The early September sun filtered through the dense trees lining the Great Lawn, casting long golden shadows across the dew-covered grass of Phillips Academy Andover. The iconic bell tower loomed quietly above the stately red-brick buildings, its silence almost reverent on this first morning back. The air was thick with the scent of late summer—sun-warmed pavement, old paper, and the faint whisper of pine.
Heather walked in the middle, her strides long and confident. Her glossy brown hair was pinned half-up, and her pale blue polo shirt—perfectly pressed—was tucked neatly into a pleated khaki skirt. On either side of her, Nicole and Amanda flanked her like matching bookends, each with their own precise variation of the academy's unofficial preppy uniform. Nicole wore a navy cardigan draped over her shoulders, already pulling it tighter despite the lingering warmth. Amanda had taken a different approach—her shirt was untucked, her laces loose, a subtle rebellion in the land of order.
"It smells like floor wax and ambition," Nicole said, wrinkling her nose as they passed Sam Phil Hall. Her gold bangles clinked as she pushed her Ray-Bans further up into her curls.
Heather laughed. "You mean it smells like college applications and sweaty freshmen."
Amanda snorted. "Same thing."
They moved past a knot of underclassmen hunched over their schedules near Bulfinch. Amanda gave them a casual once-over. "Do you think anyone interesting transferred in this year?"
Heather shrugged, but her eyes scanned the crowd all the same. "I heard there's a new guy in upper right from L.A. Water polo or something. Nicole, didn't your mom mention it?"
"She did," Nicole said, distractedly checking her French-tipped nails. "Apparently he's a legacy or some such nonsense. His dad was a trustee in the '80s. And his sister's at Brown now."
Amanda rolled her eyes. "So… another golden boy with a Patagonia vest and a complex."
The bell tower tolled eight-thirty, its heavy clangs echoing across the quad. A subtle current of motion rippled through the campus as the students began their slow, inevitable migration toward their first-period classes. Still, the trio lingered, three glossy figures against the bustle of returning life.
"Should we?" Heather asked, gesturing toward the path that would lead them toward the main academic buildings.
"In a minute," Nicole said, watching as a tall boy with a mop of dark curls and a battered Jansport walked past. He glanced at them, then quickly away, nearly tripping over a curb.
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "That one's new."
"Definitely not water polo," Heather murmured.
They all laughed.
The campus around them pulsed with fresh starts—locked doors swinging open, teachers greeting students with practiced warmth, and the quiet humming anticipation of an entire year stretched out ahead, unwritten. Heather adjusted the strap on her monogrammed bag and started toward the path. The others followed.
"Let the games begin," she said.
Amory Ellison stood just outside Pearson Hall, sunlight catching the platinum glint in the single ring he wore on his right hand. His button-down shirt—white, crisp, worn like an afterthought—was only half tucked into his charcoal slacks, and his leather shoes looked too European for a high schooler. He had the effortless, inscrutable elegance of someone born with it. The Andover kind of elegance—expensive, unconscious, quietly cutthroat.
Nicole spotted him first, halfway through a halfhearted commentary about the return of plaid skirts on campus.
"Hey, Amory," she said, her voice laced with a saccharine smirk as she slowed to a halt just in front of him. "It's nice that you decided Andover is cool enough for you this year. Compared to, I don't know… nightclubs."
Amory blinked, not quite understanding. Behind him, his three friends—Anthony in a vintage blazer, Albert with his ever-present iced coffee, and Cary looking vaguely jet-lagged—exchanged glances, amusement barely contained.
Nicole crossed her arms, poised like a cat stretching before a pounce. "My sister said you used to sneak into clubs in New York with a fake ID. Dah. Idiot."
The word landed awkwardly, like a stone dropped too close to the water's edge. Amory's brow furrowed in confusion, his ocean eyes narrowing just slightly as he processed the moment. Then he simply said, "Okay," in a slow, neutral tone that somehow made Nicole feel like she'd tripped over her own shoelaces.
Heather tugged gently at Nicole's sleeve. "Come on," she murmured, leading her away down the path toward English. Amanda followed, her mouth twitching.
When they were a safe distance away, Heather leaned in. "Still can't talk to him without being mean, huh?"
Nicole groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I so embarrassed myself."
"Hey, you didn't insult his shoes this time," Amanda said, deadpan.
Nicole let out a muffled noise that could have been a laugh or a sob. Everyone knew about her crush on Amory—how she'd watched him across the refectory last spring, how she always mentioned him by his full name, how she'd once described his eyes as "Côte d'Azur in November" without a hint of irony. Everyone knew. Including, most likely, Amory.
Back by the hall, Amory watched the three girls retreat. He tilted his head thoughtfully, his expression unreadable. Cary nudged him in the ribs.
"Did she just call you a nightclub idiot?"
Amory shrugged. "I think so."
Albert grinned. "That means she likes you."
Amory smiled faintly, just at the corner of his mouth. "I know."
