I was sitting at the French bakery on the corner, pencil sketching in one hand and chocolate croissant in the other.
My friend Juliet sits across from me, writing one of several poems into a small black notebook. She has multiple of those, gray words on each page.
She was the best poet I had ever met, who wrote some of the best poems I ever read.
Some of the only poems I could understand too, but that is beside the point. That's a story for another day.
That was when the bell above the door jingled.
A normal occurrence on all fronts. Until I heard someone calling my name, that is.
"Ollie. Ollie!" High pitched, mama's typical excited voice.
I look up to see her— paint splattered jeans, sneakers, and t-shirt— with mom trailing behind.
Mom's high heels don't allow her to walk at such fast speeds but she is still pretty fast, staying caught up with Mama easily.
"Ollie!" Mama is breathless, mom standing next to her nearly unaffected.
She thrusts an envelope in my face.
The envelope to end all envelopes.
A creamy off-white color, stamp in the top right corner and return address to Monarch Academy. New York, NY.
Also known as the pretentious and expensive boarding school I had applied to.
My future life depended on this school.
All my dreams sat inside this little vessel.
Juliet's pencil was abandoned, staring at me with eyes full of shimmering expectancy.
"Open it, bitch!" She urged, pulling a chuckle out of me. And my moms will never admit it, but it drew laughs out of both of them as well.
"I'm going!"
I set down the croissant and the oil pencil, butterflies filling my stomach to the brim.
With trembling hands and a racing heart, the two sides of paper were pulled apart.
And in the middle sits a thin, tri-fold of academic level paper. Which I pull out gingerly, trying to be careful not to cause a single wrinkle as I unfold it.
My anxiety skyrockets, hitting the roof.
Heck, it might even break through the roof and extend up to the clouds churning above.
Mr. Ollie Williams,
It is our pleasure to inform you that...
That's about as far as I could get. And then I went back and read the beginning again.
It is our pleasure to inform you that a spot at our academy is set to be filled by you. The semester begins on August 5th.
"Well?" Mom asks, eyebrows creased in wait and worry.
"I— I got in." A part of me still doesn't believe it. "I got in, I got in, I got in!" And then I'm standing, jumping up and down and up again.
It almost feels like I'm in a daze, like this isn't real.
Like I'll wake up at any moment, and this beautiful dream will slip away as quickly as it came.
Mama's arms wrap around me, then mom's, and last but not least Juliet's.
Because I did it. I really did it.
The hug feels real, the heat that each of them contribute is too overwhelming to be fake.
All of my work, all my hard work, has paid off for something. Paid off to pass the tests and pay the tuition to land myself a spot.
"I'm really proud of you, Ollie." Mama says, squeezing my shoulder.
"Both of us are super proud of you, kid."
A warm smile settles on my face, excitement wraps around me like a warm blanket.
This is the only thing I've been working up to for my whole life.
That I've saved up for.
That I worked babysitting jobs for for years, even though taking care of kids is arguably the hardest thing to do. Or at least for me it was.
But I did it just for this moment to arrive.
And I don't think anything could snatch this feeling away from me right now.
••••
y'all i really like croissants 😭
