Page 59 of Mostly My Boss
“I don’t have a condition,” I argued and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry. I just don’t see how putting off my education for a year is going to help anything.”
“We think it’s better if you stay here with us,” my mother said. “Until you’re ready.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket again.
I nodded. Their minds were already made up. Any argument at this point was futile. My father was convinced I was at risk mentally and my overprotective mother got to keep me right where she wanted me. At home with her.
A win for both of them. “I understand. You’re both right, of course.”
My mother let out a sigh of relief and smiled. “You’ll see, darling. You’ll be better off here in New York. Harvard is always going to be there. And if not Harvard, there are a number of schools in the city that would work just as well.”
I was never going back to Harvard as a student.
“Can I be excused?”
My father nodded so I left and headed down the hallway toward my bedroom. Once inside, I locked the door behind me and clenched my fists hard enough to turn my knuckles white. Hard enough to leave nail-sized crevices in my palms.
This anger wasn’t abnormal. It was natural. I was being held prisoner by parents who felt they were doing the best thing for me, but they were wrong. It was one fucking night. I drank too much and got sick. I’m pretty certain I wasn’t the first fucking college student to ever do that.
But it didn’t matter. There was no reasoning with him and if Mom had it her way, I would never leave the apartment.
I pulled out my phone.
Jules:Heading back to school. On the road for most of the week. See u on campus. What dorm did u get?
It had taken over two months for me toearnmy phone privileges back. It had almost been the thing that had broken me, but they hadn’t accounted for the fact that Jules and I were persistent.
I’d sent a letter to her—the return address was a post office box in New York.
I didn’t know if she would write back. I didn’t know if people our age knew how to write—letters really seemed so ridiculously old-school. But when I went to the post office three days later, there was a letter postmarked Massachusetts. Then, as the weeks went by, the postmark changed to Iowa.
I liked having her home address. It made me feel connected to a place out there in the country my parents had no idea about. They didn’t know her last name, let alone her actual first name. She was safe from their reach.
We’d continued to write even after I’d been given my phone back, which worked out well since I knew my father was monitoring any phone activity on the account.
I’d only reached out via text to let her know I would be back before the semester, which I’d assumed was the plan all along.
But today, when I asked about having one of them drive me up to campus, they explained that wasn’t going to happen.
Which meant they’d left me with no choice.
Always, always the idea of leaving home had been a last resort. Work within the system. Get them to see reason. Make it to college and gain my independence.
There was no way to get back into Harvard. The administration staff I had in my back pocket could reroute a few calls, come up with a few lies. But something like my enrolling in classes again would be too much to cover.
Besides that, I wasn’t ready to blow the rest of what I made mining Bitcoin on tuition. Which I would have to do without my parent’s support. That was supposed to be investment money. Now I needed it for another purpose.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There was no going back after this. I could stay and try to sit it out another year, convince them I was as docile as they seemed to need me to be or…leave.
Jules wasn’t going to like it.
But we didn’t have a choice anymore.
Me:I’ll see u there.
* * *
Harvard
