Surviving High School

that was only a few milliseconds behind Sara’s national record. Her heart leaped.
    And then it burst, as if shot down by some malicious hunter. Right above her name was Dominique’s. She’d swum the race in twenty-eight seconds. Flat.
    Not only had Dominique beaten Emily, she’d beaten Sara.
    It was a long drive home. At first, Emily’s father could barely look at her. Finally, he said, “I thought you’d be the one winning every race. You were so dedicated. You could have had it all. Now I see I should have been putting more time into Dominique all along.”
    “Looks like it.”
    “Sara—” he said. “Sara would never have lost like that.”
    “Well, it looks like even Sara wasn’t good enough today.”
    There was a new record holder in the 50-meter backstroke. Sara’s name would be crossed out of the record books, replaced by Dominique’s.
    “Yes,” her father said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “I guess you’re right.” He gripped the wheel hard, and Emilywas thankful her mom had skipped this meet—her mom always worked herself up into such a state, worrying he’d give himself a heart attack as he drove.
    “One more thing,” he added. “You may have noticed that the Junior Nationals falls on the same weekend as that home-coming dance you were planning to attend. Just in case you had any idea of sneaking out again, I pulled some strings and made sure that all of your heats are scheduled for the Saturday-night block.”
    Heats for the various matches took place all day Saturday and Sunday, and the organizers could have scheduled her for any block of time. But her dad asked them to choose that one. Just to let her know he was in charge of her life. She would have cried, but she was just too tired, too beaten down to even react. She let herself sag against the side of the car and felt the cold of the window glass against her cheek as her last hopes of going to homecoming died.
    They drove the rest of the way home in total silence.
    The next Monday at school, Emily ate her lunch as fast as possible outside the cafeteria, then ran straight for the library, where no one would bother her. At least it was warm there. She logged on to one of the computers to check her e-mail and Facebook for the first time in days and found an invitation to a group called I Bet I Can Find 500 Twin Branches Students Who Don’t Like Kimi Chen. Curious, she clicked the link.
    She found a page featuring a picture of Kimi with devil horns Photoshopped onto her forehead and a wall of posts,most of which were by angry guys upset about the ratings Kimi had given them. Several had written their own pro/con sheets about Kimi, none of which were very nice.
    Con: I dress like a schizophrenic clown.
    Con: I’m actually kind of ugly.
    Con: No one likes me.
    Emily closed the window. Suddenly, Kimi’s problems didn’t seem so trivial, and Emily felt a strange mixture of guilt and anger. Yeah, Kimi had messed up, but this was way worse than she deserved. And worst of all, Emily wasn’t even there to comfort her. Some friend she’d turned out to be.
    By the time the end of the day arrived, Emily’s father had already printed out a new placard and placed it on the Twin Branches High leaderboard on the wall above the pool. It read:
DOMINIQUE CLARK, 50M BACKSTROKE, 28.0
    Emily stood looking at it as she waited for her father to show up for her individual coaching session.
    When fifteen minutes passed and he still hadn’t shown, she walked down to the counselor’s office and asked if she could use the phone. She dialed her dad’s cell before remembering that he’d destroyed it jumping into the pool to save her. She decided to try the home phone.
    “Hello?” he answered.
    “Dad, what’s going on? I’m here waiting for you.”
    “I figured if neither of us wanted to be there, what’s the point,” he said at the other end of the line.
    “Dad, don’t do this.”
    “Why should I keep trying when you won’t?”
    “Please, please don’t give up on me.”
    “Em, you already gave up on yourself.”
    He hung up without saying good-bye.
    For a while, Emily just sat in the empty counselor’s office, looking at the keypad, wondering if there was anyone she could possibly call. She didn’t even know Kimi’s number—she’d always counted on her cell to remember it for her. She was half contemplating dialing up a random stranger to talk to when she felt a tap on her shoulder and looked around to see