The Year We Fell Down (The Ivy Years, #1)
Sarina Bowen
Chapter One: Gargoyles and Barbecue
“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
EMILY DICKINSON
— Corey
“This looks promising,” my mother said, eyeing the dormitory’s ivy-covered facade. I could hear the anticipation in her voice. “Try your key card, Corey.”
It was move-in day at Harkness College, and parents of the new frosh were oohing and ahhing all around campus. As the official tour guides will tell you, three of the last six presidents held at least one degree from the 300-year-old college. And twice a day, students from the Carillon Guild climb 144 steps into Beaumont Tower to serenade the campus on bells weighing upwards of a ton each.
Unfortunately, my mother’s interest in the dorm was neither historical nor architectural. It was the wheelchair ramp that captivated her.
I rolled up to wave my shiny new Harkness ID in front of the card reader. Then I pushed the blue button with the wheelchair on it. I held my breath until the pretty arched door began to swing slowly open.
After everything I’d been through in the past year, it was hard to believe that this was really happening for me. I was in.
Wheeling up the ramp and into the narrow building, I counted two dorm rooms, one on my left and one on my right. Both had wide doors — the telltale sign of a handicapped-accessible room. Straight ahead, there was a stairway with a pretty oaken banister. Like most of the old dorms at Harkness University, the building had no elevator. I wouldn’t be visiting any of the upstairs rooms in my chair.
“The floor is very level,” my mother observed, approvingly. “When they told us the building was eighty years old, I had my doubts.”
That was putting it mildly.
The fact that my parents had begged me not to come to Harkness was just the latest bitter irony in a long string of bitter ironies. While other new Harkness parents were practically throwing confetti for their offspring today, mine were having two heart attacks apiece, because their baby girl had chosen a college a thousand miles from home, where they couldn’t check up on her every half hour.
Thank goodness.
After the accident, my parents had pleaded with me to defer for a year. But who could take another year of hovering, with nothing better to fill the time than extra physical therapy sessions? When I’d put my proverbial foot down about heading off to college, my parents had changed tactics. They tried to convince me to stay in Wisconsin. I’d been subjected to a number of anxious lectures entitled “Why Connecticut?” And “You Don’t Have to Prove Anything.”
But I wanted this. I wanted the chance to attend the same elite school that my brother had. I wanted the independence, I wanted a change in scenery, and I really wanted to get the taste of last year out of my mouth.
The door on my left opened suddenly, and a pretty girl with dark curly hair stuck her head out. “Corey!” she beamed. “I’m Dana!”
When my rooming assignment had arrived in our Wisconsin mailbox, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Dana. But during the past month we’d traded several emails. She was originally from California, but went to high school in Tokyo, where her father was a businessman. I’d already filled her in on my physical quirks. I’d explained that I couldn’t feel my right foot, or any of my left leg. I’d warned her that I was in a wheelchair most of the time. Although, with a set of cumbersome leg braces and forearm crutches, I sometimes did a very poor imitation of walking.
And I’d already apologized for her odd rooming assignment — living with the cripple in a different dorm than the rest of the First Years. When Dana had quickly replied that she didn’t mind, a little specter of hope had alighted on my shoulder. And this feathered, winged thing had been buzzing around for weeks, whispering encouragements in my ear.
Now, facing her in the flesh for the first time, my little hope fairy did a cartwheel on my shoulder. I spread my arms, indicating the chair. “How ever did you recognize me?”
Her eyes sparkled, and then she said exactly the right thing. “Facebook. Duh!” She swung the door wide open, and I rolled inside.
“Our room is fabulous,” Dana said for the third time. “We have at least twice as much space as everyone else. This will be great for parties.”
It was good to know that Dana was a beer-keg-is-half-full kind of roommate.
And in truth, ours was a beautiful room. The door opened into what Harkness students called a “common room,” but the rest of the world would call a living room. Off the common room were two separate bedrooms, each one large enough to turn a wheelchair around in. For furnishings, we each had a desk and — this was surprising — a double bed.