“It’s not my fault,” I argue, kicking my bare feet in the air. I may as well get in a few toning exercises with the criticism. Constructive use of all available time, that’s the key. “Professor Tremain forgot about my application. He didn’t send it until after the deadline, and by then all the good schools were booked. I was lucky to get this place at all. They’ve already started term.” I gave silent thanks for whatever slutty prank had sent Natasha fleeing to England. Morgan had babbled about hot tubs and TV stars when I first arrived, but I’d been too jet-lagged and bitter to pay much attention.
“Lucky?” Elizabeth exclaims. I hear the sound of pans clattering and picture her in her sleek granite kitchen, whipping up a three-course meal after a fifteen-hour shift at the hospital. “You shouldn’t have gone at all. Your second year isn’t time to slack off, you know. It’s when you should be going to extra classes, getting involved in student politics and debate.”
“I know.” I’d heard this all before. Elizabeth was repeating my father’s lecture practically word for word.
“So why jeopardize everything by disappearing?” Elizabeth switches from disapproval to exasperation as a kettle hisses. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not such a big deal.” I neatly avoid the question. “Study-abroad programs are a legitimate enrichment activity. It’ll show I’m resourceful and adaptive to change.”
“Of course they are.” Elizabeth sighs. “But what possible enrichment are you going to find in that place? It’s hardly Harvard.”
Harvard. Just the mention of it burns. I’m supposed to be there right now, walking through neat red-brick quads to seminars on international relations and political philosophy, surrounded by the most brilliant minds in the country. I had it all planned out, right down to my study schedule and lecture list. The pamphlet is in my suitcase, tucked inside a travel guide to Boston my father gave me for Christmas. I suppose I won’t be needing them now.
“. . . Will you? Emily?”
“Hmmm?” I blink out of the reverie.
“I was saying that it’s not too late; you could come home. Go back to Oxford.”
“But my place is taken already. The other girl is there.”
“We’d be able to work it out, I’m sure.” Elizabeth munches on something. “Dad said he could find you a room to rent in Oxford until you get your old one back; you could go to all your classes as normal. He would even give you a living allowance.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“Don’t say it like that.” She sighs again. “He’s just concerned. We all are. This isn’t like you at all.”
“And what is like me?” I ask, wary.
“You’re responsible, focused.” Elizabeth tries to make it sound like a good thing. “You wouldn’t just take off and risk your grades, your chance at a good internship.”
“I’ve already applied for the internships, and besides, why is everyone so sure they know what I’ll do? I’m eighteen years old, not some middle-aged spinster!”
“Spinster?” Elizabeth perks up. “Emily, is this about Sebastian? Because —”
“It’s not about him!”
“Fine.” She sighs again. “Just think about it, OK? It wouldn’t be like you were admitting defeat.”
“I’m not coming home,” I tell her determinedly, the memory of Sebastian giving me new resolve. “I . . . like it here.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” I say carefully. “My roommate is really nice, and there are lots of interesting courses I can take.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “Well, I guess you know what you’re doing. . . .”
“I do.” I finally let my legs drop, thirty repetitions later.
“Then look after yourself. And call Dad. He’s worried.”
“I will. Love you.”
“You too.”
I roll over and catch sight of the exchange information pack on the desk. I haven’t yet brought myself to look at my class schedule, despite what I told Elizabeth. I can only imagine what Natasha — amateur lingerie model and table dancer (according to the photographs on the wall) — was signed up for. Intro to Early Education, probably, or Remedial English.
But flicking through the stapled pages, I see with horror that I’d overestimated her. Film Crit: The Modern Blockbuster? Teen Movies: Brat Pack and Beyond?
The girl is a bloody film major?
I catch a shuttle bus from our apartment and then practically power walk across campus to catch the international office before it closes. It’s one thing to alienate my family, risk my chance of a top-five law firm internship, and voluntarily spend twelve weeks in a confined space with Morgan, but take that joke excuse for a class schedule? Even I have my limits.
All around me, tanned and happy students are sauntering in the sunshine, completely oblivious to my plight. It’s a mass of activity I’m still adjusting to; there are four hundred undergraduates at Raleigh, but here they number closer to twenty thousand. I’ve gone from recognizing every face I pass to being completely lost in a sea of tanned strangers.
But to my surprise, I don’t feel as alone as I expected. In fact, weaving my way through the crowds, the ocean sparkling in the distance, I find a strange sense of satisfaction begin to form. This anonymity, this freedom, is something new for me. I can’t cross the Raleigh campus without somebody stopping me to talk about classes or events, but here nobody shows a flicker of interest as I speed by. I could be anyone, not just Emily Lewis, future lawyer and study fiend, the person I have been half my life. As far as anyone here knows, I could be somebody who usually does things like this: a girl who takes off to the other side of the world, a reckless adventurer.
Reckless . . . I have to give a hollow laugh at that. The first truly adventurous thing I do in my entire life, and it’s because of a boy. Pausing in the afternoon sun, I remember my sister’s comments and what Sebastian had said, just a week ago, the night he broke up with me. Because I was a control freak. Because I was afraid of intimacy. Because the conversation was taking place on my bed, instead of in it, wearing more clothing than he would have liked. Other girls would have gone out and spent too much money on a low-cut dress or cut their hair off to show how spontaneous they were, but not me. No, I had to pick up the phone the very next morning when that Global Exchange lady rang, and I had to tell her yes. Yes to the last-minute switch. Yes to California. Get me out of England.