“That’s for me to know and you to guess.”
“Do I know him?”
“You donot,and that’s all I’ll say for now.”
She gave me a proud little pat on the cheek.
“You inspired me, sweetheart. Watching you fight for yourself… reminded me I’m allowed to want things too.”
I carried that with me all the way to Boston.
We step out of the hotel and the cold hits like a slap—clean, salty, alive. The wind coming off the Charles River has teeth, but it smells like something I can’t describe except:potential.
We walk the city like tourists.
Because that’s what we are.
And honestly? It feels amazing.
We eat at a New Orleans-style seafood place near Faneuil Hall—crab cakes and spicy gumbo that warms my bones. Musicians play jazz outside, even with freezing fingers. My dad insists on walking off dinner through Quincy Market even though the rest of us are stuffed and shivering.
Street vendors sell handmade scarves.
Chestnuts roast in big metal drums.
Someone dressed as a Nutcracker salutes every kid who walks by.
Boston is… beautiful. Chaotic. Cozy. Old and new and proud.
We do the Duck Tour—yes, the cheesy amphibious boat thing, and yes, it’s ridiculous—but Lily laughs so hard she hiccups and Max keeps mooing at pedestrians because the guide said it’s “tradition.” Mom gets misty-eyed. Dad’s snapping photos like he wants to remember the exact shape of this day.
And then?—
Harvard.
We take the T (which is basically a metal can that screams underground). It smells like wet wool sweaters, pennies, and a kind of permanent dampness that somehow feels nostalgic.
Harvard Square is lit up with shops, book carts, and students in scarves rushing to who-knows-where. My siblings chase pigeons. Dad buys coffee from a street vendor that tastes like burnt heaven. Mom takes pictures of the old brick buildings like she’s trying to memorize them.
But it’s the vibe that gets me.
The buzzing ambition.
The feeling like everyone is going somewhere important.
I catch myself thinking:
I want this. I want a future. I want a life that’s bigger than everything that’s happened to me.
Saturday morning is colder.
The kind that bites your lungs when you first breathe in.
But BC’s campus looks like a Gothic postcard—stone towers, stained glass, lawns dusted with early frost.
The minute we step onto the quad, something in my chest shifts.
Like…this.
