My Application, My Say

The night before the college application deadline, my parents said they wanted to throw me a celebration dinner. I had a pretty good score on my SAT. However, the moment I reached the restaurant entrance, a few lines of text suddenly floated in front of my eyes. [Don't go in.] [Tonight at dinner, your parents and your guidance counselor are going to get your account verification code out of you.] [They're going to swap your application to a top out-of-state university for the local teachers' college, the one that locks you into teaching here after you graduate.] [Your counselor will log in from the school's computer lab and make it look like you confirmed it yourself.] [Once the admission results come out, your dad will tear up your ID and lock you in the house until you accept your fate.] [From then on, your paychecks will go toward your brother's downpayment first.] [You'll be stuck in this town forever.] I stood outside the building, chilled to the bone. A second later, my phone rang. It was Mom. "Callie, why aren't you up here yet? Mr. Ormsby said the application portal tends to lag tonight, so it's better to confirm early and be done with it." Chapter 1 The day my SAT scores came out, my parents threw a dinner for the whole town and bragged to everyone they ran into. "My daughter got really good score. She's made us so proud." However, now, as I gripped my phone, my fingertips were slowly going cold. "Mom, my stomach is bothering me." There was a half-second pause on the other end. "Your stomach again? Dinner's already ready." "It really hurts. I'm going to get it checked at the urgent care clinic first." I turned and walked away from the building. Mom's voice turned urgent. "Come back first. Mr. Ormsby is right here. The verification code will only take a few seconds. You can go to the clinic after we're done." I stopped at the side of the road and took a deep breath. "I've already confirmed my applications myself. Nobody else needs to touch them." The voice on the other end went completely silent. A few seconds later, Dad scoffed. "Think you're all grown up now, huh?" I hung up, then immediately took a taxi to the urgent care clinic. In the taxi, I opened the application portal. The first thing I did was change my password. My old password was the last six digits of my ID number plus my birthday. My parents could have guessed it far too easily. I set a new, complicated password, linked a backup email, and changed all my security questions. The second thing I did was log back in and reconfirm my applications. At the top of the list was Calvert University, computer science. Below it were the reach schools and safety schools I had carefully picked out myself. I turned on screen recording and captured everything from the login time, the page details, and my application list to the final confirmation, all the way until I logged out. The third thing I did was send the recording and screenshots to my best friend, Wendy Morales, and to my backup email. The fourth thing I did was leave a message with the state admissions office hotline. "This is Callie Danforth, applicant ID number 4471-2093. I have personally confirmed my college applications, and I do not authorize anyone to fill out, change, or confirm them on my behalf. If any unusual changes are made, I request an investigation." The fifth thing I did was post a message in my class group chat. [I have personally confirmed my college applications. No teacher, parent, or relative is allowed to change them for me.] The group chat had been full of congratulations up until then. The moment I sent that message, it went dead silent. After a little over ten seconds, Gareth Ormsby replied. [Callie, there's no need to be nervous. I'm only helping you double-check things. I would never make decisions for you.] Looking at that message, my stomach turned. Were it not for the floating comments, I might have actually believed he cared about me. When I got to the clinic, I checked in at the front desk. The doctor ordered some tests and kept me for observation. I was taking the paperwork to the payment counter when someone near the entrance suddenly let out a cry. A middle-aged woman in a beige blouse was clutching the self-service kiosk, her face pale and her forehead covered in sweat. Her medical file slipped from her hands and fell to the floor. The people nearby just stood around staring. I rushed over and held her up. "Ma'am, is your blood sugar low? Can you hear me?" Her lips trembled, and she could not answer. I called for a nurse, then ran to the vending machine and bought a bottle of orange juice. A nurse came over with a wheelchair, and I helped get her into the treatment room. After about ten minutes or so, she recovered. She looked at me, her voice still a little weak. "Sweetheart, what's your name?" "Callie Danforth." "Which school do you go to?" "Cedar Hollow High. I just graduated." Chapter 2 At 11:27 pm, while I was sitting in an observation chair, a notification suddenly popped up on my phone. [Someone is attempting to log in to your application portal account.] I stared at the message, and a chill shot down my spine. At 12:41 am, I got a text. [Your application information has been successfully updated.] I was sitting in the clinic's IV area with tape still stuck to the back of my hand. At that moment, it felt like my blood had gone cold. I opened the portal. My password no longer worked. I spent over ten minutes going through the account recovery process before I finally logged back in. The moment the page loaded, my vision went dark. Calvert University, the school I had typed in countless times, was gone. Every one of the out-of-state schools had been removed. The first choice was now the teachers' college in our county, elementary education under a teaching contract. The second choice was the local community