Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

“What happened?”

I had e-mailed Will when my plans to come to NYU changed. A long and, let’s face it, whiny e-mail about how I couldn’t justify going into debt for, like, the rest of my life to come to NYU, about how sad I was that I wouldn’t get to hang out with him. And his response had been totally nice. That he agreed it wasn’t worth it. That he was sure I’d do great at community college. Et cetera, et cetera. But I hadn’t wanted him to be nice. I’d wanted him to be as devastated as I was, and he just… wasn’t.

It had been Daniel’s idea that I could take classes at Grayling rather than have to sit out a whole year, since NYU was the only place I applied to. It’s what he had done, transferring to Temple with enough credits under his belt that he only had to pay for a year’s tuition. And it was good advice. He’d had a great experience with his classes and his professors. But he’d also been in a city he loved, with friends, and a goal he was working toward.

“It just felt like high school all over again. Half of the people were people from high school, actually. And just… it was depressing,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to seem like a snob. I tried to be friendly and keep an open mind and everything. But there was an air of, like… despair. Seriously. It was grim. And my parents—ugh. My mom would be all, ‘How was school, honey?’ just like she did when I was little.”

“God, the unmitigated gall of the woman,” Will drawled.

“No, I know, it’s nice, just—ugh, I’m not explaining it well.”

I wasn’t sure how to explain it, exactly. What I’d felt was something close to humiliation. I’d never told my family about NYU, so I didn’t think they were disappointed in me or anything. Neither of my parents had been to college, so it certainly wasn’t something they expected. Eric hadn’t gone, and I didn’t think Janie was interested. No, it was more like a humiliation born of the distance between what I wanted and the life I was living.

As if I’d somehow tempted fate by thinking I was special enough to get out of Holiday and fate had smacked me down.

“I get it,” Will said. “You had an idea of what you wanted from college and that didn’t fit it. It’s almost worse to have some wack approximation of the thing you want than not to have it at all.”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

Will shrugged and grinned at me.

“Well, now you get your chance.”

I nodded but felt the sudden terror that somehow the fantasy of NYU would blow up in my face all over again. That fate would, once again, punish me for dreaming above my station. But Will had successfully gotten out of Holiday and made a go of it here, proof it was possible.

I told Will about my roommate bailing and how big New York seemed. How unfathomable I found the scale of a city where the subway made it so you couldn’t see how things were connected. How far it seemed you could go without meeting anyone who knew you.

“At least I have you,” I said, testing the waters.

Will’s eyes were on me, but he didn’t say anything, and I started to feel awkward.

“I mean, um, well, and I’ll get a new roommate.”

“My freshman roommate was a nightmare,” Will said. “He’d been homeschooled and he was a total cliché. Awkward as all hell, showered about once a week, and did these relaxation exercises before he went to bed. He’d sit cross-legged and kind of flap his arms and legs around while breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. Total freak show.

“But, oh man, that was nothing compared to this other girl on my hall. She had night terrors, and she’d wake up sometimes convinced that she was part of some kind of army invasion—I think her dad was in the military or something—and bust out her door to forearm crawl down the hallway. Jesus, it was hilarious. And she went to bed early, so she’d wake up this way at like one in the morning and, of course, half the hall was still awake so everyone would see. Ahhh,” he sighed, laughing. “Poor Louise. I wonder if her military crawl skills ever came in handy later in life.”

I laughed with him, but now he’d gotten me even more nervous about who my roommate was going to be.

“Well, if mine’s that bad then I’ll just have to come over and crash on your couch,” I said, sliding a little closer to him.

“You’ll be fine,” he said with a careless smile. “You’ll probably forget I’m even here in a week or two. With this grin?” He chucked me under the chin. “You’ll make a ton of friends. Besides, you’ll have all your classes.”