Page 37 of For the Fans

But as I sit up and croak, “Yea?” the door swings open to reveal the last person I want to see right now.

“Hey…” Avi shifts his weight in the doorway. “How are you holding up?”

Shaking my head, I flop back down. “What do you want, Avi?”

When he doesn’t respond, I peer over at the doorway again to find him chewing on his lower lip. “You know, this sucks for me too…”

“Oh, really?” I scoff. “You don’t evenlikeschool. Moving back in here wouldn’t matter to you, just like having to transfer somewhere else wouldn’t. You don’tcare… about anything.”

“Yes, I fucking do.” He steps into the room. “I’ve made friends at BC too, okay? Just because I’m not a superstar football quarterback, doesn’t mean I have nothing to lose.”

I roll my eyes.

“You’ll always have more opportunities than me, Kyran.” He slumps down onto my bed, and I pull my knees to my chest to get away from him. “You can probably just apply for housing through your fancy football scholarship. But I don’t have that option. I’ll be lucky if my assistance even covers full tuition.”

“Get out of my room, Avi.” Melancholy escapes in my tone, though I really don’t want him hearing it. “There’s nothing worse than having to feel this way in front of you.”

“Why? Because I couldn’tpossiblyunderstand what you’re going through??” he grumbles in frustration. “God, you’re fucking self-absorbed. This isn’t only happening to you, Kyran.It’s happening to all of us. The first time I’ve ever cared about something… The first time I’ve ever been able to get something that’s more for people like you than people like me…”

Flinging upright, I hurtle a glare at him. “Oh,poorAvi. Middle class issodifficult. You have no idea the kinds of things other people have had to deal with.” His forehead lines and he stares at me while I gulp and backtrack. “You’ll get over this because youcan. It’s easier for you…”

“What does that even mean…?” he mumbles.

“Never mind,” I grunt, standing up because I just have to get away from him.

I can’t stand being next to him for one more second, especially with him looking at me the way he is.

Stalking to the doorway, I pause to say, “I guess I’ll see you back at school… for however long we have left.”

And with those despondent words, I head downstairs and leave, ordering an Uber back to campus. The entire twenty-minute drive, my mind is racing through the torment that drives my determination.

In my hands are the lines of roads between captivity and escape.

I have to figure this out. I can’t be crushed down again…

Not this time.

Arora626: Why does this video make me want a Costco hotdog?

MirrorMirror: Can I pleaseee be your Fluffer? *Bats lashes*

Imight have lost my mind.

No, seriously…I think I’ve gone completelyloco.

Let me tell you how the last two weeks of my life have been going, and then you can corroborate my claims.

Approximately fifteen days ago, I found out that my mother’s husband, my stepfather, Thomas Harbor, is broke.Like, broke as a joke.Meaning no extra funds for anything, especially his stepchild.

The credit card that I had for emergency purposes—which was conveniently how I paid for all my food, clothing, transportation… literallyeverything—stopped working two days later. It was pretty humiliating being an almost twenty-year-old calling Mommy and begging for a few bucks to feed myself until I can find a job on campus. But I had no other option. All the accounts dried up almost immediately, including my own, which, let’s face it, only had money in it because my mother would deposit some every week.

I haven’t had a job since we lived in Brooklyn and I worked a few hours here and there at the Starbucks down the block after school. When we moved, I’d planned on finding something, but then Mom married Tom and it didn’t really seem necessary. He paid for everything. She’d even scaled back to part-time work at the Mercedes dealership…

But now she’s back to working sixty hours a week, and supporting our entire family, which has increased by two mouths, until Tom finds something new.

It’s a big fucking mess. Boston is almost as expensive as New York, which is ridiculous because it’s like a million times smaller. Things on the BC campus are discounted for students, but not by much. So now, it’s goodbye morning lattes and the constant DoorDashing to feed my endless munchies… and hello Maruchan ramen noodles in a stupid fucking Styrofoam cup.

What a cliché… a college student surviving on Cup of Noodles. God, this blows.