college, nursing. The third was an average in-state college, open to any major. Every line felt like a slap across the face. The changes had been made at 11:43 pm. At that time, I had been under observation at the clinic, and a nurse had just changed my IV. I called the state admissions office hotline. The person on duty answered in a ed tone. "Our system shows that the account password and the one-time verification code were both entered correctly, and the final confirmation was completed before the deadline. If the applicant believes the changes were not made by them, please submit a written request for review as soon as possible." Not made by them. Those words made my nails dig into my palm. At dawn, my parents showed up at the clinic. I looked at Mom. "How did you get the verification code?" Mom's eyes darted away. Dad set a thermos down on the table. "What verification code? You confirmed the applications yourself. Who are you going to blame now that you've changed your mind?" I laughed. "I was at the clinic last night. How could I have gone to the school's computer lab and changed my applications?" Dad lowered his voice. "Callie, I'm warning you. Don't blow this out of proportion. Mr. Ormsby has looked out for you for three years, and you're going to ruin him?" "Is he ruining me, or am I ruining him?" Mom immediately pressed a hand to her chest. "How can you say something like that? Mr. Ormsby told us your scores are high, but competition at those big out-of-state schools is tough. What if you end up stuck in a major you don't want? The teaching contract is so much more stable. You'll be a teacher the minute you graduate." "I don't want to be a teacher." "You don't understand now, but you will someday." I looked at her, and it suddenly felt absurd. They always used "you'll understand someday" to shut me up in the present. Why did they get to decide what my future self would understand? Before long, Mr. Ormsby called. I put him on speaker. His voice was heavy, as if he were dealing with a disobedient student. "Callie, your parents tell me you're very upset." "Did you log in to my account last night?" I asked. He sighed. "You shouldn't go around throwing out accusations like that. The portal requires a password and a verification code. How could anyone else just get in?" "So you're denying it?" "I only helped you think things through based on your family's situation. The final confirmation was the result of a discussion within your family. If you change your mind now on an impulse, it won't be good for you, and it won't be good for the school either." The school. He had finally brought up the school. "How does the school benefit from sending a high-scoring student to a teaching contract program?" I asked him. The line went quiet for a second. "Callie, don't make your teachers out to be so calculating." I hung up. Dad snatched my phone out of my hand. "Who said you could talk to your counselor like that?" I grabbed the other end before he could pull it away. "Give it back." He had not expected me to fight back, and he froze for a moment. I yanked the phone away and stood up. "I'm going to the admissions office to file for a review." Mom immediately blocked the door. "You can't go!" Dad's face turned thunderous. "Just try walking out that door." An old man getting an IV nearby looked over, and a nurse came closer. "Excuse me, this is a clinic. Please keep your voices down." Dad gritted his teeth and finally lowered his voice. "Fine. You want to make a scene? Go right ahead. Just don't ever think about coming back home." Chapter 3 I walked right past him. When I reached the door, Mom called after me in tears. "Callie, would we ever do anything to hurt you?" I did not look back, because the answer was already clear. They would, and they already had. Three days after the application deadline, Cedar Hollow High held a panel for outstanding graduates. I had not planned on going. However, Mr. Ormsby called me out by name in the class group chat. [As one of our top scorers, Callie will be sharing her experience with the underclassmen. Please don't let personal feelings get in the way of a school event.] I knew exactly what he was trying to do. He wanted to make it official in front of everyone that I had "chosen" the local teaching contract program of my own free will. I went. It was not to go along with it. It was to see how far they were willing to take this act. A banner hung across the auditorium. The principal, the dean of students, and the PTA representative were all there. My parents sat in the front row. Mom wore a new dress, and her smile looked both proud and wounded. Mr. Ormsby stood on the stage holding a microphone. "Callie has an outstanding record, but instead of blindly chasing a big-name school, she took her family's situation into account and chose to dedicate herself to education right here at home. That shows a real sense of responsibility for a young person today." Applause broke out. I sat in the audience, and my stomach kept churning. Responsibility? They had tampered with my applications, and then they called it responsibility. Mr. Ormsby looked at me. "Callie, why don't you come up and say a few words?" Every eye in the room landed on me. Mom pressed her hands together and mouthed at me. "Don't make a scene." I walked onto the stage and took the microphone. The auditorium fell silent. "I really do have some advice for the underclassmen," I said. Mr. Ormsby smiled with satisfaction. The next second, I looked out at the audience. "Don't tell anyone your application portal password. Don't give your verification codes to your parents, teachers, or relatives. Take screenshots and screen recordings before and after you confirm, and send them to your own email to keep a record." Mr. Ormsby's face changed instantly. The audience started murmuring. I kept going. "Because some people