Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Next to the course code is a single letter: A.
I stare at it, not believing. Then I see it again, and again, and it’s real.
I feel the air leave my lungs. My hands go numb. For a second, I think I might pass out.
I scan the rest of the list. The GPA at the bottom is a miracle: high enough to keep my scholarship, high enough to keep me here, high enough that I might—if I want—qualify for the co-terminal master’s program at Century. I want to laugh. I want to scream.
I clutch the phone in both hands, afraid the numbers will disappear if I let go.
I look at the world through the fogged window, through the rim of my cup, through the lens of a life that almost wasn’t.
For the first time in forever, I feel like I belong.
I take a long, scalding sip of my latte, and the bitterness is perfect.
I barely have time to process the grade before the front door blasts open and Andie comes barreling in, trailing a cloud of cold air and the sharp, almost ozone tang of sidewalk salt. She spots me instantly—maybe it’s the hair, maybe the posture, maybe just the way I’m vibrating at a frequency only the desperate can see.
She doesn’t walk, she power-marches, parka half-zipped, boots squeaking, cheeks flushed so red she looks frostbitten. She lands in the seat across from me like she’s been launched. There is no preamble.
“Tell me you checked,” the sassy blonde demands, eyes glittering.
“I checked.”
“And?”
I turn my phone to face her, finger trembling as I slide the screen across. She leans in, nearly jamming her nose to the glass. When she sees the “A,” her whole body snaps upright.
“YES!” she yells, way too loud for the jazz piano mood, then flattens her voice and tries again, a hissed whisper: “YES. YOU LEGEND.”
The tarot lady looks up from her deck and grins. The barista gives us a thumbs-up. I’m mortified, but also elated.
Andie wraps me in a hug so tight it knocks the air from my lungs. She smells like vanilla body spray and the outdoors. Her hair leaves a static electricity shadow on my face.
“I’m so proud of you,” she says, and it’s not a joke, not even a little.
I blink, and for a second my vision goes blurry, but I hold it together. “We did it,” I say, my voice small.
She pulls back, wipes under her eyes with the heel of her palm, and immediately starts digging through the sugar caddie on the table. “This is a full-sugar day. All bets are off,” she announces, and proceeds to dump five packets of sugar into her thermos of black coffee. The sweetness must be astonishing, but she drinks it anyway, eyes never leaving my face.
We fall into easy talk, the kind you only get after surviving a war together. We gossip about the other finals, the tragic fate of mutual friends who failed to surface, the looming threat of next semester’s tuition. Every now and then, Andie circles back to the grades. “You know what this means?” she says at one point. “You’re locked in for the scholarship. And you could—if you wanted—apply to the co-term. I mean, who even are you right now?”
I laugh, but I feel it, too: the giddy, unstable sense that my life just leveled up, that the girl who almost flunked out is now the girl who could go for a master’s.
“Look at you,” Andie marvels. “From hot mess to campus genius. God, I wish my parents would believe it. I’m texting my mom right now. She’s going to lose her mind.”
She holds out her phone and takes a selfie with me, which I hate, but she insists, and I don’t have the energy to resist. She posts it instantly, hashtags it “#livinglife #nerdalert #watchherglow.”
I smile despite myself. The café has settled into a late-morning lull. The barista is restocking the pastry case, the jazz has shifted to something slower, sadder. The tarot woman is packing up her cards. For the first time all break, I feel something like actual peace.
I pull out my phone and compose a text to Liam. The words don’t come easy. I write, “Thank you for helping me become a better student. I couldn’t have done this without your guidance.” I stare at it, debating if I should add more.
Andie leans in, reading over my shoulder. “Send it,” she whispers.
I hover my finger over the button, then set the phone down.
“I will,” I say. “In a minute.”
Andie grins, then raises her cup. “To a minute,” she toasts.
We clink, and the world feels just a little less fragile.
After sending the text, I get hit with nerves. Did I come off as too needy? Too lame? But then my phone vibrates again, harder this time, as if it can sense my indecision.