Paying the tuition was me taking it back.

I did not tell Monique about the payment.

I did tell my parents, that evening, that the transfer had been canceled and the full hundred and fifty thousand had come back.

My father nodded once and said good.

My mother asked how Monique was, and whether she needed help getting home, and I said she needed to make those arrangements herself.

“You do not owe us the embarrassing details,” my father said, over the top of his glasses, and it was exactly what I needed him to say.