Hated Hero — The Scholarship Pressure

Now, I only wanted to stay as far away from them as possible. Then from now on, let's stop contacting each other. You can go to your community college. I'll go to the university of my choice.

Let's pretend we never knew each other. Jessica and Megan clearly hadn't expected such an answer. Both of them stiffened. Ryan, wait!

Megan tried to stop me, but her phone suddenly rang. It was her mom. Megan, you and Jessica submitted your Harvard applications, right? $10,000 community scholarship?

Don't tell me you two forgot. Mom, it's not even official yet. Why would you sign us up for the scholarship already? Yeah, we don't even know if we'll get into Harvard.

Girls, don't be ridiculous. You both know how tight money's been for our families. That ten grand would mean a lot to both families. Jessica and Megan's families used to have money.

But after both their father's businesses failed, they'd been struggling to make ends meet. I could see guilt all over their faces.