HOME AWAY FROM HERE ;;
No roots, no ties, I’m fine.
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“Raelee, are you sure this is what you want? We haven’t paid the tuition yet. It’d be okay if you wanted to go to Oakton Community College. I just want you to be happy and - ” I cut my mom off.
“I’m going to be fine here, mom,” I snapped. “I need to do this, and I need to do this now.”
“You know I’m just trying to do what’s in your best interest …” my mom said quietly.
“Mom, I love you a lot, but right now it’s in your best interest to leave,” I said firmly. She looked somewhat stunned; I didn’t normally speak to her like that. My dad, in the corner of my dorm opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You guys helped me move all my stuff in and I think I’m set. Carly, Taylor, and Amanda should be here in no time,” I added with a weak smile. I didn’t want to be here -- or anywhere, really -- but what I wanted more than either of those things was for my parents to leave. I was at college, finally, and I needed this trial separation.
“Okay, alright,” My mom breathed. “We love you.” She and my dad came over to hug me before exiting. It didn’t feel right leaving them, but then again, nothing about this felt quite right.
I was finally in college -- I was a lowly freshman again. I was nervous enough being new, and more than that, I was nervous about having to take care of myself. I pushed these thoughts from my mind as best as I could and made an attempt to feel at peace with this new life. I figured my roommates would arrive soon, and I’d relax -- or at least I hoped I would. I wasted a bit time scrolling through Tumblr because I was unsure of what else I could do. After all, I was at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. Never heard of it? Neither has any other self - respecting high schooler. It really was a shit school; their average ACT score was a 26 and their average GPA was a 2.0 … which is a C average. I mean, it’s not horrible, I suppose, it’s average, but this definitely was not the place I pictured myself when I first entered high school.
Unfortunately, I was always “that kid” in high school, whose grades came above all else. I would ditch people to study for biology tests; I’d spend all my study halls getting extra help with algebra; I wasted many lunch periods in my English teachers’ offices editing paper. At least, that’s how my first two years went. Senior year actually went swimmingly, but quite a bit had happened through the duration of my junior year … I tried not to think about it. Besides, reflecting on it now really wouldn’t do me any good. I was in college now. It was high time I grew up and acted like it.
Either way, about Monmouth. It’s just … it’s a gross city. It’s jam - packed with crack houses. You can find at least one on every block. What else are you supposed to do in college town besides smoke crack, right? We don’t even have the luxury of McDonald’s. And I’m pretty sure they have McD’s in Africa. A third - world country has more access to fast food than we did. We had a Taco Bell somewhere, but I’d actually rather stab myself in the stomach and slowly bleed out than eat anything they sell. A couple miles away, there’s a fruit market, and a little past that, a Dairy Queen. It wasn’t actually close enough to walk to, but I knew my one roommate, Carly, had a car. I had talked to her a few weeks in advance just to get a feel for her. Our dorms were set up in quads, so I had to roommates on the other side of the room, which was separated by a study. I was excited because my quadmate, Taylor, was an aspiring biochem major, just like me. She, Carly, and I, plus a variety of other students, were participating in the SOFIA program, which was why I came in early August. I was unsure of what the acronym actually stood for, but pretty much we were going to do biology research, and I got $500 at the end of the summer. I really didn’t have any plans for the summer anyway -- I’d long since lost all the people I cared about.
