With This Heart (30 page)

ONE YEAR LATER

I sat in Dr. Lucas’ office just as I had twice a month for the past year. Her stylish glasses were sitting on the brim of her nose as she ran through everything on her checklist one last time. My eyes scanned down her burgundy cardigan and I smiled thinking of how different our relationship used to be.

“
You’ve got your schedule in order. I think it’s wise that you’re taking basics the first year. That way if you change your major, it won’t be a problem,” she chimed in as her finger dragged down the list. We’d already gone through everything ten times, and I knew my session was almost over. I think she was dragging it out because she knew it was the last time I’d be visiting her. My life no longer required a life coach. I smiled at the silly thought and stuffed my papers into my purse.

“
I don’t think I’ll be changing my major, but I agree,” I said, leaning back and eying her.

She met my eyes and nodded. We’d finally come to understand one another and I’d truly appreciated her help throughout the last year.

“
You should be proud of yourself, Abby. You did it. You got into college and you’re leaving tomorrow. Are you nervous?” she asked, her tone shifting into friend-mode.

Her question was one I’d been asked quite a few times over the past few days. I’d visited Caroline’s parents the day before so I could say goodbye. We had dinner and they asked about college, if I was nervous to move, if I was anxious to start classes. I knew they were truly happy for me. Just as I was leaving, her parents had surprised me with a going away present. They’d put away some money for Caroline to go to school and instead of using it for themselves, they wanted to give me a scholarship. They knew I was paying for college on my own, much to my parent’s disapproval. So they bequeathed upon me a “Caroline College Fund” of sorts. I’d cried when they’d handed me the check, and I’d vowed to make it count for her. Even in death, my friend was always watching out for me.

That money would help me get through the first year of college along with the savings I’d built over the past year working in a coffee shop. After all the medical expenses that had come about after my most recent stint in the hospital, I couldn’t ask my parents for help with college. Even if they could afford it, it felt like I should do it on my own.

Dr. Lucas cleared her throat and I shook my head. “I’m just ready to get up there, I think,” I answered, pulling myself out of my reverie.

She nodded with a tight-lipped smile and I knew she was getting as worked up as I was. Did she realize how much I’d changed in the past year? How much she’d helped me?

“
It’s funny that the assessment test was accurate,” I mentioned, thinking about the silly options it had provided me with a year earlier: park ranger, writer, accountant, biomedical engineer.

She smiled wide and wrapped me into a hug. “I’m glad it all worked out. Although, I still think you would have made a good park ranger,” she laughed, pulling away to hold me at arm’s length.

I rolled my eyes at her playfully.

“
Make sure I get an acknowledgment in your first novel, okay?” She gripped my shoulders and I mashed my lips together so that I wouldn’t cry.

“
Of course,” I winked.

In the past year, I had stuck to a routine: working at the coffee shop during the day and heading home to write non-stop at night. It all started with the journal my mom brought me at the hospital. I’d filled it cover to cover. Then I filled journal after journal, no longer recanting stories from our trip, but writing down stories that had lived in my head for the past nineteen years. When my hands ached from writing with a pen, I switched to creating stories on my laptop. It became my thrill in waking up each morning. I wanted to be a writer and I’d worked hard to make it happen. I’d been accepted to a well-known creative writing program so that I could hone my skills. There was nothing holding me back now.

“
I hope you like Boston, Abby,” she said, wrapping me in a final hug.

…

There are almost sixty colleges in Boston, but only two of them mattered to me: Boston University, where I was enrolled, and MIT. It didn’t take me long to get settled. I was living in a small dorm just off campus with a roommate that hadn’t moved in yet. My dorm was built in the seventies and all of the furniture and appliances looked like they were on the brink of collapse. I picked the side of the room that had the most sunlight, and then I set up my writing space so that my desk faced the window.

I couldn’t see MIT from my room, but I knew it was there. Boston University and MIT were separated by the Charles River. I could literally walk to MIT in a matter of minutes. That first night in my new dorm, I sat at my desk, staring at my reflection in the glass, and contemplated the fact that I didn’t know a single person in the entire city except for one. And he didn’t know I’d left Dallas.

The next morning, I rolled out of bed and sifted through the new pieces of my wardrobe. Even in early autumn, it was chilly in Boston. My jean shorts were packed far, far away and I quickly grew to love the art of layering. Once I had my jacket zipped up, I locked my apartment and headed out to explore the city.

It was starkly different than Dallas. The buildings were older. They had character that came with being built hundreds of years ago. Brownstones spanned city streets and I let them lead me toward the Charles River. I wanted to inspect the MIT campus. I knew the chances of running into Beck were beyond minimal, but that was okay. I wanted to get a feel for where he spent his time; where he’d spent the past year without me.

I trekked over the Harvard Bridge and paused in the middle to watch a group of rowers pass underneath me. Their synchronized strokes were mesmerizing to watch and I snapped a picture to send to my mom. She hadn’t loved the idea of me traveling to Boston for school, but she couldn’t argue with my reasoning. It had taken a little convincing and quite a few tears at the airport, but I promised to talk to her every day and visit home as often as I could.

Abby
: I’m officially a Bostonian. This picture is on the Harvard Bridge.

Mom
: Don’t fall over! You look like you’re right on the edge…

I smiled and pocketed my phone. Some things would never change and that was okay. She’d worked hard to keep me alive. She didn’t need the fruits of her labor falling off a bridge by accident. After walking for a few more minutes, I reached the epicenter of the MIT campus. The buildings were stoic. Tall stairs led up to an imposing building that reminded me of the Pantheon in Rome. But that wasn’t what held my attention.

There was a statue just off the sidewalk that looked at once solid and transparent. It was a stainless steel shell of mathematical symbols in the shape of a giant human form. The plaque at the base titled it “The Alchemist”.

