Mae
Out the window of the plane, the clouds are piled up like bath bubbles, and the middle of the country is spread out below in checkered squares of green and gold.
She’s thinking about saying goodbye to her dads again (“Take two,” said Pop as he hugged her), and also Priyanka, who had pulled up in the driveway early this morning (“One last time”) before getting on the road.
She’s thinking about the text she sent Garrett (Okay, okay—it’s possible you were right) and the way the film turned out, the quiet pride she felt when she watched the final cut.
In her pocket, there’s a flash drive that she’ll give to the dean of admissions after she lands this afternoon, and it feels strange to carry it around like that, like a portable heart.
Mostly, though, she’s thinking about Hugo and the fact that he still hasn’t responded, which must mean he hated the film or was scared off by what she said.
Either way, it can’t be good.
Maybe they were just never meant to have a happy ending. Maybe it’s not that kind of movie.
She’s determined not to let this stop her. If the meeting with the dean doesn’t go well, she’ll be back again first thing tomorrow. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll try again the next day. And the next.
She’ll keep trying. But she’s also not worried anymore.
It used to be that the thought of spending the next two years taking classes in literature and religion and science felt like missing out.
She’d be stuck learning about ancient Greece or the geopolitical situation in Tibet or the poetry of W.
B. Yeats while, across campus, the film students would be pulling ahead of her.
But now she’s not so sure.
Maybe Hugo has the right idea after all. Maybe it’s not the worst thing to take a few detours along the way. She loves the film she made this week, loves it as much as anything she’s ever done, and it never would’ve existed if she hadn’t gotten on that train.
No matter what happens next, she’ll always be glad she did.