Teach Me(67)
“Read it, read it!” Stacey and Patrick chant, practically jumping around the room. Someone downstairs thumps on the ceiling, clearly angry at all the racket we’re making.
“We are thrilled to inform you that you have been selected as the recipient of our tuition grant this year. The grant funds will be applicable toward your senior year of study, and can be put toward any accredited university, college, or institution with a poetry, creative writing, or English major with a focus on poetry studies. All costs will be paid in full and additionally, winners will . . . ” I pause to clear my throat hard, blinking to fight the tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks. “ . . . Winners will receive a stipend to fund living expenses in whatever location they plan to attend.”
When I finish reading, the room fills with shocked silence. I look up to find both Stacey and Patrick beaming at me, unable to control the expressions on their faces.
“Guys,” I say. “I can come back.”
Harper
Time flies when you most want it to hold still. One moment it’s Christmas morning, and I’m unwrapping the presents my parents and sister sent me over webcam, then catching the train into London to Mary Kate’s family’s house, while her parents force-feed me sprouts and Sunday roast and I finally learn what the heck Yorkshire pudding is (not a pudding at all, but pretty damn delicious).
The next thing I know, I’m standing in line at the airport waiting to board my flight home.
Funny how time does that. The weeks between Christmas and the day we all received our results were the same length as the weeks before them. But now, looking back, it feels like someone pressed fast-forward on my life, made me speed through all the farewell drinks at our favorite pubs around town, skip over the day trips we took in Patrick’s car, just me, him, Stacey, and Mary Kate, visiting London one day and Birmingham the next, all of us reveling in having no classes, no coursework imminent, no schedules to our lives.
Patrick stopped hitting on me as much, and started flirting hardcore with Stacey. I should be happy about that, since I sure as hell wasn’t ready to make yet another mistake on British soil. But watching them together made me a little sad the last couple weeks. Not because I want Patrick.
Because I want what they have with someone else.
“Now boarding group C,” the flight attendant announces.
Unable to help myself, I cast a backwards glance through the terminal as I heft my bag higher on my shoulder and shuffle into line. Some stupid, overly hopeful part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d come and find me today. Chase me down in one of those dramatic airport parting scenes to beg me to stay.
I wouldn’t have been able to stay, of course. My classes at the University of Penn start up again in three days, and I’ll need to sleep off the jetlag for two of those.
But I would have been able to kiss him one last time. I’d have been able to leave England knowing that I wasn’t completely delusional. That our connection was as real as I believed.
Even if, yet again, it won’t work out for me.
Way to go, Harper. Fell for the completely wrong guy AGAIN.
I just thought it was different this time. I thought he was different. Like, yes, he was the wrong person to sleep with initially; I guess that’s always going to be my type. But he didn’t act like I was just an inconvenient hookup. The way he talked, in his kitchen when he finally told me everything about his father, and what was going on with him . . . He sounded like he was serious about me. Like he felt more than just a physical connection.
Guess I’m just even more naïve than I thought.
I sidle into my seat on the plane—the window, so I can nap—and rest my head against the glass, staring out as we take off, watching England recede beneath me, and the Atlantic Ocean rise up to separate me from the city where I left my heart behind.
#
February in Philadelphia will bite your face off. I’m bundled up five layers deep in coats, scarves, sweaters, and my hat, but I can still feel the wind tearing at my cheeks, making my eyes water and my skin redden. It’s past goosebumps territory, straight on into the skin-cracking-in-half-like-a-lizard zone.
It’s been a month since I got back, and I still walk around campus like a zombie. The only thing keeping me going is the thought of my plans for next semester.
I spent most of the last month planning for it, to be honest. There were a lot of long-distance Skype sessions with the grant committee, and a whole lot of researching colleges and universities all around the globe, both inside and outside of the US.
Two weeks ago, I handed in my final request. I’ve still got a week left until the due date, but I don’t need to wait. I’m sure about this.