You Infire Me

Chapter One: Back in Town

"Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. . . . She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped."
—Jane Austen, Persuasion

The warm, late summer breeze smells of grass and fresh rain. It travels into your car and makes its way through your hair. You've got one hand on the steering wheel, while the other hangs out the open driver's side window. The drive back to campus in the fall is always one you enjoy: after a summer of living at home, you're ready to be on your own again.

Well, "on your own" is a relative term. Your childhood best friend-turned-college roommate, Bianca, sits in the passenger's seat of your old Toyota Camry—and she has a way of constantly reminding you that you're never, ever alone.

"So, for our senior year, I'm thinking we should go all out. Brand new outfits. Back-to-school brunch. And boyfriends." In your peripheral vision, you can see that she's holding up three fingers. "The three B's!"

You roll your eyes. "You know, for a high school valedictorian studying neuroscience, you can sound an awful lot like an idiot sometimes."

She crosses her arms. "And for someone who loves breakfast food, you can be awfully cynical about brunch."

You let out a laugh as memories of your high school trips to Denny's flood your mind. (And, even though you just ate a bunch of crap from a roadside fast-food joint, you find yourself craving a Grand Slam.)

"We don't need to pretend like this year will be anything special, B." You sigh, checking your ETA. Just ten more minutes, you think. "Just because it's our last, doesn't mean that all of our hopes and dreams will come true. All it signifies is that we'll have to work extra hard to finish strong. And prepare for our futures."

Bianca lets out a robust groan. She can be so theatrical sometimes, you silently complain. "Speak for yourself, Y/N," she holds up a finger, "but new clothes, breakfast food, and a boyfriend don't constitute 'all of my hopes and dreams'. Instead, consider identifying them as 'healthy distractions for Bianca, who's about to get into med school or die trying.'"

"You'll get in," you assure her as you flip on your blinker and begin to pull through a right turn. "You're the smartest student at Hunsaker."

"Hmm, yes. I'm the smartest student at our tiny West Virginia college. That makes me a shoo in."

"You're supposed to say, 'Oh, no, Y/N, thank you, but of course I'm not the smartest student at Hunsaker. That's you."

She laughs. "I don't subscribe to society's rules of lying as etiquette, Y/N. I love you, but anyone majoring in English Literature is definitely not the smartest person in school."

"Some friend you are," you joke. You both laugh for a minute.

Soon, you stop. Bianca continues talking.

But you can't really hear her over the sound of your own thoughts.

She's right. You're not smart. At all. Your program is easy compared to hers, and you still don't get all A's. You've never been able to deliver on that 4.0 you promised your parents. You've barely kept your scholarship. You'll probably lose it after this semester, and you'll have to drop out. But what would it matter, anyway? You won't be able to get a job even if you manage to get through this year and graduate. Your degree is useless. You're useless.