Chapter 5: CHAPTER FIVE

The day the results came out, the sky was gray with endless rain. Our community had only one cell tower, and the storm had knocked it out. No electricity. No signal. For two days and two nights, I waited. On the third day, I climbed to the rooftop, holding a secondhand phone I had bought for $200, desperately waving it in the air, hoping for even the weakest connection. Then—it loaded. My heart pounded as I opened the exam results page. And there it was. My score was even...