Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“I have a solid foundation about what matters,” Ren recited confidently. “Boys and booze and makeup don’t.”
“That’s right.” Steve turned the key, starting the gruff, rumbling engine.
Ren knew better than to let any hesitation about this adventure leak free, but with the sound of the truck’s engine turning over, nervous excitement bubbled up in her chest, dislodging the tiny worry floating right at the top: “Do you think it’ll be okay that I’m starting late?” The beat of silence that followed made her lungs immediately constrict with regret. “I only mean—”
“What’s this ‘starting late’?” Steve asked sharply. Starting late was the worry Ren tried to keep in this whole time—well, one of a thousand about what this experience might really be like—that starting college four years later than everyone else and coming in halfway through the school year because of the fall harvest was going to make her stand out when all she wanted was to blend in.
“That’s some cyborg programming hogwash right there,” he continued, shifting the truck into gear with a clunking thud. “Who says you have to start school at a certain time? Who says you need school at all?”
“You read every damn book in the libraries all across Latah County,” Gloria murmured. “You probably know more than those brainwashed teachers anyway.”
“I know that’s right.” Steve eased the truck down the long driveway. “And if I hear one speck outta you about five-year plans or summer enrollment or study abroad, I’m yanking you outta that place so fast your head’ll spin. This is gonna be hard on your mother and me, what with you not here pulling your weight. We’re already moving everything around this season so you can take care of your chores when you’re home on weekends.”
Ren nodded, feeling immediately chastened. “Yes, sir. I’m very grateful, I hope you know that.”
“Sometimes I wonder.”
“Every Friday,” Gloria said with finality. “Five o’clock sharp, we’ll be there to bring you home.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ren looked across her lap to the passenger side-view mirror, to where the last nineteen years of her memories receded behind them with the homestead until they were just tiny specks of brown broken up by naked trees. “I’m sure I’ll already be outside waiting.”
CHAPTER TWO
REN
If Ren were asked to describe the Corona College campus, she would probably just open her mouth and sing. Holy moly. She thought the homestead was beautiful, but she’d never seen anything like this. There were lawns that stretched for as far as she could see. Fluffy sugar maples that would turn vibrant in the fall. Regal pine trees that reached, tall and spindly, to the clouds. With the small Lake Douglas and a sharp bend in the Spokane River at the heart of the campus, Ren felt like she’d left her homestead to enter a jeweled, glimmering heaven.
Gloria and Steve didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm for the view, but that was no surprise. Closer to Spokane, when Ren had become ever more talkative in her excitement, they’d grown fidgety and restless, lips pressed so tight the edges grew pale. As they exited the freeway, their eyes had lingered on graffiti and billboards, storefronts advertising sales on laptops and phones, piercings and tattoos. Their silence had been brittle, but at least it allowed Ren to let loose her wild flurry of dreams. She imagined echoing lecture halls with some of the greatest minds in the sciences and humanities. She imagined attending a Socratic seminar and standing in front of a group of her peers, speaking her opinions aloud. She imagined long nights spent studying at the library, tucked away inside a polished oak carrel, devouring her assigned reading.
Gloria consulted a map, navigating them closer, and the campus Ren had only seen in photos rose before them: the stone arch signaling the boundary between surrounding neighborhood and college, the wide lawn of the Commons, and, at the apex, the regal brick face of Davis Hall. On this day before the new term began, students were everywhere outside even in the dreary weather: standing in groups, walking in pairs, crossing streets without a thought to the cars around them, calling to each other in greeting after the long winter break. Stuck in the middle seat, Ren longed to be near the side window. She wanted to press her face as close to the view as she possibly could.
Gloria exhaled a disgusted huff at the sight of so many of Ren’s peers with their necks bent, eyes directed at the bright screens of their phones. Steve scowled at two students kissing openly on the sidewalk. Her parents’ judgment had become a heavy, palpable presence, but as the truck rumbled down the manicured Corona Drive, nothing could interrupt Ren’s joy. She was finally doing it.
She was going to be a college student.
The old red truck groaned around a final street corner, and her dorm, Bigelow Hall, rose into view. The exterior was two-tone brick, broken up by stretches of long rectangular windows with warm yellow lights glowing inside.