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Curious, Sebastian shifted to the edge of the roof and looked past the chimney. When he heard the unmistakable sounds of his mother crying, something that he’d never heard before, he found himself shoving the iPad back in his sweatshirt and carefully moving around the chimney so that he could make sure that she was okay.

“Shhh, baby, please. Everything is going to be okay,” his father said while Sebastian watched through their bedroom window as he pulled Sebastian’s mother into his arms and closed his eyes. “It will be fine.”

“No, it won’t,” she said around a choked sob as she wrapped her arms around his father and pressed her face against his chest.

“We’ll figure something out. We always do,” his father promised, but from the expression on his face, Sebastian could tell that he really didn’t believe it.

Sebastian swallowed nervously as he knelt there, watching his parents, more terrified than he’d ever been in his life because he’d never seen his parents like this. When something went wrong, his parents usually teased each other until one of them was smiling and Sebastian knew that everything was going to be okay. But now…

Now, he was absolutely terrified.

“How are we supposed to choose?” his mother asked.

“I don’t know, Zoe,” his father said, making him frown.

“I can’t do this.”

“We’ll make it work,” his father promised.

“How are we supposed to come up with forty thousand dollars every year for the next eight years?” his mother asked, making his stomach drop.

“I don’t know.”

“How are we supposed to decide who gets to go to this school and have a real chance and which one stays here while we fumble our way through homeschooling him? I can’t do it, Trevor. I can’t do that to them,” his mother said as she held on tightly to his father while Sebastian sat there, realizing just how much his parents had been hiding from them.

They hadn’t offered them both a scholarship.

Radcliffe Academy had only offered one of them a scholarship, which meant that one of them wasn’t going anywhere. It meant eight more years of workbooks at the kitchen table, running errands with their mother, and trying not to die from boredom.

“I don’t think they expect us to choose, sweetheart. Sebastian got the higher score,” his father said as Sebastian sat there breathing a sigh of relief.

That is, until his mother spoke.

“What about Jonathan?”

“He can do another year of homeschooling, sweetheart. In the meantime, we’ll save every penny we get our hands on and we can send him next year,” his father promised as Sebastian wordlessly turned around and slowly made his way back to his bedroom.

“It’s about time,” Jonathan said, grinning as he sat up and tossed his book aside when Sebastian crawled back through the window. “I can’t decide if I want to join the robotics team or the soccer team. Both would be cool, but the robotics team gets a trip to Disney World if they win. We should both join. We’d definitely win then.”

“Here,” Sebastian said hollowly as he pulled the iPad out of his sweatshirt and handed it to his brother.

“You’re done?” his brother asked, looking surprised.

“Yeah, I’m done,” Sebastian said, nodding absently as he climbed onto the top bunk, laid down, and closed his eyes.

Chapter 2

Three Years Later…

“Do you know why you’re here today, Sebastian?” came the question that had already been asked by ten other therapists over this past year alone.

“I have a pretty good idea,” Sebastian murmured absently as he glanced around the large office, taking note of all the diplomas on the wall, the Marvel and D.C. Comics memorabilia throughout the large room, the huge flat screen television on the wall with every video game console known to man neatly lined up on the shelves below it, the large video game collection lining the bookshelves on either side of the large television, teen magazines covering the coffee table in front of him and couldn’t help but wonder why his parents thought this would be a good idea.

“Care to share?” the therapist that his parents hoped would figure out what was wrong with him, asked.

“Not really,” Sebastian said when he spotted something promising on the other side of the room.

“You like to read?” Ben, as he’d been told to call him, asked when Sebastian walked toward the collection of books on the other side of the room.