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15

SCARLETT

I walk off campus energized after my first day of classes. After stagnating for way too long, it feels like I’m finally building up momentum in my life.

Honestly, I feel like a dork because I wish my class sessions today really jumped into the material rather than just being the laid-back syllabus reviews that everyone takes for granted on the first day. I’m itching to deal with material that’s a step above what I had in my community college classes.

Maybe around midterm season I’ll be cursing myself for feeling that way now, though.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this optimistic. Maybe never?

Definitely never.

I’m far away from all the things in my life that were holding me back and tying me down.

From people like Caleb, who wanted to make himself feel better by discouraging me from doing more with my life than he was doing with his. From people like my parents, whose physical proximity paired with their emotional distance made me feel like there was something fundamentally wrong with me for the longest time.

I texted my mom after I got my acceptance letter to Brumehill, so she’d at least know that I’m moving to Vermont. I got back nothing but a thumbs-up emoji, the bare minimum of basic acknowledgment, several days later, after a couple days of my message sitting on read.

Oh, yeah, she’s thrilled for me, alright.

The fact is, my mom hasn’t given a shit about my existence since I was about ten years old, when she married her current husband who already had two children, and decided she liked her new family a whole lot more than she liked me.

Before that, I would split my time between her and my dad. Afterward, I was only with my dad, who was, if anything, even less enthusiastic about having a daughter around. We lived more like roommates who don’t get along than father and daughter.

I moved in with Caleb a couple weeks after graduating high school, and I haven’t heard from him since. Don’t even know what his current number is.

I tell myself I don’t care. But truly? I wish I had a better relationship with my parents. Or maybe I just wish I had different parents worth having a better relationship with.

Along the way, I picked up older friends, coworkers, certain teachers who I held as role models and examples rather than my mom and dad. Some of those choices were wiser than others.

Transferring to Brumehill feels like a new beginning in more ways than one.

I’m a natural extrovert and never had trouble making friends, so I’m not really intimidated by the fact that I don’t know anyone here.

Well, except for one person.

My heart shouldn’t still do that stupid little tug in my chest every time I think about him.

And I shouldn’t have been buzzing with nervous tension at the beginning of every class today, eyeing the door to see if he would walk through it and be one of my classmates.

But it does, and I did.

All the while, who knows if he’d even recognize me. Hell, who knows if he’d recognize me if he sat next to me and we exchanged words.

Hey, maybe if that does happen, if we meet and talk and I realize he doesn’t even remember who I am, that’ll help me truly get over him, for good.

For some reason, that thought has a sharp sadness slicing into my chest that feels even worse than the lingering heartbreak I’m used to.

With a mental effort, I shove thoughts of Lane out of my head. I’m almost home. I’m going to drop my stuff off and brave the January chill to take another stroll around town. Maybe check out the coffee shops and scope out the best future study spots.

The landlord lives in the two stories of the rowhouse above my basement apartment. She’s a single mother with two young kids, and considering how narrow and tiny the house is, you’re probably running into someone’s elbow every time you turn around. The place has been renovated so that I have my own entryway through a back door separate from their living space.

I hop down the staircase step by step, and when I finally land on the floor …

I hear a splash.

When I notice that the floor of my apartment is glistening and reflecting the light that makes its way into the room from the high and narrow windows that just barely rise above ground level, my stomach drops.

Carpet doesn’t tend to shine and glimmer like this.

But a two-inch deep surface of water does.

Thinking better of flipping the light switch, since I have a basic idea that water and electricity aren’t the best of friends, I pull out my phone and use the flashlight to survey the scene.

The pool of water is spread evenly through the small rectangular space. Luckily, I’ve hung most of my clothes up in the closet or placed boxes of them on the shelf over the hangers. I frown when my light sweeps over my line of shoes lying on the ground, though.

At least the boots I tugged on this morning are water-resistant, because they’re officially my only pair of footwear.

I heave a sigh and get ready to march back up the stairs to tell Sabrina, my landlord, the great news.

I used to believe that I’d take an interesting clusterfuck of a day over a boring day. Well, the last twenty-four hours may have changed my mind.

My landlord was able to get a plumber out to drain the flooding yesterday, but they found it was caused by a leak that’s going to require replacing the whole piping system in the basement to fix.

Sabrina doesn’t have anything close to the amount of money it’s going to take to do that. It’s way more than I’d even end up paying her in rent over the next year, and she doesn’t know when she’s going to be able to complete the necessary repairs.

She was nice enough to let me sleep on her couch last night because I had nowhere else to go, but that’s not a long-term solution. So, now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Cedar Shade after my second day of classes, browsing the incredibly meager local apartment listings.

In a small college town like this, it’s no surprise that almost everything on the market has been snatched up by the first week of the semester.

The search isn’t exactly going well.

Oh, here’s a nice place. It’s too expensive.

Oh, here’s a decent place. It’s too expensive.

Oh, here’s a shitty place. Even that’s too expensive.

Maybe I could get a job washing dishes at this café, and instead of paying me they’d let me sleep on a cot in the backroom?

Geez. I thought of that as a sort of self-deprecating joke … but it actually sounded appealing. I’m screwed, aren’t I?

I continue to scroll through apartment listings on every website or app I can think of, until I realize there’s someone standing across from my table … and they’ve been standing there for a couple seconds.

Before I lift my chin, I can tell that whoever’s standing there is tall, broad … and a jolt of realization hits me. I know who it is.

For the first time in eighteen months, I’m looking at Lane Larsen.

The intensity that rims his deep green eyes and sharpens the lines of his face provides a surprising answer to a question I’ve asked myself too many times since I got my acceptance letter: he definitely recognizes me.

“Scarlett …”

The sound of my name from his lips after all this time hits me like a shockwave.

The weight of his eyes riveted to mine sends an electric current racing up and down my spine.

I thought I understood what happened between us a year and a half ago. Thought I understood what I must have really meant to him all along.

But now that I see with my own eyes what he looks like when he sees me, all this time later …

I don’t know if I understand anything anymore.