5. CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
C ARLY
Depression weighs heavy on me that afternoon.
I’m lying on a quilted couch blankly watching Judge Judy reruns as a fan circles lazily above me. It’s a cool afternoon and I feel it, even though the thermostat is fully functional. Maybe the chill is from the inside. Maybe I’m just imagining my bones turning to ice.
I glance away from the TV to the pruned Christmas tree by the fireplace. The Christmas lights around it blink hypnotically, but it’s not enough to distract me from the tears stinging my eyes. It’s already spring but I know that tree is probably not going down till summer. Mrs. Peach is clearly still in the holiday spirit and I hate to be a downer on her good mood. I just didn’t know where else to go.
Apart from Emma, Mrs. Peach is the person I’m closest to in the world. She lives down the street, a few houses away from mine, and was the only one in the neighborhood who made a concerted effort to visit our family when I was younger. She was on the church charity committee with my mother and even when mom managed to alienate just about everybody else with her constant lying and anger issues, Mrs. Peach stuck around. That was until mom was banned from the church for stealing from the charity fund.
Still, though she didn’t come around after that, Mrs. Peach would always call out when she saw me walking home from school, and invite me in for some cookies. She had a bunch of old detective novels in her bookshelf and I spent most of my childhood reading them or watching TV reruns with her while she made dinner. Sometimes we would talk about books or she would tell me stories of when she was younger. I thought she was probably just lonely since she didn’t have any family, but she would also tell me often how fond she was of me, though I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she felt sorry for me. Either way, she always made sure I ate something before I got home.
Once in a while, she asked me what I now recognize as probing questions about whether or not my mother was physically abusive to me. Mom wasn’t, but I knew if she was, Mrs. Peach would have called CPS. It’s why I hid the worst of my mother’s later abuse from her, because as volatile as Mom could be, I didn’t want to be taken into foster care.
Anyway, since that first day, I pretty much show up at Mrs. Peach’s house at least once a week, especially now that she’s getting older. I help her with her gardening and occasionally cooking when she’ll let me.
Mrs. Peach is in the kitchen now and I hear her clattering around. From the scent of it, she seems to be making one of her famous apple pies, which are usually my favorite, meaning she could probably tell how down I was despite my efforts to hide it. And I can’t even bring myself to be excited about the apple pie.
I haven’t been excited about anything since I got that email from the school about losing my scholarship.
The second I was done reading through the email, I dashed out of the pharmacy horror adding a spring to my step. I stood at the side of the road and flagged a cab to take me about thirty minutes out of town to the community college in Bayview.
I read through the email again as we drove, scanning it until I could make sense of it. This was all thanks to my damn calculus class. It was taught by the toughest professor in the school, Dr. Lindon, who took particular pride in handing out bad grades. I tried so hard to stay on top of the class all semester, but that last test had been brutal.
And it just cost me my scholarship.
I need to talk to Lindon, get him to give me another chance . It was the only thought I held onto as I arrived at the campus and ran to his office.
He was stepping out of his office when I arrived, and the minute he saw me, his lips downturned in disapproval.
“If this is about your grade, Miss, I suggest you don’t even bother.”
“Please.” Desperation must have shown on my face, and leaked out of my voice. “Please, sir. Just give me another chance. It’s been a tough month for me and–”
“You think I care about any of that?” He raised an eyebrow. “Plenty of people have tough months. You fail a test, you fail a test. And that’s all there is to it.”
Yes, but it’s also kind of ridiculous that a single test is fifty percent of your final grade. That means that every single other assignment I’ve done almost doesn’t even matter.
And what made me feel worse was that he was right in a way. I was having a bad month but I shouldn’t have let that distract me from my goal. I was just so unbelievably disappointed with myself even as I begged, “Please. I’ll do extra coursework or something. Anything.”
“I’m afraid that’s not how I operate.” He turned to lock his door behind him. “You’ll have to accept the grade or repeat the class in the fall.”
It isn’t retaking the class I’m worried about. With that grade on my resume, it means that my GPA slipped below 3.8, which means that I am going to lose my scholarship.
