“Europe can go fuck itself.”

Portia, my best friend on the planet and the only person who never laughs at me for living at my uncle’s house when I should be living in the dorms, laughs in the face of my rage. “Europe is amazing,” she says. “I’ve already signed up for study abroad junior year. Paris. How can you be so mad about being so close to Paris?”

How can I, indeed?

Because I have plans. I have a life ahead of me here. I have three weeks left in the summer before sophomore year starts up at Northwestern. Portia and I fully intended to rush one of the sororities on campus. Not for the friends—those women can be total bitches. But the shirts they get are worth their weight in free drinks at the bars. Or so I’ve heard.

I pace around my room at my uncle’s and keep my voice low. “This isn’t what I want.”

Portia sighs, like she’s being forced to slow down for my simple mind. “Then don’t go.” She says it easily, simply. Portia parties hard, but when it comes to dispensing advice, she’s ridiculously wise. I think she knows more than she lets on sometimes.

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You do.” There’s a clatter in the background that makes me think she’s doing her makeup. “Tell your uncle you’re moving out. We’ll get a place together. There are plenty of shitty student houses around campus. So you’ll have to give up your pretty princess lifestyle, but it would be workable. And fun as hell.”

I snort. “Pretty princess lifestyle?” My uncle’s house is nice, but I wouldn’t call it a luxury dwelling.

“Relatively speaking,” Portia says, and she’s probably right. I’ve seen some of the houses close to the campus park where I like to eat lunch between classes.

“Fine.” I hesitate. “I don’t know. Could we really do that?” Even in the haze of my anger, I’m not sure I could go through with actually telling him, actually packing, actually leaving.

He’s the only family I have left, and he’s taken care of me every day of my life since my mother died. A stand-up guy in every way. Something nags at the corner of my mind—a sound? But I’m too pissed to dwell on it. The recent paranoid streak is a bit much, that’s true, but he’s been as loving of a father figure as I could have asked for. “I don’t know,” I say again.

“Handle this like an adult,” Portia says, her voice ringing with authority. “Go talk to him. Don’t get emotional. Lay out why you don’t want to go. Hell, if you want, you can pitch living with me. I mean it. We could do it.”

“But what about—”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Sia,” Portia laughs again, kindness in her voice. “I know how to pay bills. I know how to keep us safe.”

“Keep us safe?”

“Yeah. If you’re worried about, I don’t know, security.” She giggles. “I’m serious. I’m have a wealth of knowledge. Living on our own will be a piece of cake.”

I believe her.

“You’re a good friend,” I tell her, the anger softening into a resolve that’s less heated and more determined.

“Hurry up,” she says, her voice muffled. “I want to go dancing afterward.”

“Love you. Bye.”

Call disconnected, I square my shoulders and march back out into the living room. My uncle is sitting at one of the high stools at the kitchen counter, flipping through one of his laminated reports from work.

“I’ve come to discuss Europe with you,” I tell him before I can change my mind.

His eyes are the same as my mother’s, only his expression is steely. “Sia, there’s no room for debate.”

My cool collectedness melts under the heat of the injustice. “This is ridiculous,” I tell him, my voice going high, hands balling into fists at my sides. “You can’t make this kind of decision for me. Leaving in two days?” All the plans I’ve made are being crushed under the bulldozer of his supposed rule over me. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here, and go to college with my friends.”

“It’s a world-class university,” he says, as if that’s the only thing that matters. “It’s far better for you, in the long run, to be overseas.”

“That makes zero sense.”

“Sia.” There’s a come on hidden in his tone. “You’ve always known that this was a possibility.”

I roll my eyes and hate myself for doing it. “Why? Because of all those bullshit stories about my parents? For God’s sake. When are you going to let that go? They’re dead.”

He flicks his gaze to the floor. I’ve hurt him, mentioning my mom like this, but I don’t care. She was paranoid, too, but nothing has ever happened to make me think she was right. And I doubt anything will.

“Yes,” my uncle says evenly. “They’re dead, and I’ve been made your guardian until you’re twenty-one. You have to know, Sia—” There’s a hint of a pleading look in his eyes. “This is about your safety. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

It breaks me, if only a little. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” I mean for the words to be sharp, cutting, but they come out reassuring instead. “Nothing ever has, and nothing’s going to happen because I stay to attend college here.”

“You’re not going to do that.”

“Fine,” I say, struggling to keep my voice steady and under control. “I’ll leave. If that’s what you want—”

“I never said that.”

“—Portia and I are going to get a house.”

“How will you pay the rent?”

“I have a job at the student café, and I can ask for more shifts—”

“While keeping your grades at an acceptable level?” I know what he’s talking about. My uncle is footing the bill for my college education, but only for so long as I maintain a 3.5 average or better. It makes me furious how unfailingly generous he is.

My chin quivers. “I hate it when you’re right.” He is, naturally. I can’t take any more shifts without cutting into my study time, but I can’t afford the rent on a place like that without more shifts.

But what I can’t do, above all, is get on a plane to the U.K. in two days.

He sighs. “I don’t take any pleasure in it, Sia.”

“Good.” I want to say more. I want to rip into him, to argue, to wear him down, but I’m too old for that kind of shit. “That’s fine.” I turn on my heel. “I’m going out. Don’t wait up for me.”

“Sia—”

I’m halfway up the stairs to my room when I hear him say the words, almost to himself. “I’m only trying to protect you.”