Waiting for the Sun

15. The Future

I was sitting on my bed listening to the soothing tunes of Joe’s band. He’d given me their first and only EP so far last fall, the day after it was finished. It was before he showed it to his family and he even made me swear not to let Kit listen before he said so. Since he never said anything about letting people from my family hear it, I obviously let Adam listen to it.

     “So this is your boyfriend’s band?”

     Adam had given me that teasing smile that always made me want to punch him in the gut. The tumour was gone and he’d been home that fall and winter. He even reapplied to Harvard even though he was still in physiotherapy, slowly getting his ability to walk back.

     “Shut up, he’s my friend and I like it.”

     “Maybe if you’re tone deaf.” Since I couldn’t punch him I threw my book in his face but he was prepared and caught it with one hand. “Have to do better than that sis.”

     I felt the tears on my cheeks and smiled. Strange that this memory I’d forgotten all about would suddenly pop-into my head. I hoped it wasn’t the last time my mind would help me remember the small things, all the good things. I stared at the envelopes in front of me and suddenly they didn’t feel so scary or life altering anymore. I could for the first time picture myself at the Harvard library, the Princeton courtyard or in the Oxford dorm rooms. My hand rested over the pile for a few seconds before I picked the bottom letter marked Yale and exhaled.