Begin Again(13)

I’d thank her, but I take a bite so large I might need a backup mouth to accommodate it. Shay pauses on her way over to her bed, justifiably concerned.

“Sorry,” I say, wiping my face with the back of my wrist. It’s the kind of thing I try not to do often, especially considering how tidy Connor and his family are, but every now and then I get excited and manners go out the window. I get a few more vigorous chews in before I swallow. “We just have a lot to get through before tonight’s dorm catchup.”

“Catchup?”

“The one I saw the flier for in the hall.”

“Oh. People don’t actually go to dorm-sponsored events here,” says Shay. “Milo just puts up the fliers out of like, legal obligation. Sort of like that RA comment box outside of his room nobody actually uses.”

I furrow my brow. “Well—maybe I can fix that.” Shay opens her mouth, presumably to ask me how, but I interrupt her by putting my sketchpad of words in her lap. “May I present the idea board for your major.”

“Wow.” Her eyes comb over all the words I’ve piled on, taking a bite of cheddar bagel and letting it soak in. “This looks like you took a screenshot of the inside of my brain.”

“That’s the plan. Map out your brain.” I point at the blank area I left for her. “You can fill in whatever I missed, and then we can take a good long look at it, figure out what you’re meant to do with your life, and backtrack to find you a major from there.”

Shay sighs in that exasperated but affectionate way I know all too well from a lifetime of inserting myself into friends’ problems. When they would hesitate to come to me with them after my mom died, I’d usually have to take matters into my own hands when I wanted to help. I’d be discouraged if my track record for solving them weren’t near spotless.

“Listen, I appreciate this,” says Shay, trying to hand me back the sketchpad. “But the problem is, all I really want to do is read.”

“Oh.” I settle down on my bed, bagel still in hand. It almost seems anticlimactic for everything to get resolved so easily. “So English, then.”

“I only read books I want to read,” says Shay. “And Blue Ridge State’s English department is run by some geezer who only pushes books from dead white men anyway.”

I wince. As progressive as Blue Ridge State’s student body is, I suppose the same can’t always be said for the curriculum—even if it’s making progress with each year of students and new professors coming in, it’s nowhere near where it needs to be. Nothing like Shay’s Bookstagram, which she uses to post weekly roundups of new releases from queer, BIPOC, and marginalized authors on her stories while highlighting her favorites on main. She may review books across all genres, but she’s vocal in her captions about how important it is as a reader to see herself in the characters, for everyone to be able to see themselves in stories. People would get a much better education in literature from her grid than most college programs.

“Good point.” I mull it over, going back to those captions of hers in my mind. “Maybe you’re a writer,” I say, the thrill of a challenge reignited.

She shakes her head. “The only writing I do is book reviews.”

It’s unfortunate that I choose that precise moment to take another massive bite of bagel, because I nearly choke on it in my enthusiasm. “Oh! Journalism.”

Shay, to her credit, seems entirely undaunted by my theatrics. I’m glad that she’s acclimating to me quickly. People usually do in the end, but it takes a little longer for some than others.

“You could be a book critic!”

“In this economy?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.

Fair point. “Chunky Monkey,” I mutter in frustration. “Okay. I’ll keep thinking.”

“It’s nice of you to get this invested in my collegiate future and all,” says Shay, “but please, save your energy for literally anything else. I’m a lost cause. A cute one. But lost nonetheless.”

If anything that just makes the fix-it urge even more powerful. “I’ve got this thing about solving problems,” I tell her.

Shay lowers her chin. “You don’t say?”

“I’ll totally stop if you want me to, though,” I say, lifting up the small fraction of my remaining bagel like a white flag. “I know I’m a lot.”

My mom’s general rule was that you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. So even though I am aggressive about offering it, I try to make sure it’s actually wanted before I take off with it. Otherwise trying to help is like yelling at a boulder to move, or trying to convince my grandmas to watch movies without Ryan Reynolds in them—a fruitless effort in the end.

But every now and then I’m so full of ideas I get ahead of myself, and I have to double back.

Shay considers me for a moment. “I mean . . . I do have to figure this out before the end of the semester. So. Definitely let me know if you have thoughts. But don’t like, waste too much time on it,” she says with a shrug.

Before the end of her sentence I’ve already started mapping out a four-month plan to get her in the right major by the end of the semester, complete with a vision board, several personality quizzes I’ve vetted online, and internship options in the larger Blue Ridge State area.