“That’s amazing,” Sammie says. “That your parents are so much older, I mean.”
“Well, my dad had a minor stroke last year, though, and he’s been struggling with his health ever since. I was originally going to take a year off after high school to backpack around Europe, and then my plan was to move to San Francisco and go to a music school where I applied and was accepted. They said I would have been able to defer enrollment. But my dad, an accountant, hated the idea. We had this big fight, and then that night, he threw a clot.” This sort of pours out of him, and he says it all without any real emotion, like it was just a thing that happened.
Professor Cox cackles. “So you stayed home because of a guilt trip?”
Evan nods. “Yup. Pretty much.”
“Well, it’s a fact that we’re all waiting for our parents to die so that we can finally live how we want.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Sammie says.
“It may be terrible,” Professor Cox says, “but it’s the truth.”
This breaks Evan’s quiet contemplation, and he laughs. “Professor Cox is known for his hard truths. It’s why he makes the big bucks.” Then he looks at me. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“What about me?”
“Love. True love. Are you a romantic at heart?”
No, I want to say. Not if the past six months have taught me anything. But I think better about answering, which would draw Evan’s attention to me and piss Sammie off even more. “I don’t really have an opinion on the subject—” I start to say.
“Of course you don’t!” Professor Cox interrupts me with a laugh. “That’s because you haven’t lived yet. Not really. None of you. You don’t know about love or loss or grief or sadness. You think you do because you’ve been through a few hardships here and there, but you don’t.”
Evan comes to my defense. “Now that’s not fair, Professor Cox. We don’t know the first thing about Viviana here—”
“None of you,” Professor Cox repeats. He isn’t laughing anymore. His face has turned sour and grim. “You don’t know what it means to suffer.”
Excuse me?
I don’t know about sadness? Sammie doesn’t know about grief?
I’m overcome with the desire to scream. Or slap him. This stranger. This man who doesn’t know the first thing about me. How dare he comment on my life. On any of our lives.
“You don’t know anything about us,” I say.
“I know everything about you,” Professor Cox says, his twitching eyes hollow and cold. “I know why you’re all hopeless romantics who think that there’s going to be a happily ever after every single time.”
“See, you don’t know me one bit,” I snap back. “Who said I ever believed in happily ever after?”
“Wait,” Evan says. “You don’t believe in love?” He’s sort of unreasonably outraged at my question, or my declaration, or whatever it is that I’m trying to fight against.
I don’t know how to respond.
I stand up. And when I do, I feel it. It all floods back. The fluttering. The dizziness. The pounding drum of my chest. My lungs empty and shallow.
I only just got here, I’ve only just sat down, but I want to leave. If I could, I would walk right out of here, back upstairs, down the street, anywhere. But I don’t want to lose this job, so I walk toward the pool. There’s one old lady doing laps in the deep end and a few preschoolers bouncing in the shallow end with their moms. Vanessa’s on duty. She asks if I’m okay, and I tell her that I just need a minute, and she says okay, and then she lets me sit at the bottom of her ladder without asking me any more questions.
It’s starting to rush back through me, Sammie’s dad, my mom’s cancer, my dad leaving, Dean, the bike incident. All of it.
I stick my feet in the water. It’s cold. It calms me down, but it’s not enough. My heart’s still racing; my breath is caught.
I don’t have a bathing suit on, just my leggings and a tank top that I wore to school, but I jump in anyway. I plunge myself under the water. It fills my eyes and fills my ears. I swim away from Vanessa’s chair to the other side of the pool, where I hold on to the quiet corner ledge.
I am gasping for breath. I float on my back and force myself to take a deep gulp of air, and it fills me, calms me, lets me settle.
I can breathe.
I am calm.
I beat it this time.
I dive back underwater and swim in wide circles around the empty pool. I let everything above the surface turn blurry and distant. I force it all to fade away. I force it all to disappear.
College Admissions Tip #5
Even more than good grades and constant activity, college admissions boards want to see that you demonstrate integrity in your commitments. There’s merit in exhibiting loyalty in whatever it is you choose to do.