There Will Be Blood (not mine)

3. Purity

MADDIE POV

Finally, college is here!

I can leave the mundane world of high school behind. No more mean girls and busywork; onto the exciting world of college professors and twenty page papers that would dominate my weekends. The funny thing about all of this was that I was excited about the long nights in the library and exams that would make the Loch Ness monster cower.

I have always loved school and learning. I guess you could call me a geek since I don't do much else besides studying and maybe watching a movie or two when I get bored. My two main friends that I have in my hometown of Thorp, Washington always make fun of me for being so brainy but I have the last laugh, getting into Northwestern and all.

I haven't had many experiences in my short existence but I guess that was to be expected from a girl who's lived in a town with less than five thousand people almost her whole life.

My parents separated when I when I was a baby and I had lived in Phoenix with my mother for a large chunk of time. Rebecca got remarried when I began middle school and I wanted to let her and her new husband Greg have some alone time. I decided to move in with my dad Freddie.

Freddie and I used to not have such a great relationship but now, I couldn't see growing up without him. He was a man of few words but always treated me like an adult and never belittled me like my mother did. It wasn't that I didn't love Rebecca because I did but even I had to admit that she could be a little annoying. She would never let me breathe without hovering but I guess all mothers did that.

I was going to miss everything about my little town in northern Washington and to be honest, I was a slightly nervous. Hell, I had never even been off of the west coast before, living in Phoenix and Forks my whole life.

I had never thought that Northwestern was an option for me since I'm not that smart and Freddie barely had enough money to support us. I applied on a whim and got encouragement from my best friend Angie Webber who said I was too good to stay in Washington. I applied on the condition that she would stop hounding me every five seconds. When I got my acceptance letter, I nearly jumped off of the roof from excitement but I had to bring myself back to reality when I realized that I didn't have enough money to go to Chicago.

Community college, here I come!

I didn't have a problem staying local but my father wouldn't hear of it. I was in that damned section of the educational population where I was smart enough to get into a good college but not smart enough to get any scholarship money. I got a few thousand dollars here and there but not nearly enough to attend Northwestern.

At the beginning of the summer, suddenly Freddie just said that he would take care of it. I didn't know how he did it until I saw the mail one day and there was a mortgage slip for the house. He fucking mortgaged his house so that I could go to a good school. I tried to make him reverse whatever stupid deed he had done but he wouldn't even entertain my thinking. He already had three Northwestern bumper stickers and a couple of shirts that he was handing out to some of the squad members at the police station.

I relented because there was no way that I was going to win an argument with Freddie. He was just as, if not more stubborn than I was, causing our spats to be fairly heated. I could tell that he was struggling to keep the power on with his new financial woes but he wouldn't hear my protests. When I suggested that Rebecca put up half, he almost shot me with his gun. He said he could do it by himself and wouldn't have her doing something that he was more than capable of handling.

Thankfully, I had worked hard over the summer at a local movie theater so that I could pay for the small things like books and other necessities that I would purchase when I got to Chicago.