Page 30 of Wrong For Me

“Of course she’s fine,” Uncle Reed says. “She’s going to be a doctor.”

“The first Ransome doctor,” Cash adds, holding up his beer bottle in my direction.

“The only Ransome doctor,” Lennon says drily, and they all laugh.

School was never much of a priority for my dad or his brothers. None of them bothered with college—they were way too focused on their music career. My dad didn’t even graduate from high school, since they went out on tour for the first time his senior year.

I’m not sure any of them can really relate to my dedication when it comes to my education, but they sure as hell seem proud of it. Since the time I bragged that I was going to get a PhD someday—at the ripe old age of twelve—they’ve insisted on calling me Dr. Rose.

I swallow hard at the thought, those doubts swirling in my stomach. Luckily the uncles have finally turned their attention to greeting their own kids and the subject is dropped.

“Where’s Mom?” I ask in an undertone while the adults start to fuss over Eva and Will. He’s the first one of us to bring a serious girlfriend home and the family is thrilled about it, particularly our aunts.

“Kitchen,” he says, nodding towards the house. “She’s finishing up the fruit salad.” I kiss his cheek before leaving to go find her.

I pause in the doorway to my parent’s kitchen, taking advantage of the brief moments before my mother notices me. That same peace I felt when hugging my dad washes over me as I watch her work, her gorgeous brown curls pulled up in a messy bun, delicate fingers moving over the fruit she’s slicing. I know if she looked up, her green eyes would fill with warmth at the sight of me.

If it isn’t completely obvious yet, I’m really close to my parents. I always have been. That rebellious phase most teenagers go through when they insist their parents are ruining their lives? I never really had that. River always says that I set the bar impossibly high when it comes to parental relationships, but I don’t really see how anyone could blame me—Daisy and Daltrey Ransome are the coolest, best people I know.

“You think I don’t see you hovering over there?” my mom asks, and I laugh as she continues to slice strawberries. “You don’t have as many children as I do without developing a sixth sense for when one of them is sneaking around.”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” I insist. “I was observing.”

She finally looks up and, just as I imagined, her green eyes are warm and sparkling with humor. “How about you stop observing and start helping?”

I grin at her and move to the sink to wash my hands. A moment later I’ve joined her at the counter with my own knife. “My hands are all messy,” she says when I’m at her side, lifting them to show me her juice stained fingers. “Shoulder hug instead?”

I laugh and lean down to rest my head on her shoulder—I have to lean quite a bit, seeing as how I’m several inches taller than her. I definitely get my height from my dad. She rests her head on top of mine for a moment before pulling back and kissing my forehead. “Now get to work.”

I grab the slices of watermelon and start chopping them into smaller pieces. “Let me guess, you’ve already been loved on by all of your uncles and swarmed by the Littles.”

I roll my eyes. “But of course.”

She laughs. “I guess it wouldn’t be a family function if your uncles weren’t being competitive idiots and your cousins weren’t creating chaos.” I can feel her gaze on the side of my face and I know she’s studying me. “Is that why you came looking for me? Needed a break from the mayhem?”

My mother knows, better than anyone, that I sometimes get overwhelmed when there are a lot of people around—a trait the two of us share. Crowds are easier for me when they’re made up of our crazy family, rather than strangers though, so I shake my head. “Nope. Just wanted to see you.”

“Such a sweet girl,” she murmurs. “I have no idea where you get it.”

I laugh and then we’re both quiet for a moment while we work. Unlike most of the people in our family, my mom does quiet really well. She’s the aunt all the kids come to when they need a little peace or a good listening ear. I like to think I take after her in that way. She rarely presses me to tell her what I’m thinking. She seems to know that if she just gives me some time, I’m likely to spill everything anyhow.

“You nervous about tomorrow?” she finally asks.

“Yeah.” I release a long breath, relieved to finally let some of the churning in my gut free. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

“You know you’ll be fine, right?” she asks. “You always do so well in school.”

My grades are a testament to that. So is my placement in the graduate program I’m starting tomorrow—it’s pretty rare for my department to allow a student to work on their master’s degree and doctorate simultaneously.

“This is a whole different thing,” I tell her, stomach twisting with nerves. “Grad school is going to be a lot harder than anything I’ve done before.”

“And college was harder than high school,” she points out. “Which was harder than middle school. That’s kind of how education works.”

“True.”

But I don’t know how to tell her it isn’t really the work load I’m nervous about. Studying I can handle—I’ve always been good at that. It’s everything else about this program that’s been keeping me from sleep for the last few weeks.

Namely, my uncertainty that I should be doing it at all.