Conventionally Yours (True Colors, #1)

by Annabeth Albert

Didn’t you freshen up your deck last week like everyone else?”

no I hadn’t updated a damn thing because I’d needed my last forty dollars for food, not cards.

I wasn’t about to admit I’d been working extra hours at the pizza place, trying to replace that money I’d spent on food.

I brought the sort of trash-talking our viewers loved. That it never failed to rile Alden was only a bonus.

I was the professor’s latest charity case—a scrappy player with cheap cards, a fucked-up life, and a missing future.

I’d worked hard to make sure that as few people knew the extent of my situation as possible.

Alden

So glad this is both view points

Real-world plans had a way of seldom working out in my favor, which was why I loved Odyssey so much.

Across from me now, he had gone pale, his usual Disney-hero face gaunt and more than a little green.

Oh so Alden thinks he's cute

had to admit, it was nice to see the Prince of Swagger off his game, even a little.

It was hard not to take his comments personally when they always felt so targeted.

A seat on the pro tour. Yeah, that would be worth something after the tire fire that was my last year.

it would give me the one thing my life was sorely lacking: control. I’d spent the past year racking up disappointment after disappointment,

So my idea is to drive with whomever wishes to join me.

He’d been friends with my family long enough to know about my issues with flying.

Payton waved their phone, managing to sound dismissive without outright knocking the professor’s plan.

They were never emotionally invested in anything, whether it was grades or relationships or even the game itself.

Unlike the others, I wasn’t the best at reading situations and never coped well with sudden change.

I wasn’t entirely sure what job Conrad currently had.

Rumor was, he got fired almost as often as he went out and partied.

I’d never figured out exactly where he was from—some corn-fed rural state where they grew their guys naturally athletic and tall as water towers.

Conrad always made me feel even more out of my depth socially, and that uncertainty tended to come out as combative—little

“A few kicks,” I conceded, doing a fast rewind in my head to make sure I’d taken my meds that morning.

at least I had meds that month, which was something.

You’re too good to quit, Conrad. No son of mine is a quitter. Harsh voices from my past rang in my ears,

she was one of the few people outside the administration who knew the whole story about why I’d had to drop out.

It was what I was good at—coming up with strategies on the fly, seeing opportunity where others saw only defeat.

when the manager at the grocery store sought me out, I was having a hard time not seeing doom in her sad frown.

This wasn’t my first time losing out due to not having seniority somewhere.

Oh that’s why he keeps getting fired

French toast casserole

A what?

my visits to the main house had been irregular at best this last year—all part of a losing effort to distance myself from the pressure my moms had been exerting.

the dog had put up with my anxiety over the last year far better than either of my moms.

Something about the two of us was like mixing Diet Coke and Mentos—guaranteed instant eruption.

My social awkwardness tended to worsen when I got anxious—something

The mention of my genius older sister, who was in her final year at Harvard Med, made my jaw ache.

them bound and determined to figure out why I was fine academically and floundering socially.

endless pressure to add extracurriculars and pursue prestigious colleges like Gracehaven.

“I do wish you’d written your entrance statement on being neurodiverse.

“Yes, embracing your differences and challenges would have shed a better light on your résumé,” Mimi agreed.

they both had zero problem bringing it up around other people.

unable to understand why things were so much harder for me than my older sisters, who had glided through school and landed in top medical programs

You can’t keep closing yourself off from the world and losing yourself in that game.”

To be so scholarly they sure are dumb about their child’s neurodiversity. Damn, pick up a book or something

Jasper and Payton loosely tolerated my presence but didn’t invite me along for anything outside of the games, and Conrad and I were closer to enemies

I want you to come back with a firm commitment to your future. Or else we’re going to need to have a different talk. One about living arrangements.”

Bro wtf

I’d gone from my grocery-store gig to two hours of sleep to covering the lunch rush at the pizza place because someone else was sick, to racing home

“It’s three forty-five. We said three thirty,” Alden pointed out. “That the other group is also late doesn’t make you less so.”

“Do you need to borrow a tournament-permissible deck?” Alden was already riffling through his bag

Something about Alden always made humiliation that much more intense, made me feel like a newbie kid.

My head kept ringing with memories of how my moms were always remarking on how badly I handled unexpected disasters,

Stupid anxiety, always in the way, making me say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment.