Page 69 of Collin: Episodes 1-3
“Then I’ll have experience, and I’ll still have the option to do whatever I was doing before. I won’t lose the ability to park a car or pour drinks.”
“But you will lose your scholarship. It’s only good for four years. I’m already helping Alice, dear. It might seem like I make a lot of money as a professor, but with the medical debt and the house, there’s—you need to keep your scholarship, baby.”
Collin swallowed. “I can finish school without a scholarship, Mom.”
“You’re just so close.”
“Mom, you want the best for me. You always have. And you’re so supportive. This time, though, the best for me isn’t the same as the ideal. I’m tired. I only care about half the classes I’m taking, because?—”
“Darling, being an adult means doing things we don’t like. You know this. Just because you don’t like a class isn’t any reason to quit it.”
“Yes, it is, Mom. Because as we both know, life is finite.”
Dead silence filled the phone connection.
“That’s a low blow, Collin.”
“No, Mom, it’s not. That’s my experience. I’m not talking about you. Me, personally, I’ve never had the luxury of feeling like I would live forever. There are days I don’t expect to live past thirty. And I don’t want to take the larger chunk of my life flickering out in a classroom where the professor can’t even speak clearly enough for me to understand him just to support some sort of idea of ‘good’ that doesn’t feel like anything but ‘bad’.”
Her voice came back soft. “It might feel bad in the moment, baby. But you’ll thank me when you have that piece of paper. Education means everything. A good job…”
“Mom, every single one of my eight former roommates sharing a two-bedroom apartment together has a four-year degree. Not one of them is making enough money to justify what they spent. College doesn’t mean now what it meant when you were my age.”
“Oh, baby.” She sighed, long and labored. “Maybe you should see a therapist. This sounds like depression. We can fix this. There’s support. And medication.”
Collin rubbed his forehead with his knuckles. “You know what I want, Mom? I want to send back enough money so that you and Alice are solid. I want to do something every day that matters. I want to be around smart people doing smart things. I want to live where it’s clean and tidy with a shower that has good water and eat food that isn’t going to put me in the grave early. I want to make enough money that I can be there on holidays and special occasions. Be there in person, Mom, NOT on a video call. I want to graduate healthy, not how I am now.”
“A concussion is serious, Collin. But it’s not a chronic illness. You told me the doctor thinks you’ll be fine soon. You’ll be good in a few weeks.”
Collin breathed out through his nose. His shoulders were tight enough his head was starting to throb. “I’m going to spend the rest of the semester working with Mr. Reevesworth full-time. Consider it an internship. I’ll be meeting people and getting practical on-the-job experience as well as references. Next semester, I’ll go back, probably with a half load of classes, and I’ll keep working. Financially and academically, I’ll be stronger by taking a longer road. I can probably take some of the GEs as a summer course elsewhere and transfer the credits. I’ll graduate one year late, but I’ll have fifteen months of job experience, paid. Most of my classmates from high school spent that long looking for a job that wasn’t just working in a café or an unpaid internship after they got out of college. From that perspective, I won’t lose any time.”
“It’s—It’s not how I thought things would go.”
“No, me neither. But the world also doesn’t work like it did when you were going through this stage of it. I have to adapt to what’s happening now. But the goal is still the same. I’m still getting my degree, and the point of a degree is to be a respectable, employed member of society, right?”
She made a noncommittal sound. “What’s really so hard, baby? Everyone works and does school.”
“No, Mom, they don’t. Ten hours of work study a week is not what I’m doing. I had two part-time jobs, a full load of classes, and have been living off campus to make it work because the dorms cost too much. Add in time for commutes and the cost of getting around, and no, Mom, I did it, and now that I don’t have to, I don’t know how I did it. It wasn’t living.”
“Promise me, if this job falls through, you’ll finish your degree.”
Collin’s spine tingled. He looked up, out the window, and across the city. “I can’t. I promise I’ll be a respectable member of society. I promise that I will do my best to earn my way, but I’m not going to promise how I’m going to do that. I can’t see the future.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Collin. I didn’t say you had to be a god. I just want your word.”
“And if I give you my word, I won’t take any other path, even if I need to, because I keep my promises. So no, Mom. That’s not a promise I’m going to make.”
There was a gasping sound on the other side of the phone. “You’re really doing this. You’re quitting, you’re giving up. After everything we’ve been through together. After everything I’ve tried to give you! I guess it wasn’t enough. I…I…I need space, Collin. All I’ve ever wanted was you to get through college and be set up for life and…”
“I’ll give you space, Mom.”
He hung up to the sound of her sobbing. There was something irritating his cheek. He reached up and brushed at it. His hand came away wet.
For a long time, he stared out the window. And then he went to the door and opened it.
Mr. Reevesworth was standing in the middle of the living room. He turned away from the window as Collin approached. “It’s done. I want to contact my school now.”
Mr. Reevesworth’s eyes traced the lines of Collin’s face. There was no way he did not see the redness of Collin’s eyes or the puffiness of his cheeks. But he only nodded. “I looked into the procedures. And Ellisandre looked into the gossip online of how your school handles these things. I think the best thing to do would be to have Damian prepare a legal letter and claim medical need to step away for the semester. It will show on your transcript, but Damian can make a strong case for not including the incompletes as part of your final graduating grade. Your doctor prepared two letters, one just for the head injury and one for a general health leave of absence. The school is not entitled to know your medical information though they will ask for it. That’s why Damian should draft the letter as a lawyer. If you already have legal representation, this should be one and done.”
