Chapter 22
Miles
Thursday
Muriel and Joseph left the Youth Club room after helping me store the instruments in their respective boxes. They were both eight-year-old boys, always going everywhere together, very devoted and enthusiastic guitar students.
“Come look at the sunset!” Ella showed up at the doorway out of nowhere.
I didn’t even know she was at the CIC today. How she managed to be everywhere all the time was beyond my comprehension.
“C’mon!” She stepped into the room, demanding that I go.
I giggled at her enthusiasm. “I am looking at it!” I pointed to the window.
“No,” she shook her head. “Really come see it.”
I followed her out of the room at a fast pace.
We passed by Miss Amara, who didn’t stop our brisk walking. “Where are you two kids running to?” she asked.
“To look at the sky!” Ella spun around as she answered, and Miss Amara’s laugh echoed in the hallway where we left her.
Ella and I watched the sunset on the horizon, the sky painted in shades of orange, pink, and purple, all melting slowly into the darker blue where some stars were beginning their night show.
When we returned to the CIC, she was running late to a dance class she’d signed up for. So we said goodbye.
I went back to the Youth Club to grab my guitar.
Miss Amara was in the hallway again, going in the opposite direction from earlier.
“You know,” she looked straight into my eyes, “sometimes we need these more sensitive people in our life. Because they bring a meaning to it we weren’t used to. You start seeing small parts of the world in a different light.”
I knew who she was talking about. And I knew what she meant by the words “more sensitive”. I hoped Ella would always be the person who got excited about the change of season, the sound of the ocean, the smell of rain, starry nights, and “really” watching a sunset.
I parked the car in front of my house and went to close the gate.
My mom was having dinner out with her new boyfriend, who had come to pick her up at 7 p.m., according to the note she left for me on the kitchen counter.
Frankly, the only thing I liked about him was precisely that he would come pick her up and give me the possibility of driving around in her car.
He was an agricultural engineer who was in Evermere for a period of six months to work at the Ericksons’ farm and help them improve their crops and farming techniques.
His opinions seemed to matter more than everyone else’s, and he was “most certainly” always right, as he would say. He carried himself as though the world owed him something.
I didn’t like him, but at least he was not a fraud.
He was openly and undeniably a snobbish clown.
At least he wouldn’t end up showing two faces like my stepfather did, pretending to be one thing and then betraying us overnight.
Ben was still the only one of my mom’s boyfriends I ever called stepfather.
The only one I thought I could, and the only one I truly felt I wanted to.
But the new boyfriend, Mister Engineer, was just another one. He was someone I could see through, and hoped my mom would move on from once he was gone.
My thoughts didn’t linger there for long.
I was in a good mood. I had been for a while.
Evermere and its green mountains had grown into me.
The people of this small town no longer felt like strangers, they were slowly starting to feel like a community I was becoming a part of.
The feeling of disorientation had been replaced by Miss Amara’s presence and guidance.
And the feeling of loneliness had been replaced by Ella’s company and care.
I looked around my house. Those walls no longer felt unfamiliar. They were no longer just walls, just a house that once belonged to my grandparents. It was beginning to feel like my house now. It was starting to feel like home.
I opened the fridge door to consider what to cook for myself for dinner, and… I slowly closed it the moment my brain registered what my eyes had seen.
Under a refrigerator magnet.
A letter with the Cadence College symbol on it. My heart raced.
It had all started some weeks ago, with a conversation I’d had with Miss Amara about the future. She had called me out, in her caring, assertive, straightforward way of being. I had been dodging that topic, making up excuses when Ella offered to brainstorm it.
But Miss Amara had sat with me, said it wasn’t up to her to convince me to do anything, and that she would support every decision I made, but that she believed I was simply avoiding trying out of fear of failing. And that she couldn’t allow me to not believe in myself as much as she believed in me.
The day after that conversation, I had asked to see the school guidance counselor, Mr. Gids, who Miss Amara knew, of course, because not everybody knew everybody in this town, but she did.
I had been open, honest, and ready to ask him to help guide me to a possible next step.
He did guide me. He took into consideration my financial needs, contacted colleges, checked scholarship listings, and reached out to a network of other counselors and music programs. He helped me fill out applications and mail them.
The only people who knew about it were him, Miss Amara, and later my mom, who had been surprised and offered only moral support.
I kept avoiding the subject with Ella and ended up telling her I was considering a gap year.
She didn’t judge me, as I knew she wouldn’t judge me if I didn’t get accepted to any of the options on the table.
Still, I didn’t know why, I preferred not to share it with her.
Not yet. I wanted to wait for answers before letting her know…
I didn’t want to think about letting her down, getting her excited for me, and then receiving the disappointing news of not being welcomed anywhere.
And there it was. One answer. Closed in an envelope. Stuck to my refrigerator door.
Cadence College was the one I had gotten most excited about. They offered a scholarship that covered tuition fully, so my mom wouldn’t have to worry about it. That way, I could use the small fund saved for college from my grandparents’ inheritance to pay for the dorm and still have some money left.
I couldn’t bring myself to open that piece of paper — the one that could have the power to shape my future.
Cadence College’s music scholarship applications required an audition tape: two songs, two instruments.
I had chosen a self-composed guitar piece, and Miss Amara had helped me practice piano at her house.
We had selected a beautiful classical Chopin piece, a song that always calmed my restless mind.
Mr. Gids had recorded it and sent it with my résumé.
My mom hadn’t opened the letter. She had simply left it there, waiting. I took a deep breath. Chopin could be playing right now and everything inside me would still be spinning.
I tore it open as quickly as I could, as if not allowing myself to go back to the fear of knowing.
My eyes scanned those words anxiously, unsure I was truly absorbing everything.
“Dear Mr. Rowan,
We are pleased to inform you that…”
I was overwhelmed with emotions.
There.
There it was.
I was in.
The decision was mine to make.
I held in my hands the opportunity to start a new chapter of my life.