Begin Again(10)

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.