I’m not going back to Merton.
I duck inside the student center and go straight to my mailbox. Sure enough, I’m right about the date. It came.
I tear into the letter eagerly, feeling like a kid on Christmas—or me, way back in high school, tearing open the letter from Penn.
Sure enough, there’s a big fat “Congratulations” on the first line of the letter. The letter emblazoned with Balliol College’s logo.
So, yeah, I’m not going back to Merton, but I am going back to Oxford. Just, a different college in Oxford. Because when I started researching the best places to study poetry, both as an analyst and as a poet myself, I stumbled across a professor named Maria Smith, who has worked on some crazy unique theses with her doctoral candidates and undergraduates alike. She believes that in order to analyze poetry, you should practice writing it, and vice versa.
In other words, going there won’t just further my academic career. It’ll give me a chance to focus on my own writing, too.
Also, with Professor Maria Smith, I am in no danger of making yet another career-endangering fuckup, so that helps.
I wrote to Maria over email a few weeks ago, talking about my studies and the paper I worked on with Jack. Not only did she completely sell me on Balliol’s program, but she also offered to be my thesis advisor if I study there. Between the grant and already having a publication credit to my name, she was impressed.
She was even more impressed when she realized that she’d already read the Eliot paper I co-authored. The publisher that it was submitted to apparently asked her to review it for their journal, and she eagerly endorsed it. She had no idea I was only a third-year undergraduate working on a paper of this level.
I suppose I owe Jack a thanks for that much, at least. Whatever happened between us, he kept his word about the paper. He listed me as a co-author, and submitted it to a really well-known publisher. The publication credit looks amazing on my resume, and it couldn’t come at a better time to help boost my career standing.
It boosted it fast enough to get me this acceptance, after all.
Smiling, just a little, I tuck the letter into the pocket of my coat and brace myself to face winter’s onslaught once more.
As I push through the exterior doors from the campus center, ready to race the four blocks to my apartment complex, another gust of wind nearly blows me off-balance. I fight my way through it, head bent against the freezing air, and finally, three blocks of burning face skin and aching legs later, I duck into my apartment hallway, gasping. For a moment I just stand in the foyer hopping from foot-to-foot, trying to revive my poor overworked circulatory system.
My eyes adjust slowly to the dim light of our hall. I moved out of the dorms and into this apartment share with some friends, but since it’s downtown Philly, it’s nothing glamorous. The best we can afford is a little bit beat up. Though, the old brownstone has charm if you know where to look, like the wrought iron staircase that leads up to our second-floor apartment.
Ugh, some jerk left a giant package in the middle of it, though. I keep telling the mailman to leave them off to the side, because the third floor apartment has complained a zillion times about all of my roommate’s Amazon purchases blocking her way upstairs, but they never listen.
I check the number on the label, already sure it’s for our apartment. Sure enough, 2F. But I do a double-take, confused. Because instead of my roommate’s name, I see my own at the top of the address list.
That’s weird. I definitely didn’t order anything.
Maybe Mom sent me a care package or something. It is Valentine’s weekend, after all, and she and Dad normally send me flowers whenever I’m single (thanks for the reminder, guys). I give the box an experimental nudge, and it moves easily. Whatever’s inside, it’s not too heavy.
So I scoop it into my arms and continue up the staircase. At the top, I balance it on my hip while I maneuver my keys into the door. My roommate’s cat greets me just inside, howling its face off like I’m going to feed it, even though I know she doesn’t feed the cat until she gets home at nine every night.
“Fat chance,” I tell the cat as I stagger past it into my room. Once there, I plop the box onto my unmade bed and root around in my drawer for a pair of scissors.
Apparently I’m fresh out of cutting implements, so I’m forced to go out and hunt through the kitchen instead. Along the way, I catch a glimpse of the decorations my roommate has strung all over the place: bright red and pink heart streamers all over the walls and a huge bouquet of roses on the dining room table, presumably from her boyfriend, though I don’t know how he afforded that bouquet when he makes her pay for every date they go on.