Page 83 of Puck to the Heart
But he was alwaysthere, a shadow lurking in the back of my mind, and all I did was continually ask myselfwhy.
Why was I unable to give him what we both wanted? Why was I so afraid of giving in to lo?—
No.
Why couldn’t I admit the truth?
In my yearsas a grad student, I always stayedfocused. Maybe too focused, especially after Alex left me lost and uncertain of who I was. All the times I tried to adapt, snipping off pieces of myself to fit his expectations, I lost grip on my own. When we ended, school and my future career were all I had left. Laser focus, sticking to my plan of finding a job, building my dream so someone else could achieve theirs. Making space for people like me and for kids who didn’t have encouragement and resources I had.
But losing my job, losing the first step of my plan…I lost my anchor. Adrift wasn’t where I wanted to be. Adrift meant lost and lost was bad.
At least I didn’tliterallylose myself entirely my aimless wandering, though I realized after a while I’d stumbled onto NCSU’s campus. One of my favorite places, despite the memories it held. Since I was already there, I wanted to drop in on Kit. Walk the halls of the chem building I’d slept in almost as many times as my apartment.
Campus was familiar, as was the building, but the image in my mind didn’t quite fit into the frame of the real thing. Maybe they’d repainted or changed the floors. Still, the bones remained the same, and the familiarity was a comfort as I took the stairs to Kit’s office.
Dark wood paneling covered the only wall without shelves, and hundreds of books lined the other three walls, all of them covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves. Some were leather-bound antiques, some were Kit’s own publications, but many were popular titles. And the dissertations of her students had their own section. I wondered which shelf held mine. Kit told me when she was a kid, she visited an old mansion with her family, and stumbling on the old-school library gave her aspirations for her own. If she ever had her own personal library, Kit said, she’d know she’d ‘made it’.
With a knock on the doorframe, I announced my presence.
“Liv!”
“I know we planned to meet for coffee later, but I was in the area, and I wanted to say hi.”
“Come in! Sit down.”
Still almost the same but changed with the time past passing since we’d seen each other.
“You changed your hair!” I stood again as Kit came around her desk and pulled me into a hug. Gone were her formerly waist-length Locs, her silvery hair now cropped short. Everything was different but the same somehow, myself included.
“Time for a change,” Kit’s gruff voice carried through the sounds of the students passing by as she held onto me a moment longer. The scent of her perfume sent me careening down a nostalgic trip of late-night lab sessions, conferences, and a million other tiny, insignificant moments.
“It’s so fucking good to see you.” I inhaled the scent of vanilla and tobacco again to recommit it to memory.
Once we sat on opposite sides of Kit’s desk with oversized mugs of tea in hand, we caught up on all the time we missed. Lorraine, Kit’s wife, retired from teaching but took a pottery class on a whim and had a few pieces in a local gallery, with clamors for more. Pride colored Kit’s words as she spoke, and the sound pricked my heart.
I tried not to think of how proud I was of the work Ash was doing to learn to lead. Especially not now.
But the sentiment must’ve shown all over my face, stopping Kit mid-sentence.
“What is happening here?” She drew a circle in the air around my burning cheeks.
“So, there was this guy…” And all of it tumbled out, everything I couldn’t tell my father. All the feelings and the intense physicality between Ash and me and how I wondered if it was worth it to stay in a city where I had no job. The way it all shattered and the pieces fell around me because I didn’tknow. “And I still don’t know what to do. I’ve never felt like this, but now it’s all fallen apart.”
“Wow.”
“Except now, I’m here. If I leave, I’m letting Dad down.” I let out a pained breath, squeezing my eyes against the tears pricking my lids. “But it’s over with Ash now, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
Releasing all the pent-up words was unexpectedly cathartic, and exhaustion dragged me down. Dropping my head on the desk, I waited for Kit’s verdict.
“And on top of everything, your dad’s still needs a place to live?”
“Yeah, that sums it up.”
“Do you want me to swoop in and save the day?”
“Yes, please.”
“First, the ground floor apartment Lor and I rent out will be available in a couple of days. The student renting it is moving out. We’ve been thinking we’d like to rent to someone, ah, more mature than a twenty-year-old.”