It stood almost three times my height, and the front of the sculpture, where the man’s legs should have been, was cut out so that you could stand inside of it. I peered in, unsure of how claustrophobic the space would make me feel, but the way they layered the symbols made it feel like you were at once inside and out. The blue sky streamed in through the holes in each symbol and I took my time walking in and out, inspecting it from all sides.

Students walked around me, shuffling to their dorms or to buildings on campus, but no one bothered me as I stood and inspected the sculpture for the rest of the afternoon. It gave me an idea of how to reach Beck, and I sat there piecing it together in the Boston sunlight until I felt a buzzing in my pocket.

I looked down at my screen and smiled before pushing back onto my feet.

“
Hi, Mom,” I answered, waiting for a break in pedestrian traffic so I could start to head back to my dorm. It was early afternoon and I’d skipped lunch. She could probably sense that. Moms are superheroes, I swear.

She sighed into the phone, almost inaudibly. “I won’t bother you this much all the time. Just cut me slack for the first week, okay?” I could tell she’d been crying and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss her just as terribly.

“
I’m glad you called, Mom,” I told her, trying to keep my emotions at bay. “I miss you, too. Want to talk to me while I walk home?” I offered, sticking my free hand in my coat pocket and heading back to the bridge.

“
You’re still out walking?” she asked. I could hear her shuffling around the house in the background. Maybe she was preparing dinner for her and Dad.

I looked back and forth, making sure no one was around to hear me. “I was formulating a plan to reach Beck.”

“
Oh, I want to hear about it!” she sang into the phone. “But wait, you have his number and everyone’s on Facebook nowadays. Couldn’t you just do it that way?”

“
Mom. Where’s the romance in that?” I joked.

“
I’m just saying it might be a little easier. Maybe it could be a backup plan,” she added, and I scrunched my nose. I didn’t want a backup plan. I didn’t want to text or call Beck. He deserved more than that. He deserved a grand gesture.

That night when I got back to my dorm, I sat at my desk facing the city lights and started on my plan. I had no clue if Beck was still in Boston or at MIT, but I would just have to assume that he was. I tapped away on my keyboard— creating, erasing, and rethinking my ideas until I had it complete. It was almost impossible to condense my feelings into a page. But I did it. One single page with a bold title that would hopefully catch people’s attention. I planned on waking up early and taking it to a printer to get as many copies as I could on my measly budget.

When I tried to sleep that night, I tossed and turned, thinking over the memories of our road trip. I slid open the journal that I kept on my nightstand and read over my favorite parts. The pages were worn and stained. A few of the edges were curling in on themselves. The journal had been my crutch the past year. In a strange turn of events, Beck had actually done me a favor when he walked out without taking it, but I wasn’t going to let him walk away again.

I walked through the MIT campus with a stack of papers in hand. The campus was still mostly empty. I’d woken up at the crack of dawn to be sure I could do my dirty work when there weren’t thousands of students in the way.

MIT’s campus is enormous, but I looked up where the journalism classes usually were held and hit that area especially hard. There wasn’t a safe surface in sight. I pasted pages up on the buildings, on telephone poles, and bulletin boards.

I pasted sheet after sheet in the student union until the walls were almost completely covered in flapping pages. I kept moving toward the center of the campus where I’d seen the statue yesterday. I pasted as I went, trying to move quickly, but just when I thought I was in the clear, I felt a looming presence behind me.

“
Ma’am, do you realize that you’re vandalizing school property?” A stern voice questioned behind me. I turned slowly to look into the eyes of a distinguished man. He had thick white hair, cut short and styled nicely. Horn-rimmed glasses perched on his thin nose. A navy sport coat rested on top of his crisp white shirt.

“
I…I,” I couldn’t formulate a response. He was about to ruin my plan or yell at me. I didn’t do well with confrontation and I was seconds away from breaking down in embarrassing, ugly tears.

“
We have janitors that are hardworking individuals. They have enough on their plate without having to clean up after vandals. Do you understand that?” His tone was harsh and his sharp stare made me feel like a juvenile delinquent.

“
I’m sorry,” I murmured lamely, glancing down at my stack of unused papers. My plan felt foolish now. Why had I thought this would work?

“
May I at least see what you’re posting?” he asked. I fumbled quickly to pass a sheet over to him, unable to meet his gaze. My cheeks reddened beyond what I thought possible. If he hadn’t thought I was foolish before then he definitely would after reading my plea to get Beck back.

His eyes glanced down at the sheet and I watched him scan the page, his expression imperceptible. His thick white eyebrows shot up in surprise and then the edge of his mouth curled up into a hint of a smile.

“
Is this true?” he asked, and I gulped down a swallow.

My head nodded before my vocal cords could catch up. “Yes, sir.”

I stood frozen, waiting for him to call campus authorities or threaten me somehow. I imagined the campus police hauling me off in handcuffs at the precise moment Beck walked onto campus. Instead, the distinguished man stretched out his hand.

“
Give me a few so that I can put them over in the Architecture school. I’m a professor over there.” My eyes practically bulged out of my head at his words. Could he truly be serious? He was going to help me?

I grabbed a dozen and handed them over to him with shaky hands. I couldn’t believe the turn of events. Before he turned to walk away, he looked up at me and narrowed his eyes.

“
I met a girl when I was studying abroad in Italy. We walked the same path to college every day and I never worked up the courage to stop and talk to her. I’d hate for you to have the same
regret.” He nodded to himself, the hint of a smile still playing on his lips before he turned and walked off with a confident stride. I felt like I’d stepped into the twilight zone. A laugh escaped my lips as I stood there, completely dumbfounded, watching him disappear around the corner.