Page 77 of The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly

Ms. Sweetly,

Congratulations! After careful review of your materials, we are pleased to offer you a full scholarship for your two years of study here. This covers all tuition and a stipend for books and materials. Please reply at your earliest convenience to indicate your acceptance.

Well.

That’s good news. And bad news.

I didn’t tell anyone—not Mom, not Chris, not Layla, not Jett—that I applied to the community college as a backup. It felt like a betrayal of my plans to even turn in the application, but the scholarship chance also was too good to pass up.

But now that I have it—and don’t have a scholarship for Marquette—I almost don’t want it. Which is terrible and entitled and I know it.

But I want a school by Lake Michigan. And a new city. And all the adventures waiting for me there.

Deciding not to decide immediately, I drink the rest of my tea in one gulp and click on my website.

Oh no.

Somehow the trolls and legions of men’s rights activists (eye roll forever) have found my video.

They’ve filled up the comments section with their vitriol. If only this were the Middle Ages, when people would bury their contempt in complex visual allegories like drawing pictures of knights fighting snails (which is a surprisingly common image in illuminated medieval manuscripts). Those pictures—while expressing some strong sentiments by comparing social climbers to slimy garden pests—probably didn’t have quite the same impact as a Twitter mob or attacks in comment sections like we have today.

My hands tremble as I scroll downward. What is wrong with people?

The comments on my video go on and on. Disgusting, lewd, angry, outraged. They want to attack me, my body, my friends, and our mission to make things fair at the Castle.

Of course, interspersed with all this awfulness are positive comments, but even a lot of the ones from before have been bombarded by trolls. It’s like I must’ve ended up on some anti-feminist message board, and everyone decided to pile on.

I skim comment after comment, getting sicker and sicker to my stomach.

Biting my bottom lip as I read, I take deep, steadying breaths. I want to hide. Suddenly, having people know my name makes me vulnerable and scared.

I want to reply to each and every nasty comment, excoriating them. I want to take the video down. I want to throw the computer across the room.

I can almost hear what Mom would say to me if she knew: “This is why you don’t put yourself out there, Kit. Why you keep your head low and focus on what you’re supposed to be doing, not striving for something that’s so far outside your reach.”

Which is exactly the kind of talk that made me want to fight as a Knight in the first place. Tell me I can’t and then watch me do it. It’s also what makes me want to find a way—any way—to go to Marquette over the community college.

“But maybe you should choose your battles,” Mom would say. “Your work might not be safe anymore for you and you’ve got a free ride at another school. Take it. Don’t make my same mistakes, blah, blah, blah …”

I close the laptop as I hear Mom’s key in the door. Not wanting to deal with her in real life, I hurry down the hall to my room, shut the door, and hide under the covers.

Jett texts me when I’m already in bed.

Jett: You feeling any better?

It’s sweet of him to ask. To check on me. To pretend like nothing happened between us. To make me forget the fact that none of my other friends—not even Layla—have texted or reached out tonight.

But the thought of Jett, with his lips that need to be kissed and his being a good friend and wanting to make me feel better, just makes me feel worse. I don’t want to talk to him when my head’s full of all those ugly, hateful comments. And I don’t want to try to sort through what it meant that I kissed him and he ran.

So, I turn off my phone. And stay under the covers. Fairly certain I may never leave my bed again.

37

THURSDAY MORNING DAWNS SUNNY, BRIGHT, AND FULL OF birds singing about how great their lives are.

Just kidding.

Who knows what the birds are singing about? Not me. But I’m pretty sure it’s not about how great things are because, like humans, birds’ lives tend to follow the nasty, brutish, and short model.