U-Turn Seventeen Years Old, Virginia
U-Turn
Seventeen Years Old, Virginia
I awaken to the sound of my name.
Opening my eyes, I peer through the Jetta’s bug-spattered windshield. My car’s running but parked, warm air blowing through the vents. I straighten creakily, closing my journal, which landed upside down across my lap when sleep took over.
Isaiah’s brought us to a parking garage, backing into a space so the yawning exit, twenty or so yards away, is visible. Outside, the dawn sky is clear.
“Where are we?” I ask, hitching my hair into a ponytail.
“Promise not to be mad?”
“No,” I say, wondering at his expression, a little smug and a lot hopeful.
Understanding dawns suddenly, making me to feel like I’ve been flung into a cold pool.
Commonwealth of Virginia University.
Isaiah pit-stopped at CVU.
“We can leave,” he says, voice laced with worry now. “You were sleeping when I got off the highway, and you looked like an actual angel, and I couldn’t make myself wake you. I just thought that if you could walk the campus, get a feel for this place now, today, maybe you’d be able to figure out what you want.”
I fix my gaze on the garage’s exit.
I don’t know what to say; I’m not even sure I can look at him.
Wordlessly, I get out of the car. I stretch my legs, my spine, my arms high over my head. And then I walk out of the garage.
***
We’re parked near the bookstore, I quickly discover. The sidewalk is quiet and the air is dewy, and while I’m no longer disoriented, I’m at a loss.
I’m in Charlottesville.
Now what?
Go for a walk, Amelia.
I’m standing in the middle of campus. The football stadium lies southwest, the medical facilities southeast. Most of the classroom buildings and lecture halls are north. If I make a right, I’ll run into the Academic Plaza, with its marble rotunda and picturesque lawn. If I go left, I’ll arrive at Beck’s former dorm.
Right it is.
I pass a couple residence halls and the admissions building before I reach the Academic Plaza. It’s quiet thanks to the early hour. Standing at the lawn’s edge, I soak in CVU’s hub: clean sidewalks, lush grass, brick buildings, blue-and-red pennants hanging from lampposts. There’s an irrefutably erudite spirit about this campus, which I love.
Last time I was here, Beck took me on a tour, filling the time before we were due to meet his family at the stadium. We’d stopped here to sit in the grass, crowded with students and families and alumni who’d come to town for the game.
“Two more years,” he said, slinging his arm around my shoulders.
I leaned into him. “I can’t wait.”
Back then, I was so sure of the future I wanted: afternoons in the library, weekends eating pizza and going to parties, nights curled up with Beck in his too-small dorm room bed.
Eighteen months later, I’m living a life I never would’ve imagined.
I don’t know who I am without you , I told him the morning after he graduated.
I still don’t.
But I’m starting to appreciate this new version of myself: Lia, independent of Beck.
I’m starting to believe that she’ll be okay.
I think of James, who transferred to Virginia Tech for his sophomore year.
I understand, now, why he couldn’t stay here.
Birds chirp, engines rumble, students trickle onto sidewalks.
CVU is waking up, and so am I.
I leave the lawn to claim a bench. I’ve only been sitting a few minutes when Isaiah joins me. He holds out a sleeved paper cup. “Mocha?”
“Thank you,” I say, accepting the coffee. “Where’s yours?”
“Finished it in the café. I wanted to give you some time.”
I take a sip. It’s piping hot and extra chocolatey, exactly the way I would’ve ordered it.
When I lower the cup, he asks, “Do you need more?”
“Coffee?”
“Time,” he says, smiling.
I shake my head; I’ve had just enough.
He looks out at the grass, brows drawn. He’s left a canyon of space between us. It can’t be fun for him, watching me mourn an impossible future. What motivated him to drive through the night, delivering me to Charlottesville? Why’s he buying me mochas and sitting beside me at a college he has no desire to attend?
I just know this: I’m grateful to have him by my side.
“The last time I was here,” I tell him, “I was with Beck. I came to visit the fall of his freshman year, about a month before he passed. When I went back to Rosebell, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that CVU was where I wanted to go to college.”
“Seems like a great school,” he says.
“It is. But I don’t think it’s the right school for me.”
His gaze meets mine. “No?”
“I couldn’t admit it to myself until this morning, but with Beck gone, CVU’s become this…this burden . He wouldn’t’ve wanted me to enroll feeling the way I do.” I let go of a dry laugh. “Now that I’ve come to my senses, though, it’s too late to make a U-turn.”
Isaiah shakes his head. “It’s never too late.”
“I did what you suggested. Last night in the car. Thought about what I’d do if CVU was off the table.”
“And…?”
“There are a lot of options, actually.”
He stands, tugging me up too. “Tell me about them while we find breakfast.”