will claim they're doing it for your own good, and then steal the choice you earned with over ten years of hard work." Mr. Ormsby slapped his hand over the microphone. "Callie!" Dad shot up from his seat. "What nonsense are you spouting?" I did not argue with them. In that setting, there were more of them, and they had the authority. What I needed right now was not to win the argument. I needed to push them until they panicked and slipped up, and revealed even more evidence. Sure enough, that afternoon, Mom posted a long voice message in the family group chat. "We worked so hard to put her through school, yet the moment she does well, she turns her back on her own parents. "We helped her pick a stable career, but she says we're trying to ruin her life. You all be the judge. What kind of daughter does that?" The group chat quickly blew up. Aunt Joyce wrote, [That girl has studied herself stupid. She doesn't appreciate everything her parents do for her.] Uncle Wayne wrote, [Callie, don't go too far. Your parents raised you for 18 years. What's wrong with going to a local school?] Chapter 4 Dad posted a photo. It showed my birth certificate torn in half, the edges ripped and jagged. He captioned it, [Go make a scene at the admissions office again, and your ID is next.] I saved screenshots of everything. That night, Mom went live on social media. She sat on the living room couch, crying. "My daughter did so well on her SAT, and our whole family was thrilled. But she insists on going out of state. "She looks down on us for being poor, and she thinks her little brother is holding her back. All we wanted was for her to stay close to home and have a stable job, but now she wants to sue her own parents and her counselor..." The number of viewers climbed quickly. Some people called me an ungrateful brat. Some said high scores meant nothing if I had no morals. A few asked whether the parents had tampered with the applications. Mom immediately cried even harder. "She wasn't feeling well, so she's the one who asked us to help her confirm it. Now she's gone back on it..." I watched the screen, and my palms went cold. This was their second move. They were turning me from being the victim into an ungrateful daughter. The next day, I went to the county admissions office to submit my documents. Before I even reached the door, Uncle Wayne and two other relatives blocked my way. He grabbed the strap of my backpack. "You actually had the nerve to show up?" I shook him off. "Let go." He jabbed a finger in my face. "Your parents have been through enough, yet you want to send them to jail? Callie, do you have no conscience at all?" Dad walked up from behind. His voice was not loud, but it was menacing. "Come home with me." "No." "Don't push me." He reached out to grab my arm. Someone nearby started filming on their phone. Suddenly, I noticed the handle of a pair of scissors sticking out of his pocket. I took a step back and called 911. "I'm outside the county admissions office. Someone is stopping me from submitting a review request after my college applications were tampered with, and they're threatening to restrain me." Dad's face turned livid. "You're calling the cops on your own father?" I looked at him. "You had the nerve to steal my future. Why wouldn't I have the nerve to call the cops?" In a conference room at the police station, my parents, Uncle Wayne, and Mr. Ormsby had all shown up. The officer first asked what had happened. I laid out my evidence one piece at a time. "This is the screen recording of me confirming my applications myself before the deadline. "This is the screenshot of my original applications, with the timestamp from when I sent it to my email. "This is my public statement in the class group chat, where I made it clear that no one was allowed to fill out or change my applications for me. "This is the record of my message to the state admissions office hotline. "These are my check-in, payment, and observation records from the urgent care clinic. "This is the receipt for my request for the clinic's security footage. It proves I was at the clinic when my applications were changed." When I finished, the room went silent for a few seconds. Mom started crying again. "Officer, she had a stomachache and she was dizzy. She's the one who told us to have her counselor help make sure everything was safe. We're just parents. What do we know about those systems?" Dad chimed in immediately. "That's right. We're not educated people. Mr. Ormsby was the one who looked everything over. Now some classmate has gotten in her head, and she's insisting we're out to hurt her." Mr. Ormsby sat up very straight. "Officer, as her guidance counselor, I only offered advice. The application portal requires the student's password and a verification code. I can't just change things whenever I want." He was far too composed. It was as if he had rehearsed this. "Callie did express some concerns before. She was worried Calvert University's admission standards might shift. I suggested she consider the local teaching contract program to play it safe." I looked at him. "When did I ever express any concerns?" He frowned. "You might have forgotten. We talked about it the day you came back to school after graduation." "Is there a record of that?" "Why would anyone record a conversation between a student and a counselor?" I gave a small laugh. "Then do you have any proof that I authorized you to make changes?" His expression darkened. "Callie, I don't want to argue with you about this. Right now, the most important thing is for you to calm down. Don't turn a family matter into a public scandal." A family matter? Hearing those words made my chest tighten. Just then, someone knocked on the conference room door. A woman's voice came from the doorway. "Having someone illegally change your college applications is not a family matter."