sweetly toward the doorway.

"Carter, your mom's sleeping pills work great. The pig slept like she was dead. I practically shaved her bald."

I lifted my head and met the eyes in the doorway.

Carter was leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. His voice was flat.

"Brooke lost at truth or dare last night. If she didn't cut your hair, she'd have to go to the mall and get some random guy's number."

"It's not like you were ever pretty anyway."

"It's just hair. It'll grow back."

I stared at him, stunned.

When I was eight, in the treehouse in his backyard, he'd pinched the end of my braid and said: when your hair reaches your waist, I'll marry you.

Now that boy was standing in the doorway, looking at the hair all over the floor, and there was no expression on his face at all.

Brooke hopped off the table, hooked her arm through his, and they left. Her laughter followed them all the way down the hall.

In the mirror of the girls' bathroom, my head looked like a dog had chewed on it.

One side stuck up, the other side was nearly bald, and only a few pitiful strands of long hair still hung down in back.

My hand was shaking so hard I could barely hold the brush. Every gentle stroke sent broken hair falling into the sink, mixed with my tears.

The final interview was at ten. I couldn't go out like this.

I kept trying to pull the long strands forward to cover the rest, but the more I tried, the worse it looked. The girl in the mirror looked like a clown.

Suddenly, I heard girls laughing outside the stall.

"Did you hear? Brooke actually cut Ellie Grant's hair!"

"Carter even put his mom's sleeping pills in her milk. How else would she sleep that hard?"

"It's so Brooke gets the Yale spot. The whole school only gets one nomination. If Ellie can't make the interview, it's Brooke's."

"Poor Ellie, though..."

"Poor nothing. A pig like her thinks she can have a crush on Carter and get in Brooke's way? She deserves it. Everyone knows they've been together forever. The only reason Carter even talks to her is because their moms are best friends."

I shrank into the farthest stall and slowly slid down to the floor.

So that was it.

All that "we have to keep our distance at school," all that "that's just how boys are." Every bit of it was a lie I'd told myself.

He was simply embarrassed by me.

So he could use my hair to pay for Brooke's little game. So he could drug my milk with his own hands, just to clear her way to Yale.

I thought back over the years. When I fell in gym class, he frowned and said, "How can you be so clumsy?" and walked away. When I brought him breakfast, he tossed it to one of his teammates. When I tried to walk next to him on the way home from school, he sped up and left me far behind.

Every time, I made excuses for him.

I was so stupid. Stupid enough to believe that if I starved myself thin and made straight A's, I could get a little closer to him. That there was the smallest chance what he'd said in the treehouse might come true.

But in his eyes, I had only ever been a fat girl he couldn't shake.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Mom.

Good luck at your interview, sweetheart. Don't be nervous. I believe in you.

I stared at those words for a long time.

That ring was something Grandma Hale had pressed into my hand before she died. She said it was meant for Carter's bride. Both our moms took it seriously, and for all these years Mom had kept it in her jewelry box for me.

I typed my reply one letter at a time.

Mom, please give Grandma Hale's ring back to Aunt Diane.

Don't tell Carter yet.