Begin Again

I’m so amped from the aftermath of the kickoff ceremony that the walk to class feels almost dreamlike. It’s finally hitting me that I’m here. That I’m not just at my dream school, but for the first time, I’m on my own. I can go off to any of the upcoming ribbon-hunt events without checking with my grandmas. I can pick which dining hall I want to grab lunch in without factoring in anyone else’s schedules. And if I want to wander to the arboretum after class this afternoon, I can just pick up my bag and go.

All this time I’ve been so eager to get here that I didn’t think much past beyond doing it. Now it feels like there’s an entire new world to consider. I’m so giddy from the potential of it that I want to break into a run, swallow this entire place whole.

For now I take a steadying breath, pressing my grin into a close-lipped smile as I tuck my white ribbon into my bag. It’s the qualifying ribbon—the one you can only get at the kickoff event and sign with your name, the same way my mom did all those years ago. All the other events will take place on weekends, giving people multiple opportunities to get each color—January for the blue ribbon, February for the red, and March for the yellow—but you only get one shot at the qualifying ribbon, and you can’t play without it.

Which is to say, I’m ready to guard it with my life.

The only trouble is that given the nature of it, I could only get one. I doubt there will be a way to get a second one for Connor, but I owe it to him to try. I square my shoulders with resolve and reach for the door to the lecture hall.

The extremely locked door to the lecture hall.

I take a step back. Open up the class schedule I have saved to my phone, to my computer, even printed out somewhere in my bag. I’m definitely in the right place.

I try the door again, just to see if it’s jammed, and when it doesn’t open I tentatively knock. I hear some murmuring on the other end and step back, certain it’s a student in one of the back rows getting up to let me in, but instead I find myself face-to-face with an older woman in a floral button-down tucked into no-nonsense slacks who can only be Professor Hutchison.

“You’re late.”

The words echo through the lecture hall. One quick glance behind her is all the confirmation I need that a hundred pairs of eyes have turned around to stare at me.

Just like that, I’m only half here. The other half of me is twelve years old again, my face an inch from a microphone at a school assembly with just as many eyes on me, my chest suddenly so tight I don’t know how to breathe. I blink the memory away, forcing myself to look Professor Hutchison in her very impatient eyes.

“Um—sorry, I was—”

“With that noisy group on the quad?” she says disdainfully.NôvelDrama.Org is the owner.

I follow her gaze to the incriminating white ribbon poking out of my bag.

“Yes,” I say.

My phone lights up and informs me that it is, in fact, several minutes past eleven. I was so swept up in the excitement of my new-found freedom that for the first time in possibly my entire memory, I lost track of time.

“On the first day of class, which you well know from my copious emails is the day of your placement exam?”

“I—I didn’t.” My brain sidesteps the words “placement exam” only so I don’t end up choking on my own spit. “I’m a transfer. My email didn’t get set up until yesterday.”

My heart is racing fast enough in my chest that it feels like there are two of them. I can’t fail this class. Not if I want to graduate in this major. Not if I want to keep my entire life plan from crashing into the ground.

She narrows her eyes at me, but steps aside, holding the door open. “You get one pass. But first, hand that over.” She’s staring at the ribbon.

“But I—”

“Now, young lady.”

My hand grazes the ribbon, but stops there. I keep waiting for some kind of punch line, but as I feel the weight of several dozen eyes and the sound of muffled laughter, it’s clear the joke is me.

I hand over the ribbon. “I’m, uh—really sorry,” I say, and now it’s my voice echoing into eternity, like I’ve thrown a boomerang and had it come back and knock me on my butt.

She doesn’t acknowledge the apology, just takes the ribbon from me and puts it in her pocket. My soul separates from my body just enough that I’m able to find a seat in the back row and plant myself in it. Professor Hutchison sets a fresh exam down in front of me. I take a breath. Four seconds in, two seconds out. I’ll reason with her later. I’ll get the ribbon back. I’ve got this.

Then I look down at the page and realize it might as well be gibberish. Our high school didn’t offer statistics, only algebra and pre-calc, and I didn’t take either first semester at the community college because I knew the credit wouldn’t transfer here.

I glance up to see if anyone else is having a silent near-breakdown at their desk, and see every single person with a calculator propped next to their exam. I close my eyes and can see mine very clearly, stashed deep in my duffel bag back at the dorms, which is precisely the least helpful place it could be.