Amory leaned back against the stone railing outside Pearson, the early sun catching the golden strands of his perfectly tousled hair. He crossed one long leg over the other and produced a silver tin of mints from his pocket, popping one into his mouth with the self-satisfaction of a boy who knew exactly how pretty he was.
"I'm such a sex symbol," he sighed, not to anyone in particular, just into the universe—loud enough for Anthony, Albert, and Cary to hear.
Anthony rolled his eyes but smiled despite himself. "And humble, too."
Amory ignored him. "Do you remember when that sophomore—what's-her-name, the one who always smells like vanilla—told me she liked me?" He paused, raising an eyebrow. "And I said, 'At least we have one thing in common—we both adore me.'"
Albert let out a laugh, nearly spilling his iced coffee. Cary whistled, shaking his head. "Still your most insufferable moment."
"I stand by it," Amory said coolly, adjusting the silver band on his ring finger. "Confidence is charisma in practice."
They began walking, a slow meander across the quad. The conversation shifted, inevitably, to college. There was an edge to it, even among friends—each of them knew they were smart, pedigreed, and relentlessly competitive.
"I'm only applying to three," Amory announced, the words crisp as he turned toward them. "Yale, Princeton, Harvard. That's it."
Anthony raised a brow. "Only three?"
"I'd rather die than write ten separate supplementals," Amory said. "Besides—Yale early decision. It's basically a party school with books."
"Is it?" Albert asked, half amused.
"In comparison to Princeton? Yes. And Harvard's just—" Amory waved his hand vaguely in the air, "—a safety with gothic windows."
Cary laughed. "Spoken like a true narcissist."
Amory smiled, the kind that barely moved his lips but somehow conveyed a full paragraph of arrogance. "Please. I'm an aesthete with options."
They reached the steps of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, pausing just beneath the ivy-strewn archway. Around them, the campus moved on—voices in the distance, doors swinging open, the scrape of loafers on flagstone.
"You'll see," Amory added, straightening the collar of his shirt. "Yale won't know what hit it."
Amory stood just outside the library, chin tilted, one hand resting dramatically against the stone wall as if he were modeling for an ad campaign titled Privileged Melancholy. The sun cast sharp shadows across his cheekbones, but he barely noticed. He was in full monologue mode.
"In my personal statement," he began, eyes scanning the middle distance like he was delivering a soliloquy, "I'm going to talk about how I've always hated the letter S... because of what it represents. Parents. Plural. People just assume. But I have only one parent. And it's time admissions officers felt the pain of that grammatical microaggression."
Cary stopped mid-sip of his Gatorade. "Bro. Your dad literally lives next door to you. Like, shared driveway."
Amory gave a lazy wave of his hand. "That's irrelevant. He moved into the coach house, symbolically separating from the family structure. It's about emotional geography."
"I'm also," Amory continued, unbothered, "going to say I was bullied for having only one parent. And how my mother, a woman trying to raise a child alone in a patriarchal world, was helpless in the face of institutional inequality."
Albert blinked. "You're at Andover."
Anthony didn't even look up from his phone. "Your mother is literally a partner at a Boston-based law firm specializing in humanitarian law. You know—war crimes, genocide tribunals, that kind of helpless."
Albert chimed in. "Yeah. She's collaborated with the U.N. and Amnesty. She's on panels. She lectured at Columbia last month."
"She went to Wellesley undergrad," Anthony continued, now scrolling, "and got her J.D. from Harvard Law. Amory, come on."
Amory shrugged. "But has she ever had to explain to a school nurse why only one parent signed the field trip form? That's adversity."
There was a beat of silence.
"I'm calling it," Cary said. "This is why Nicole roasts you in public."
Amory's mouth quirked into a satisfied smirk. "She roasts me because she's in love with me. Tragedy looks good in a blazer."
Cary leaned casually against one of the white columns outside the library, a devilish glint in his eye as he watched Amory preen in the filtered sunlight.
"Hey," he said, casually enough that Amory didn't hear the trap in time. "Does your mom know that you sneak into nightclubs with a fake ID at seventeen?"
Amory froze for a fraction of a second—just long enough for Anthony to smirk and Albert to choke back a laugh.
"She might," Amory said slowly, tilting his head in mock contemplation. "She did ask why I smelled like expensive regret and tequila last Thanksgiving."
Cary snorted. "You told her it was cologne."
"I told her it was Santal 33," Amory corrected, "which does smell like heartbreak and moral ambiguity."
Anthony looked up. "Didn't she say you reminded her of her worst client in Kosovo?"
"She did," Amory said, almost proudly. "But she also said I'd make a great litigator. So."
Albert gave him a look. "That was not a compliment."
Amory's smirk returned. "Everything is a compliment if you're self-actualized enough."
Cary raised an eyebrow. "Self-actualized or clinically delusional?"
Amory shrugged, pulling a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses from his blazer pocket and sliding them on with theatrical grace. "Why not both?" he said, stepping into the morning sun like it owed him something.
Behind him, Albert muttered, "He's going to Yale, and it's our fault."