Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute

“Celine”

Celine struggles to adapt to her renewed friendship with Brad, feeling as though change still awaits them. She further muses on the way the other BEP members spoke about their futures with optimism. She texts Aurora, asking about her planned future in art. Aurora frames art as “the only thing [she] CARE[S] about being good at” (185). Celine puzzles over the newfound uncertainty she experiences when thinking of her previous plan to prove better at law than her father. She distracts herself with her TikTok channel and her planned December theme on Christmas-based conspiracies.

Giselle enters Celine’s room. She has finally read the BEP pamphlet and knows their father’s firm is a sponsor. She believes this indicates that Celine wants to see their father, which Celine denies. She clarifies that she wants to force her father to see her being successful. Giselle argues that Celine’s value isn’t in her successes; her value is inherent. Giselle is upset that Celine seems to have formulated her entire life plan around their father. Celine counters that this is really about Neneh; she wants to prove to her mother that “it was worth” raising them (190). Saying this all out loud makes her plan sound less convincing than it did in her head.

Giselle urges Celine to rethink her plan, considering how their mom would feel if she arrived at the ball and was faced with her ex-husband without warning, knowing that Celine could have provided that warning. She also emphasizes that Celine should live her life for herself, not anyone else. She leaves Celine to think about this. Celine’s phone rings with a call from Brad. She doesn’t answer.

“Brad”

Jordan and Brad haven’t played football in weeks, so Brad urges Jordan to join him jogging. Over the phone, Jordan refuses; jogging is boring. Brad apologizes that Donno is taking his anger at Brad out on Jordan, but Jordan dismisses this. Donno’s actions are Donno’s choice and Jordan joined the football team to make friends after moving from America, and he now has friends. Brad muses about his own decision to join the team, which was at his therapist’s recommendation that physical exercise could be therapeutic. Besides, Jordan offers, he doesn’t like Donno’s actions toward Celine who is “basically [his] homegirl now” (193). Brad is shocked to hear of this development between Jordan and Celine.

Jordan has learned that Minnie is, in fact, a lesbian, and so is no longer romantically interested but still enjoys spending time with her. Jordan concludes that he is friends with Celine because “[his] best friend is in love with her” (194), an assertion that causes Brad to sputter denials. He confesses that he has a crush, but Jordan asserts that Brad’s feelings go deeper. This is not his usual way of behaving when he has a crush. Just as he vehemently insists that he is not in love with Celine, his doorbell rings. Celine is at his house. He panics; his room and hair are in disarray. Jordan laughs at him over the phone and tells him not to worry. He thinks Celine likes Brad in return. Brad finds this ridiculous. They hastily hang up.

“Celine”

Celine knocks on the Graeme family front door, pleased to see Brad’s father, Trevor, who she has encountered infrequently since she and Brad fell out. She likes Trevor, but avoids the anxious feelings he elicits, as they remind her of her unresolved issues with her own father. At Trevor’s direction, she heads to Brad’s room, astonished that she finds Brad “adorable” when he wears his glasses. She shoves down this embarrassing thought. She sits neatly on the edge of his bed, conscious of his dislike for mess. She’s horrified when Brad calls her “nice,” thinking the descriptor “utterly bland.” They banter, which she enjoys.

She wants to talk about Giselle’s comments about her life plan. Brad closes the door for privacy. When his little brother, Mason, shouts to their father that “Brad’s shutting the door with a girl in his room,” Brad retorts that it’s “only” Celine (202). This makes Celine blush even as she reminds herself that their relationship is platonic.

They start talking about Giselle, and Celine admits that her dad is “maybe” one of her reasons for doing BEP. He presses her on her interest in corporate law, as it relates to return her father. When she can’t answer, he offers that her plan seems “vengeful” but that her feelings are “warranted,” which makes Celine feel supported. He argues that the truly important issue is whether she is “happy with her bitter, vengeful choices” (206). She pauses, uncomfortable with her uncertainty, and turns Brad’s question back around on him, asking him if he wants to be a lawyer. He admits his ambivalence for the law and, when pressed, confesses he’d like to be an author.

Brad shows Celine dozens of drafts of his sci-fi novel. Where Brad sees these many drafts as a sign of failure, Celine sees them as a sign of intense commitment. She claims faith in him. He is pleased, which leads her to grow embarrassed about her sentimental words. She halfheartedly insults him for being “too tall,” and Brad laughs, calling her “repressed.” To avoid her feelings, she whacks him with a pillow. They grapple for the pillow, Celine briefly fantasizing about kissing him. They lose their balance on the mattress, Brad pulling Celine atop him.

Four unanswered texts from Jordan to Brad demand to know how things are going with Celine.

“Brad”

Brad has a mental debate over kissing Celine. When she doesn’t immediately move off him, he muses that things are going well. When he confesses that he “really like[s]” her, she launches off him so quickly she falls to the floor. Despite his certainty that she is rejecting him, Brad doesn’t accept Celine’s “out” to claim he only meant he liked her as friends. She is stunned, asking if he’s sure. He is incredulous over this question; of course he’s sure. She counters that they’ve “only been friends again for forty-nine days” (216), which makes Brad realize she has romantic feelings for him, as well.

Brad laments Celine’s choice to be argumentative instead of just admitting her feelings. She admits that she likes him, too, and they kiss, only to be interrupted by Brad’s little brother. Brad and Celine head downstairs and Celine quickly makes an excuse to leave, claiming she “really [doesn’t] know how to talk to dads” (221). Brad returns to the kitchen to speak with Trevor, surprised when Trevor is not enthusiastic about Brad and Celine’s romantic attachment. Trevor cites the difficulties of the final year of school, making oblique reference to Brad’s OCD as a further challenge. When Trevor focuses on the specific challenges of law school, Brad finds himself accidentally confessing that he doesn’t care about law. He doesn’t explain, leaving his dad confused.

