My grip tightened on my pen. The lecture hall felt too small, too full of people who probably had parents who showed up to their graduations and called on their birthdays.
Humor. Find the humor.
At least you got good survival skills out of the deal, I told myself.Some kids just get therapy and a fear of abandonment.
It didn't land.
Larkin moved on to discussing therapeutic approaches for attachment disorders, and I let her voice wash over me withoutabsorbing the words. My mind was elsewhere—on a wolf in my visions, feral and lost, searching for something it couldn't name.
What happens when early attachments are disrupted?
You survive. That's what happens. You build walls and call them boundaries, and you learn to carry your own weight because the alternative is falling.
But you don't stop wanting. That's the part no one tells you. The wanting just goes underground, curling around your bones like winter roots, waiting for spring.
The lecture ended. I gathered my things slowly, letting the other students filter out first. Larkin caught my eye as I passed her podium, and for a moment I thought she might say something—she had the look of someone who recognized a flinch when she saw one.
But I moved past before she could speak, out into the hallway where Ivy was waiting to walk with me to lunch.
"You look like you just sat through a funeral," she said. "Was it that bad?"
"Attachment theory." I managed a wry smile. "Turns out orphans have baggage. Who knew?"
Ivy's expression softened. "Lumi—"
"Wilderness First Aid next," I said, already walking. "I like Mr. Boone, he was great on our hike."
She let me change the subject.
Mr. Boone was enthusiastic.
He bounded into the classroom like an overgrown Labrador, all energy and delight, and immediately began pulling out supplies—bandages, splints, thermal blankets, and what looked like actual medical equipment.
"Wilderness First Aid," he announced, "is not about being a hero. It's about keeping people alive until the heroes arrive." He grinned. "Though occasionally, youwillbe the hero. Let's start with the fun stuff: hypothermia. I know many of you covered this during our orientation classes, but it is worth hearing again because–hello Alaska!"
He walked us through the stages with the kind of vivid detail that made the back row wince. Mild hypothermia: shivering, clumsiness, confusion. Moderate: violent shivering, slurred speech, loss of coordination. Severe: shivering stops, pupils dilate, pulse slows.
"The body is trying to protect the core," Boone explained. "It pulls blood away from the extremities. Your fingers and toes become sacrifices to keep your heart beating." He held up a photo of frostbitten hands—blackened, blistered. "Once tissue freezes, you're in triage territory. Prevention is everything."
I thought of Denali. Negative forty with windchill. Avalanche zones. Whiteout conditions.
Boone had us practice hypothermia wraps on each other—the burrito method, he called it, layering insulation and vapor barriers while minimizing movement. My partner was a nervous student who kept apologizing every time he touched me.
"Tighter on the core," I told him. "Loose around the extremities—you don't want to restrict blood flow."
He blinked at me. "Have you done this before?"
"I grew up in a cold climate." That answered a lot of questions without actually answering them.
By the end of class, I was revising my mental checklist: vapor barriers, chemical heat packs, emergency bivvy, insulated ground pad. I'd need to improve my medical kit with Mr Boone’s suggestions. He had good tips.
Mythology with Professor Vince Tomlinson was the last class of the day, and by the time I sank into my seat, I was running on fumes. The universe, apparently amused, had scheduled Ivy—my roommate—and the cowboy—my unwanted mate—into the same hour long class.
Vince surveyed the room as students filtered in, and when his gaze swept past me, it caught—just for a heartbeat. I looked down at my notebook, and he kept scanning like nothing had happened.
Good. We'd had an unspoken agreement since I'd enrolled: in here, I was just another student. Not Rae the Medicine Woman’s sister, not someone who'd sat at his dinner table and watched him argue with his mate about whose turn it was to change Alexandra's diaper. Just Lumi Orlav, freshman, seat seven row four.
The alternative was questions.How do you know Professor Tomlinson? Do you know the Medicine Woman? How?And then the looks—the recalibrations, the assumptions about favoritism or connections. I'd worked too hard to get here on my own terms to become "the girl who knows people."
