I asked if she’d talked to Ethan about this.
She said Ethan was focusing on his program and this didn’t need to involve him.
I thought about saying: this involves me. The money was for me. You said it was for me. For six years you said it was for me.
Instead I went to my room and sat on my bed and stared at my poster of the human circulatory system, which I’d put up my sophomore year because I thought it looked scientific and it made me feel organized. I stared at it for a long time.
Then I started making a different spreadsheet.
The new spreadsheet had three columns: what I could earn, what I could borrow, what I needed to close the gap. I was methodical because methodical was what I had.
Ethan texted me that week. He said he’d heard things were complicated and he was sorry and he hoped I’d find a good path. It was a kind text. It was the text of someone who had been told a version of events and was responding to that version with goodwill.
I said thanks and that I was figuring it out.
I didn’t ask him what version he’d heard. I don’t know exactly why. Part of it was that I didn’t want to know. Part of it was that knowing wouldn’t change the balance in my new spreadsheet.
Building an Alternate Route
I enrolled at Meadowfield Community College in September of the year I was supposed to start the four-year program.