Ten minutes pass. Ten minutes of me staring down at the exam and wondering whether I should try to fake it or ask for a calculator or just write “SORRY” in all caps over the front page and run for my life.

Okay. Deep breath. I square my shoulders, preparing myself for whatever embarrassment is on the other end of me fessing up that I need to borrow a calculator, but then my eyes catch a scrawled letter on the desk—a neat little “A” with a distinctive swirl at the end of it.

Before the thought even connects, I’m touching the charm on my necklace. It has that exact swirl. I’m certain if I unclasped it right now and set the charm down on the scrawl, the “A” would fit into its exact dimensions—it was my mom’s way of signing everything. Checks to pay the power bill. Autographs to fans of her show. Her white ribbon. My dad got the necklace specially made for her sometime before I was born, and she’s wearing it in just about every picture I have of her.

There’s no way it’s her scrawled letter on this desk, but there’s also no way it isn’t. My throat tightens so fast I have to clear it before I choke. I’ve been mad at my dad for hiding all the pieces of her for so long, but now that I’m closer to her than I’ve been in years, all I can think is that I’m already letting her down.

I stand up.

“This exam is worth a significant portion of your grade,” Professor Hutchison snaps from the front of the lecture hall. “If you leave this classroom, you’re not coming back.”

I open my mouth, but this time words don’t come out. I feel all the eyes on me and I’m twelve and eighteen at the same time, so self-conscious that all I can do is nod vigorously like a bobblehead doll and back away toward the door. She looks away first, with a sharp shake of her head and a tsk that I can’t hear, but can still see.

Then I’m out of the door, out of the building, beelining back to the quad so fast I’m on autopilot. But the upperclassmen and all the white ribbons are gone, and my chance to do the ribbon hunt right along with them.

I don’t cry on my way back to the dorm. The whole thing is too absurd, too bone-deep. The Connor thing was a setback, sure. But now the ribbon is gone. Now I understand just how in over my head I am academically. I spent eighteen years trying to get here, and it only took an hour for it to fall apart.

Thanks to the wonky way my schedule was made to accommodate getting a work-study, I don’t have any other classes today. I was going to use that time to start knocking down doors to actually find a position for work-study—it’s not built in for transfers, and the current Knight hasn’t been exaggerating in his rants about how hard the school makes it to find decent ones—but that can wait. I need to go home. I need to see my grandmas, to regroup with Connor. I need to Google the bus schedule that goes between here and Little Fells and—

“Don’t tell me you’re already sick of this place, new kid.”

I stop short in the middle of the dorm hallway, my hastily repacked backpack slung over my shoulder. In front of me is a slightly more awake version of Milo the RA, his curls freshly showered with this faint citrus smell wafting off him that tricks me into a momentary calm.

I adjust the backpack, trying to look less ridiculous than I objectively do in the midst of running away from campus after approximately one hour of living in it. “I’m—I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m just going home for the night.”

Milo considers me for a moment that same way he did when we first met this morning, except this time his eyes linger. I try not to look away, frozen in place even as a loose hair falls into my face. The ponytail is coming undone, then. God only knows what the rest of me looks like.

After a few moments he shakes his head. “Nah, you’re not.”

He reaches a hand out for my backpack as if the matter is settled. I cling to it stubbornly. When he moves his hand again I’m expecting him to drop it, but instead he presses it on my shoulder, the weight of it firm but bizarrely comforting coming from someone who looks like they haven’t slept since the 1800s.

The gesture may be soothing, but his words are blunt. “Look—I know that face,” he says. “That’s the ‘I’m in over my head’ face. And I’m telling you, the last thing you want to do when you have that face is go home, because then it’s only going to get worse.”

I nod numbly, wondering how he knows about that face. Then I remember he probably had an hour’s worth of RA training specifically devoted to that face.

But then my nod turns into a head shake, and I cling harder to my backpack strap. The last time he dealt with terrified freshmen, they were in this together. I’m out here by myself. That fresh slate I thought I’d be able to get here—the one where nobody knew about my mom, where there wasn’t some invisible buffer between me and fitting in with everyone else—it never existed. They’ve already made themselves fit, and now I’ve made a new kind of buffer all on my own.

