Out of the Ashes

Chapter 2

By some miracle, I did not see or hear from him for weeks. I would have been overjoyed if I wasn't already loaded down with classwork. I was almost done with all of my GenEd and prerequisites, and now I could finally get started with the interesting stuff. The Psych department had tons of interesting classes and I was itching to get started on the electives. Lucky for me, I got the top score on the AP test, so I wouldn't have to sit through Intro to Psychology and listen to toddlers talk about Freud. But that was all assuming I made it through Chemistry, which was never my strong suit to begin with. Sure, brain chemistry is a major contributing factor in the field, but balancing equations and mapping out electron shells was never going to come up in my line of work.

Some people say that Psych kids choose the major to diagnose their own issues, and part of me believes that. I had refused counseling over that summer despite Charlie's pleading because I wasn't ready lay all that out on the table for anyone, but especially me. I still wanted to be a therapist as a career regardless, but I had to admit that part of me just wanted to be able to pick all of that apart and solve it myself. I was always better at solving other people's problems than my own. Other people were so straightforward, but my brain had slowly turned into a labyrinth inhabited by guilt and anger and anxiety and David Bowie. Nobody needed to see any of that.

The more time I spent on campus, the more truth I saw in the stereotypes about different majors. Psych majors were depressed; Political Science majors were sociopaths; Philosophy majors were insufferable; History majors were irredeemable nerds; Business majors didn't know what to do with their lives, and Engineering majors were masochists. Maybe I was a masochist, too.

It sure felt like it. I had spent the better part of my free day working on Chemistry. It was comforting to know that most of the class was struggling right along with me, but the professor was only going to curve the tests so low before I had to start blaming myself. I'd met with a few kids from my class and the Tuesday-Thursday class in the common room to go over the review together, but once they all left, I suddenly had no idea what I was looking at. Another hour went by, and I had worked through some of it, but my brain was about to start oozing out my ears. I needed coffee, but if I was going to get coffee, then I would have to journey halfway across campus. And if I was going to walk across campus, then I needed to put on something other than three-day-old sweats.

Leah had been trying to convince me to dress better, even on days I didn't have class. I would have lived in jeans and whatever shirt was at the top of my drawer forever if she wasn't going to nag me about it, but I was supposed to be making a change. Leah wasn't dressing me up for her own benefit; this was just guidance, guidance that sometimes included a little arm-twisting. I already vetoed heels as a hazard to myself and others, but they were too much for a 10am class anyways. Skirts were hard to wrap my head around. They increased my chances of flashing someone, which wasn't usually helpful. Dresses were a bit easier. I liked that I only had one article of clothing to think about, nothing to match or tuck in. In a way, I could keep being a total slob without necessarily looking like one.

Putting on clothes was somehow costing me more brain power today than I had left. I grabbed a light blue t-shirt dress that Leah insisted I buy and yanked it over my head. I quickly ran a brush through my hair, only to find that Leah had hidden my converse again. I sighed and kicked my feet into the barely-used ankle boots and took a quick look in the mirror. See, Swan? It almost looks like you put effort into this

It was one of the few remaining sunny days in Washington, and I was almost happy that I had been forced to leave my room, or maybe that was just the sudden influx of vitamin D. The mid-afternoon slump was a very real phenomenon, and I arrived at the bookstore to find that everyone else had the same idea as me. By the time I made it to the register, I was ready to climb over the counter and make it myself.