Undeniable (Haven Falls 5)

I reach in and curl my fingers around the papers within before sliding them out of the envelope and instantly losing my shit.

Oh, God. This is too much. I fly up off the couch, needing to pace the room and have somewhere to throw a tantrum if this doesn’t go the way I hope.

My eyes scan over the paper and I let out a breath before reading out loud.

“Dear Miss Henley Bronx, thank you for your interest in applying for the…blah, blah, blah.” I scan over the little introduction before getting to the good stuff. “Congratulations. After thorough consideration, we are pleased to offer you the Victoria Bradford Scholarship.”

Dad throws himself to his feet, grabbing me in a massive bear hug. “Holy shit, Kiddo. You fucking did it.” Booming laughter comes pouring out of him as the shock begins to take over. My eyes grow watery with happiness and I jump up and down, so damn proud of myself.

This is incredible. I can’t believe it.

The letter is snatched out of my hands and I take the chance to grab Aria and spin her around. Dad reads over the letter, probably double checking that I read it correctly and I stand back, watching him with a smug expression. I mean, why the hell not? Look at this incredible thing that I just did.

Dad’s eyes scan left to right over each line and the further he gets, the wider my smile becomes. I’m going to be a college girl. Shit, I can’t wait for Noah to get back so I can tell him all about it.

“Hold up, hold up, hold up,” Dad says, holding a finger out as his brows dive down in confusion. “When you said ‘scholarship,’ I assumed you meant a full ride.”

“I did,” I say as concern begins flooding me. What’s he talking about?

“This isn’t a full scholarship, Henley.”

“What do you mean? Of course, it is.”

“Here, look,” he says, pointing to the letter before him, much further down than I had originally made it. “It says you applied for the Montgomery Scholarship, which was awarded to another student from out of state. However, they were so impressed with your achievements that they have offered you the Victoria Bradford Scholarship instead. But this isn’t a full ride. The scholarship only covers parts of your tuition.”

Dread seeps in and sits heavy in the bottom of my stomach. “How much of my tuition?”

Dad shakes his head, still scanning over the papers before flicking to the information pack that came with it. “I don’t know, Squish. Hopefully it’s enough, hey?”

I drop down beside Dad and lean over, reading over the information pack and taking in the tuition details as though it’s the most important piece of information that I’ll ever need. Reading it all makes me sick. The kids in Broken Hill wouldn’t even blink at this shit, but for us over here on the wrong side of the tracks, this is the kind of money that people would kill for.

“Alright,” dad says, scratching his head. “So, the scholarship will cover roughly fifty percent, but the remaining fees are still ridiculously high.”

“Too high?” I question, trying to work out if this is even possible. Dad doesn’t respond, just starts from the beginning and reads over it again, deep, deep in thought. I try to go over my options and read the fine print regarding the payment options.

I pull out my phone and bring up my calculator app, doing the math to work out what the monthly repayments would be and what earning potential I’d have with a part-time job. After crunching the numbers, having a job would help but I’m still not sure it’s going to be enough, especially if I consider that I’ll need to watch Aria every now and then and squeeze a life in there somewhere too.

Though…if I worked over the summer as well and saved up as much as I could, that would give me a bit of a head start.

“I think I can do it,” I tell dad. “If I worked and saved every little dollar, I might be able to scrape through.”

Dad turns to me and sucks in a deep breath. “You really want this, don’t you?”

“So damn bad,” I tell him, “and if it’s not this, then it’s going to be community college where I’ll still have to work every day to pay for it.”

Dad scans over the information pack once again. “Well, if you’re going to be a college student; I can’t have my baby exhausting herself working a shitty job for minimum wage day in and day out. I’ve got you covered kid. We’ll make this work.”

My eyes bulge out of my head. “Are you serious? I can go?”

“How could I possibly allow you to pass up an opportunity like this? We’ll work it out. You can work a weekend job; a diner or something like that, and I’ll pick up a few more deliveries during the week. It’ll be hard but we’ll make it happen.”