1
MOLLY
Lindsayand I sat on the living room floor amidst a patchwork of hastily scribbled notes and scuffed-up textbooks. It was Saturday, a day most people heaved a sigh of relief and unwound from a long week of work. Cleary, those people weren’t college freshmen preparing for exams.
The clock ticked past five pm, which meant my housemate and I have been cramming for the d readed economics final for at least six hours.
Lindsay pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders. “We need to call the landlord about the insulation, Molly. How is Boston still so cold when its nearly May?”
A vicious wind rattled the glass panes of the ancient Colonial we’d moved into at the start of the year, sounding much like the chatter of monster-sized teeth. It would have been an ominous soundtrack if we weren’t so used to it by now.
“No point,” I said, shaking my head. “Exams are done in three weeks, and then we’re leaving for the summer. Given the speed of progress on fixing the leaks, you really think he’s going to jump on this?” Our landlord was a middle-aged Italian man named Vince. He ran a pizza spot in town and had on overinflated opinion of himself as a handyman.
Two months ago, the pipes burst in one side of the house, flooding our other two housemates’ bathrooms. They chose to move out when it became clear Vince was in no rush to hire someone to fix it. They’d asked us if we wanted to go with them to their new place, but the rent was much higher there than what we were paying here. Lindsay was at Northeastern on a scholarship, while I was here largely on my sister’s dime. Neither of us had money to spare.
Lindsay rubbed her arms. “You’re right. I read somewhere the cold keeps our brains more alert, so maybe that’s the silver lining here. I could use all the alertness I can get at this point.” She shot a dirty look at my tall stack of textbooks. “I don’t know how you’re handling six classes when I’m barely scraping by with my four.”
As if I needed that reminder. I bit on the end of my pen to suppress a groan. My grand plan was to graduate in three years instead of four to save on the astronomical cost of tuition. It had seemed doable when I first got here back in September, but with each passing month, keeping up with my course load became more and more difficult. No amount of caffeine was going to fix the fact that I was running out of steam. After I wrote my exams, I planned on sleeping for a few days straight, followed by a few more days of doing nothing at all. I had a week of rest before my summer job began, and I was going to take full advantage of the break.
“We’re almost at the end of it,” I said as I rubbed my aching back muscles. There was no way it was healthy to spend so much time sitting hunched over a bunch of books. “I can’t wait for the year to be over.”
“I still can’t believe you’re not spending the summer in LA. If my sister lived somewhere cool like that, I’d be on the first flight out.”
My heart squeezed painfully. God, I missed Ade.
“I would have gone if it wasn’t for my job,” I said. It was just a gig at a small local marketing agency, nothing special, but it was also my first chance to have some money of my own. Every time I went to the bank to withdraw from the account Ade had opened for me at the beginning of the year, I felt a pang of guilt. My sister had sacrificed a lot to get me to Northeastern. After our parents died when I was in my sophomore year of high school, she became my guardian at nineteen. Overnight, she took on more responsibility than anyone her age should bear, and yet she never complained about it. Not once during the two long years when she had to work late shifts at the bar and pick up random side jobs to save for my tuition. My sister had been born to be a musician, and she’d put her dreams on the back burner to do what was best for me.
She was my rock. My protector. My guardian angel. When her big break appeared in the form of Bleeding Moonlight, a heavy metal band looking for a new guitarist, I’d thanked the universe for doing me a solid. Finally, Ade could have the life she deserved. Still, the weight of what I nearly took from her would never disappear off my back.
When I left for college, I vowed I’d never be a burden on her again. I was done with feeling helpless. That meant getting myself on an accelerated path to adulthood and proving to Ade I was just fine on my own. If that meant sacrificing my summers, then so be it.
“My folks are making me spend the summer at my uncle’s dairy farm,” Lindsay grumbled. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be elbow deep inside a cow a few hours after I arrive.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I said, scrunching my nose. Lindsay came from a big family of farmers, and I’d managed to learn more about cow insemination in the past two semesters than I ever wanted to know.
I reached for my study guide, and as I flipped through the pages, a couple of photographs slipped out.
Lindsay plucked one off the ground. “Is this one of the pictures you took last week at the park?” She lifted it up to the light. “Wow. It’s gorgeous.”
A warm feeling spread through me. “Thanks.”
“The way you captured the light here is just incredible.”
I fidgeted with my pen and tried not to be too bolstered by her praise. “It’s alright.” Photography was a hobby I’d picked up earlier this year—somewhat unwisely, given how much time I’d spent on it since. It started with a used SLR camera I found at a secondhand store on sale for twenty bucks. The store clerk told me it was a good deal, so I bought it on a whim. That weekend, I hunted down a roll of film, watched a YouTube video on how to load it up, and spent the rest of the day taking pictures around campus. The rest, as they say, was history. The people at the campus photo lab all recognized me by now given how frequently I reserved time there.
Lindsay glanced up at me. “Seriously. You have a gift for it. I can’t believe you only started photographing this year.”
“It’s not that hard after you watch a few videos about the basics,” I said. “And I probably took about twenty crappy shots before I got a good one.” Photography was fun, but it was also very time consuming. If I didn’t keep my priorities straight, I’d spend entire days messing around with my camera. Even now, I felt an itch to get out for a few hours and take advantage of the setting sun, but I needed to stay focused on studying.
Lindsay turned over another photo that had slipped out. “Love this one. Have you showed it to Mason?”
I looked at the picture and shook my head. It was from a walk we’d taken together many months ago. Mason was looking at me over this shoulder, laughing at something I’d said. How did that one get in there? It must have gotten stuck between the pages.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t you hang out with him anymore? At the beginning of the year, you two were together all the time.”
“At the beginning of the year, he was the only person I knew on campus.”