And without a scholarship, there is no way I can afford to go to school.
“Oowee.” Mrs. Peach comes out of the kitchen now, her short round form waddling across the rug. “You still moping on the couch, dear?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Well, while you do that, can you stir the stew every few minutes while I go to the bathroom? I just popped a Miralax and don’t want it to come out the other end.”
“Didn’t really need to know that last part, Mrs. P,” I say mildly. I’ve never understood why Mrs. Peach felt the need to share intimate details about her bowel movements, when “I need to use the bathroom” alone would have sufficed. But I don’t mind much. She’s the only one, apart from Emma, who I can go to when I’m down. She’s understanding but doesn’t hover and doesn’t let me catastrophize either. She just lets me talk things out and work through it at my own pace.
I know what she’ll say if I tell her what happened. “It’s not the end of the world, dear. We’ll just have to find a way to make you money so you can attend school in the fall.”
Easier said than done in a town like this. While the raise Emma offered is certainly generous by Laketown standards, it would still be months if not years before I’m able to save up enough to pay for the cost of tuition.
With Mrs. Peach gone, I get up and head to the kitchen, still wondering how one single failed test could change the trajectory of my life so totally. Especially when I was so close. I am in my final year, set to graduate soon. I was doing so well in every other class, on track to graduate Magna Cum Laude. A single failed test, and it’s like everything I worked for the past few years means nothing.
I’ve told very few people that I’m in college, mostly because I don’t want to bear the weight of any expectations. Not that people expect much of me anyway. As the child of a drunk and a thief, whose cousin was part of a high-profile pearl-smuggling operation, it is good enough to most that I am not a criminal. But that isn’t good enough for me. I’m sure some of them think I’ll follow in the rest of my family’s footsteps, which is why I want to prove them wrong.
But I want to do it quietly so that no one mocks me for my dreams. A dream I’ve sustained even through shitty weeks of being whispered about because my cousin was inadvertently involved in the deaths of multiple people in town.
That combined with my mother’s tantrums and my father’s drunkenness was what made it impossible to study for the stupid test.
A flush and I hear the bathroom door open. That’s when I realize I’ve been stirring the soup staring into the air for minutes. Mrs. Peach walks into the kitchen and wipes wet hands on a random rag.
She gives me a sympathetic look. “You ready to talk about it now, hun?”
I nod through the lump in my throat. “I’m losing my scholarship.”
“Oh no.” She walks forward with her hand over her mouth. “How?”
“I failed a test. The professor is refusing any redos, so even if I ace every other test and assignment in that class, in the couple of weeks before we vacate, I’m still down to get a C in the class. And a C isn’t good enough for me to hold onto my scholarship.”
“Oh, darling, that’s horrible. You can’t take out student loans?”
I shake my head. “My mom already destroyed my credit. She got a loan in my name when I was fifteen.” I didn’t know she had done it until I got sent a letter from a collection agency. I was seventeen when I found out and remember being furious at her.
But Mom, as usual, had no remorse.
“I did it for you,” she explained. “You needed school supplies. Where on earth was I supposed to get the money from?”
“You should have told me.”
She rolled her eyes completely unrepentant. “Well, I’m telling you now.”
I swallow back the memories since they’ll only depress me more. In any case, student loans are out of the picture.
Mrs. Peach hugs me and rubs my back and the tears start flowing.
“I can’t believe I’m losing my scholarship,” I sob, chest tightening. “That means everything was for nothing. Unless I can somehow raise the tuition for the next semester, I’ll have to drop out and become the failure everyone thinks I am.”
“There there,” Mrs. Peach says, sliding her hand over my hair and I inhale her peppermint scent, trying to find comfort in it. A cough interrupts and we both glance at the living room door.
Tate Moon is standing there, looking a little uncomfortable.
I immediately straighten, wiping my face and looking away. Tate isn’t the last person I want to catch me crying, but she’s certainly not high on the list.
