Begin Again(57)

There’s a beat. “I’m, uh. I’m failing two classes.”

I’m glad he called and didn’t FaceTime, because I can’t stop my eyes from widening. “Well. There’s still time to turn things around.”

“Yeah, but . . . my application to transfer back. They’ll see those.” Connor takes a breath so heavy I can feel the weight of it even all these miles away. “Andie, I don’t think I’m going to get back in.”

The words sink under my skin like an ice bath. I want to unhear them, but there they are anyway, already sinking in. It’s as if they numbed my brain cells, because all I can say is, “But your ribbons.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Andie. All I wanted was for us to be together.”

I close my eyes just to give myself a moment to think, but a tear comes spilling out. I may not have asked him to, but he transferred there to be with me. And now he can’t get back.

“I could . . .”

I know what I’m supposed to say, but I can’t say it. Instead I’m replaying this version of our lives I’ve been writing in my head since I got here. How next semester Connor would be here sharing an apartment with his friends across the street from an apartment where I’d live with Shay. How he’d join our trivia team and I’d cheer him on at his games. How we’d weave each other into the fabrics of the lives we made here, introducing each other to our friends, to our favorite spots on campus.

But now when I try to conjure the images, I come up empty of them. Like all it took was reaching out to realize they were made of smoke.

“You could transfer back?” Connor finishes for me.

I know it’s what we were both thinking. But that does nothing to ease the sharp hurt of hearing him say it. Of knowing he expects it.

I press my lips together, swallowing hard. The hurt doesn’t go with it. “It’s not over yet,” I say. “Maybe you’ll get in.”

“Maybe,” says Connor doubtfully.

I close my eyes again, trying to ground myself in the reality of what’s happening, to decide what comes next. It should come easily. By now I’m used to things falling through. I just thought if I could hold on hard enough, Connor wouldn’t be one of them.

But it feels like even in asking that of me, a part of him is already gone. As uncertain as the future is, one thing I know for certain is this: I would never, ever ask him to do the same for me.

The rest of the call I feel like I’m half in my body and half not. We talk about classes and our friends at home and the future. We tell each other “I love you” and hang up. My eyelids are so heavy that I fall asleep before Shay even gets back from the weekend, and I stay asleep so thoroughly that she has to shake me awake for the Monday morning broadcast.

Milo doesn’t say anything about the acceptance letter when we get to the studio, and neither do I. Not that morning, or for the rest of the week, which whips by in an aimless, uneasy blur. On Friday comes the only bright spot—not only do I give my whole segment without looking at my notes, but I even take two more callers on the fly.

Milo offers me a smile as tired as mine when he takes over the mic and wraps up. “Anyway, that’s the latest, unless you’re one of the freshmen only tuning in to get your hands on more of those ribbons. I’ve been told you’re supposed to meet at the gazebo in the arboretum at three p.m. I have no idea what’s going to happen to you there, but seeing as I’m not harebrained enough to go outside in this cold, that’s not my problem.”

That’s it. A place I can funnel all this loose, chaotic energy. I’ll get another ribbon. I’ll put it out into the universe that I’m not giving up—not on the ribbon hunt, not on Connor, not on my mom’s legacy.

After class I head back to the dorm and gear up, adding extra layers when I hear the howl of wind outside the window. It’s still freezing when I head out for the little path that leads to the gazebo, but for the first time in days there’s a singular sense of purpose driving me onward, and with it comes a numb kind of calm.

That is, until I realize whoever reported the Blue Ridge State weather forecast this morning was standing in front of a green screen of lies.

“Sourdough cheese toast,” I cuss, the wind strong enough to blow me sideways. “What on earth?”

I stare up ahead, dumbfounded. It’s snowing. No, not just snowing—all at once it’s snowing hard enough I can barely see ten feet in front of me.

At first it’s so breathtaking I stop in my tracks to stare at it. It’s a sheet of white, powerful and beautiful, erasing everything in its path. I feel it falling all around me and there’s this sense of awe so overwhelming that for a moment I almost forget why I’m here.

Then there’s a flash so close it looks like flames shooting down from the sky, and a rumble so loud and deep I can feel it in my bones.

My hands fly to my mouth. “Thundersnow.”

It’s not my first time experiencing it, but it is certainly my first time being reckless enough to get caught in the middle of it. I reach for my pocket to pull out my phone as if the weather app is going to somehow save me from my own stupidity, but just then a gust of wind blows enough snow into my eyes to knock me back a few feet.

“Andie!”

I glance up, but there’s nobody there. Just the wind howling and the snow flurrying. I narrowly avoid falling on the path, but once I find my footing, it’s almost impossible to tell which direction I’m facing. It’s like being in a snow globe getting violently shaken by a kid in a gift shop.