A/N: Hello again! I don't really have anything to say about this one. Please review!

Xoxo,

Brianna (Lilac Notepad)

Alana stared at her laptop in front of her, blinking through her sleep-deprived haze. Maybe Yale's computer system crashed, and my acceptance email didn't get sent. And the exact same thing happened at Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. And the forty other schools I applied to.

Ever since she heard that Jeremy had already received acceptance letters to all of his colleges, she hadn't slept. After all, she was the smartest senior, shouldn't she have already gotten an email or even a letter? At this point she would be happy with rejection, then at least she would know. Alana sighed and refreshed her screen.

Dear Ms. Alana Beck, we are happy to inform you…

Her heart soared. She scrambled to click on the rest of the email. But then her computer shut off. No, it didn't shut off, because Alana hadn't pressed a button. That was a sign, and then there was the bluish tint on the screen, along with the smiley face that had dead eyes and the words: Gotcha! etched across the screen. She pressed every single key on the keyboard and tried clicking over and over again, to no avail.

"No, no, no! Oh, C'mon! Alana, you're smart, you can figure it out!"

Alana could not figure it out. The smiley face mocked her. She didn't want it to come to this. There was only one thing left to do.

"Hello? Alana, it's 3 am! Why the hell are you calling me?" Jared's voice sounded rough from sleep, or was it the phone connection?

"I have a sort of… problem."

"What kind of problem?" he asked.

"A computer problem," Alana answered.

There was a pause on the other end, and she could hear shuffling. "Be right there."

"So it looks like you got hacked. Did you click on any websites? Open any emails? Do anything else sketchy?" Jared was sprawled out on Alana's bed, looking at her laptop.

"Well, I, uh, you see- I've been waiting on my college emails, and right before it happened I had gotten one. I clicked on it, and then BAM-my computer crashed."

He sat up and looked at her, really looked at her. At the dark circles under her eyes, and disheveled clothes and hair. "Are you okay? I mean, you look like you haven't slept in a week. Or showered. Which is very unlike you."

Alana avoided his gaze, "It's stupid."

"We're talking about you here. Nothing about you is stupid."

"Well, it's about college. My entire life I've never gotten below a B, my permanent record is spotless, I spend more time doing homework and volunteering and reading than anything else. So what's the problem? Why haven't I gotten into a college yet? Everything I've ever done, all the hard work I've done since middle school was all for this. And I don't know what I would do if I wasn't good enough."

She looked on the verge of tears. Jared reached out and gently grabbed her hand. "Alana, you are the smartest girl that I know. If anyone is going to get out of this town and make something of themselves, it's you. And if those colleges can't see how amazing you are, screw them. Because it's their loss, not yours. But that's not going to happen, because I promise you that you're going to get into at least thirty of those schools you applied to."

Alana sniffled, "Do you really think so?"

Jared nodded, "Absolutely. Now, let's fix your laptop."

She leaned her head against his shoulder while he ran codes on her computer. And for the first time in a while, Alana didn't worry whether or not she was good enough. Smiling, she closed her eyes and got some well-deserved sleep.