Tate is Emma’s other best friend and while that should probably make us friends too, it doesn’t, despite us often hanging out together due to Emma. We’re not enemies, but we’re not friends either. Like Declan, Tate is a little intimidating although in a different way. She’s very plainspoken and has no qualms about saying whatever outrageous thing she thinks of. Like the first time we met at Emma’s house, she asked me, “Is it true your momma stole donations from the church?”
Emma admonished her then and she apologized instantly, but it didn’t stop her asking rude questions on other occasions. One time, upon noting how much time I spent at Emma’s place she asked, “Why are you never home? Does your house not have a ton of space?”
And then another time, during Emma’s birthday party when I was twelve and she was fourteen, she told me, “You should tell your father to lay off the booze.”
And the worst part is that she didn’t say any of it in that mocking way that the other kids used to. She said it like she was either genuinely curious or genuinely concerned, but it just made me more quiet and withdrawn whenever I was around her. Consequently, I avoided coming over to Emma’s when I knew she was there.
It didn’t help that Tate was also gorgeous with her long, luscious red hair, and she was smart too, earning numerous academic awards in high school. She was valedictorian of her class, went off to a state college and now she’s a PT who works with patients at the local hospital and also holds free yoga sessions every Saturday morning.
It’s hard not to feel like a failure next to her.
“Sorry,” she says. “I should have knocked.”
Mrs. Peach sighs. “Yes, but no one knocks in this town. Especially not your generation, who has abandoned all pretense at decency. What do you need, dear?”
“My mom sent me over with these.” She gestures to a cooler in her hand. “She hunted it today and thought you might want some.”
“Oh, how nice.” Mrs. Peach moves away from me to take the cooler and heads to the kitchen. “What is it?”
“Pheasant.”
“Lovely. Let me put this in the freezer before it goes bad.”
As she leaves, an awkward silence descends with Tate walking closer to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I answer quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just having a bad day.”
“Do you want to talk about it?’’
I shake my head. I don’t want to tell beautiful, hyper-capable Tate who graduated her physical therapy program with honors, how I screwed up a test and may not be able to finish college as a result.
“Well, I already heard some of it,” she continues. “It’s about your tuition for the next semester, right?”
Annoyance interrupts my sadness. I don’t want to talk about this with her but I don’t have a choice. Avoiding the conversation now would be too rude for the small town that raised me, so I try to keep it simple. “Uh, yeah. I lost my scholarship.” I shrug. “But it’s not a big deal. Just means I’ll have to take a break from school for some time until I can save up enough money to go back.”
“Or you could just ask Emma for an advance at work,” Tate suggests. “I’m sure she would understand and would love to–”
“No,” I say instantly. Emma and her grandpa have done enough to help me already, too much that is. Helping me with a job, giving me a place to stay sometimes for weeks on end. Grandpa is the only reason why I’ve celebrated my last few birthdays. Ever since he found out that my family doesn’t even remember my birthday, he’s made it a point every year to throw me a small get together at his house, just me, him, Mrs. Peach, Emma, and Yule, the cook at the Tiki Bar.
And although my cousin was the reason Emma’s home got broken into recently, she’s never held it against me. She’s been so considerate of me all my life. I can’t ask her for anything else. “I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. Her fiancé is loaded, so you know she’s not hurting for cash–”
“I said no,” I repeat firmly. “And I appreciate you trying to help but I’d rather do this on my own.”
Her eyebrows fly up at my tone. “Okay then.”
Suddenly guilt washes through me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped, it’s just...”
“You’re having a bad day.” She nods. “It’s okay. I don’t mind being a target. And trust me my mom is much worse when she’s cranky.”
She offers me a wry grin, and I smile back weakly. She’s even gracious about my rudeness. The thing about Tate is that she’s so damn likable it’s hard to hate her. Plus, she’s really not a bad person. I’m the petty one for being jealous of her after all these years.
“I don’t want to tell Emma” I say. “Let’s just keep this between us.”
She bites her lower lip, then nods. “Sure. But just for the record, I think you should tell her.”
“No.”
She shrugs. “Worth a shot.”
I shake my head and sigh. I have to figure my way out of this alone.