“I’ve already screwed everything up,” I blurt. “Connor’s not even here, I’m going to get a zero on an exam in my hardest class, I don’t even know where to start on getting a work-study position, Professor Hutchison took my white ribbon—”

“Professor Hutchison?” he asks in mild surprise.

“You know her, too?” I ask, wondering just how terrifying this woman is if the only two people I’ve formally met on campus recognize her name.

“Of her. But listen.” Milo squeezes the hand still on my shoulder, looking me directly in the eyes. Now that he’s mostly conscious I can see the full array of green shades in his, striking against his dark hair. I’m just thrown off enough that this time, when he reaches for the strap of my backpack, I ease it off my shoulders and let him take it. “The work-study bit? That can wait. Use today to clear your head or something. Give yourself some time to adjust.”

“But . . .”

I almost feel unsteady without the weight of the backpack on me, but watching Milo’s resolute steps toward my room evens me out again.

“And hey, if you’ve still got that look on your face in a few weeks, you can always just ditch this place like I’m gonna at the end of the year,” he says, moving out of the way so I can unlock the door.

“Wait. You’re trying to leave?” I ask, all at once so indignant that I consider snatching my backpack right out of his hands.

“Tried, past tense.” Once I let us in the room he pauses at the door, taking in Shay’s intricate array of books and kitschy things. “Damn. This is a nice setup. Hope we don’t have any earthquakes.”

“Why are you trying to leave? You’re an RA, won’t you be a senior next year?” I ask, following him so close I nearly bump my nose right into his shoulder as he sets my backpack on my bed.

He seems unfazed to see me an inch away from him when he turns back around. “I’m a sophomore. And unlike you I didn’t get accepted by any midyear transfers last semester, so I probably have a better shot this time around.”

If there’s any more of my stomach left to sink, it just hit the metaphorical floor. “Is this place really so bad?”

Only then does Milo pause. “Nah. School’s fine. You’ll be alright.” His gaze falls back on me. “Besides. You don’t seem much like a quitter. That is, if the three-page introductory email you sent me and the dorm supervisors is any indication.”

He’s right. I’m not a quitter. I’ve watched every season of Grey’s Anatomy. I led a school-fundraiser car wash during a hurricane. I once ran an entire 5K matching pace with Connor despite never having run a full mile in my entire life.

And then I find it: some shred of what I was looking for. The stubborn part of me that doesn’t know how to hear the word “no.” The Amy Rose in me. It’s a little thing, maybe, but it’s enough. The world slows down for a moment. I take a breath and look back at Milo.

“You read it?” I ask.

“Your proposed matching T-shirt designs for the dorm weren’t bad. Financially unfeasible, but not bad.” He takes his hand off my shoulder so unceremoniously that I might have imagined it, then heads back toward my door. “I’m going to class. Tell Shay to hide those candles if there’s a fire drill.”

“Okay.”

Except the word doesn’t come out all steady like I’d planned. I’m hoping he’ll ignore it, but then Milo turns back to look at me, leaning against the doorframe and taking me in. I take him in right back, and wonder why he seemed familiar to me earlier. Those sleepy eyes and dark curls are pretty distinctive, but he doesn’t look like anyone I’ve ever met.

“And just . . . take a breather. Unpack your stuff. Go walk around campus.” He makes a vague gesture at our window. “I feel like you won’t have any trouble making friends.”

I smile then. Not the syndicated-talk-show smile or even a power-past-the-tears kind of smile. An actual one, so surprising that for a moment I’m not sure of my own face.

“Thanks,” I say.

One of the corners of Milo’s lip tugs up, like a smile snuck up on him. By the time he waves me off, all traces of it are gone. “You know where to find me.”

The door closes, and the brief reassurance goes with him. For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what to do. That’s the thing about having your goals set in stone—you always have a road map. The path might not be easy, but at least it’s clear.

Now it’s hazier than ever. I have all this energy, but I don’t know which way to direct it. I step toward the window, staring at the campus at my feet, and try to imagine myself here in a real way, instead of the daydream way that I have since I was a kid. But even then, I see the faint shadow of someone else—a girl who was already making her mark. A girl who didn’t just make plans, but brought them all to life. A girl who left a distinctive swirl at the end of her “A,” and didn’t follow any road maps, but made her own.

I can’t help looking out at these winding paths without seeing her footsteps in every one of them and wondering if I’ll ever be able to fill her shoes.