“Celine”

Via text message, Minnie laughs that Celine has been “drooling over” Brad “for centuries” (226), unsurprised that this attraction has resulted in kissing. Celine quickly walks home, panicking when she hears Brad calling her name, overwhelmed with the intense emotions she experienced when they kissed. Thinking about how they will soon be living at separate universities, Celine insists they cannot kiss again. To cover up her fear that Brad will find someone he likes more at university, she frames long distance dating as not being sensible. He insists he is going to continue being interested in her romantically even if they don’t date. They promise to remain friends.

“Brad”

Brad struggles with Celine’s contradictory assertions that he can do anything, but that they can’t be together because long distance will be too hard. He feels more optimistic about his writing, though this optimism is tempered by the long slog of crafting a novel. Despite his anxieties over his creative future, he flirts with Celine when they attend a BEP event to receive their scores for the first week. Celine reprimands him playfully.

As they take an elevator to their respective meetings with Katharine, Brad struggles with intrusive thoughts about worst-case scenarios. When he apologizes for needing time to work through these thoughts, Celine reminds him that taking time to work through intrusive thoughts is part of “taking care of [his] brain” (237) and urges him to take his time. Brad is grateful for her understanding, even as Celine argues that this gratitude is unnecessary. They resume flirting, and Celine comments that she doesn’t “do boyfriends,” which causes Brad to realize with a pang that Celine might not only not trust him; but she also seems to not trust anyone. The notion makes him sad for her.

When they reach Katharine’s meeting room, a group of adults exit, including Celine’s father. He calls Celine’s name, but Celine pretends not to recognize him. Her father, upset, stammers a response and quickly leaves. Brad feels vindicated on Celine’s behalf. Celine calmly enters her meeting with Katharine.

“Celine”

Celine recalls her mother or sister (but never her father) washing her hair as a child, and the deadening of sound when her ears were underwater. She thinks about how she would see her father if he weren’t her father; he would seem “so pathetic.” She feels tired from seeing him, rather than galvanized with hate.

Katharine reports that Celine’s scores are high. Celine is surprised that she has scored so well on team building. Her lowest score is in creative thinking. Katharine encourages Celine to “question the underlying premise beneath [her] established ideas” (245). Celine immediately applies this thought to her assumption that she can make her father feel ashamed by her success—or that she can make him feel anything or should even try to do so.

When Celine emerges from her meeting, Brad urges her to talk to him. When she doesn’t want to, he smoothly distracts her with chatter until she feels more comfortable. They go out for dessert with Raj and Aurora; Aurora slyly observes Brad holding Celine’s hand, but Celine remains quiet. As Brad and Celine walk back to Brad’s car, Brad comments that it’s not an issue that Celine didn’t even register her score in her conversation with Katharine; the first expedition was just practice. He cuts himself off before saying he’s looking forward to the ball at the end of BEP, not wishing to remind Celine of her dad.

Celine, however, knows Brad well enough to recognize what he didn’t say. She begins to cry. Brad hugs and comforts her. Celine reluctantly allows him to comfort her. She realizes, likening it to a double lightning strike, that she loves Brad and that Giselle was right about her life plan. She frets aloud that her entire personality is a reaction to her father’s abandonment, and Brad argues that her dad “is just something that happened to you” (250). She worries all the decisions she’s made to prove herself make her “pathetic,” which Brad reorients as showing that she is a person who cares about justice.

Celine resolves to try to avoid her feelings less frequently. She doesn’t want to go to the ball but isn’t sure if she can just skip it. Brad encourages her to talk to Neneh. The thought is daunting, so Celine decides to address it later, when she isn’t already emotionally exhausted. She asks Brad if they can kiss again. When he asks why she wants to, she isn’t ready to confess her love, but she admits herself unwilling to lose him. When he asks if she trusts him, she can’t bring herself to say she does. Though her silence clearly saddens him, they kiss.

“Brad”

As soon as he and Celine separate, Brad castigates himself for pushing her emotionally and for kissing her without a confirmation that they are romantically involved (as opposed to friends who kiss one another). He agonizes over Celine not trusting him even when it remains clear that she has strong feelings for him. When he arrives home, he responds to a missed call from Jordan that came in while he was driving. Jordan immediately notes Brad’s poor mood.

Brad confides that he has gotten a good score (4.79), but that he struggles to feel excited about how this betters his odds for winning the scholarship because he doesn’t want to study law. When he admits that he wants to write, he’s shocked that Jordan says this “’makes perfect sense’” (259). Brad begins relaying statistics on the difficulty of making a living in writing, and Jordan echoes Celine’s confidence in Brad. Jordan points out the obvious solution to Brad’s university conundrum: He should study English.

Jordan argues that Brad needs to live life for himself, not for his father. The worst-case scenarios that Brad keeps conjuring are intrusive thoughts, not reality. Also, Jordan concludes, studying English will help Brad’s writing improve. Feeling hopeful, Brad thanks Jordan for his insight. By the time they end their conversation, Brad is more relaxed, though he fears telling his parents of his decision. He decides to first see if he can get accepted to an English program and then tell his parents once he has that answer. He argues to himself that “time fixes everything” (264) then jolts in realization. Given time, he can prove his trustworthiness to Celine.