Begin Again(100)

Eleven A.M. That’s five minutes from now.

“I’ve—I’ve gotta go,” I blurt. If there’s a chance I can do anything to turn my grade around, I’ve got to take it.

Milo nods, already wheeling my suitcase out of his room and across the hall for me. “Everything good?”

“Gosh, I hope so,” I say sincerely, just short of catapulting the backpack into my room once we open the door. Before I go I reach up and hug him again, brief and tight, the gesture more heartbreaking than it has any right to be. Already I am counting down to the moment he leaves. Already I am bracing myself for the hurt of it all. “But what were you going to say?”

Milo just jerks his head toward the elevator. “I’ll tell you later today. I’ve got my last shift at Bagelopolis.”

Last shift. The words are a gut punch, but I’m too wired for them to register. “I’ll come find you,” I promise.

He doesn’t bother to hold me to it, ushering me out with a “Go, go, go.”

And then I’m off like a bullet, running through campus fast enough to outpace the entire Blue Ridge State track team mid–morning workout. I reach the psychology building at 10:59, taking a minute to wheeze and attempt to collect my sleep-deprived, deeply unathletic self before knocking on Professor Hutchison’s office door.

“Come in.”

It’s the first time I’ve actually seen her in this office since our one-on-one meeting. Since then it’s always been TAs leading the sessions, and plenty of other kids here to do the walk of statistical analysis shame with me. I hover in the doorway, glancing back as if someone else might turn up at any moment.

“It’s just us this morning,” says Professor Hutchison without tearing her eyes away from her laptop screen.

My voice decides to go up about three octaves when I squeak out, “Oh.” Professor Hutchison doesn’t look away from her screen when she gestures for me to sit. I do just that, my skin suddenly itching like the failure is poison ivy, the kind that spreads fast.

For a few moments, Professor Hutchison doesn’t say anything. When I can’t stand it anymore, I break the silence myself.

“I did study. I really did. I’m so sorry for bombing it, but—but I don’t want you to think I don’t take the class seriously. I really have.”

“Oh, I know,” she says mildly. She minimizes the window on her screen and moves her swivel chair over to her desk, tapping on a folder. “The TAs keep track of everyone who comes in here. You’ve been in here more often than anyone this past month.”

I sink farther into my chair. It’s true. This office is practically as familiar as my dorm.

“So you should have done better,” she says.

I close my eyes. “I know,” I say miserably. “I just . . .”

“Was recovering from that very embarrassing incident with the radio show.”

By now I know Professor Hutchison is not one to pull her punches, but I find myself letting out a sharp laugh of surprise just the same.

“Yeah,” I say. “There was . . . that.”

“I believe you, you know. That you would have done well on the exam if it weren’t for that.” She taps on the folder again. “It’s a big class, but I keep track of everyone’s progress. Since that midterm, you’ve been steadily improving.”

It’s a relief at least that she doesn’t think I slacked off. And while I’m concerned about the state of my grade, I still can’t help myself from asking, “How did you know it was me on the show?”

For the first time since I’ve known her, Professor Hutchison seems to hesitate. Like she’s used to having the power in a conversation, used to using it to keep students at arm’s length, and she knows whatever she says next is going to make that shift.

“I didn’t for a while. Not when you were first starting out, and everything sounded scripted. I even called in for advice once myself,” she says, bemused. “But the longer the segments went on, your voice—at some point it sounded too much like Amy’s to mistake.”

It’s jarring, hearing someone call her “Amy”—for as long as I can remember, people have referred to her in relation to me. “Your mom” and not much else. Before I even ask I have this strange sensation of peeling back another layer of her, one I didn’t think I’d get to see.

“You knew her?”

Professor Hutchison goes very still. “Well,” she says after a moment, “someone has to recruit the Knights.”

I think back to Shay mentioning how Milo was tapped from the announcements he gave in the cafeteria, but couldn’t explain how. “And you chose my mom?”

Professor Hutchison doesn’t hesitate this time, and I get the sense from the sliver of a smirk on her face that she wants to tell the story every bit as much as I want to hear it.

“Oh, no. Your mom chose herself. The year she started she went to as many professors as she could asking questions about the organization ban. I was newer at the time. Tenured professors were careless about gossiping around me. So I knew it was a mismanagement of funds, and I told her so.” She leans in closer to her end of the desk, smirk deepening. “Not ten hours later she broadcast what I told her word for word and got herself kicked off the school’s main radio show.”