Page 1 of Escape Velocity
1
MASON
September isthe most confusing month of the year.
The sun beats down on him. Sweat trickles from his neck down the rest of his back as he stalks across Montgomery University’s quad.
September marks the beginning of fall. It’s when the weather is supposed to get cooler.
It’s supposed to be about cozy sweaters and warm drinks.
It’s supposed to be cooler than the blistering summer sun.
It feels like summer instead of fall as Mason huffs and hoists his backpack higher on his shoulders, trying to give his sweaty neck a reprieve from the scorching sun.
His first week of college classes is done. Instead of taking the time to relax and make friends, he’s already speeding off to get work done.
He’s glad none of his teachers took baby steps with the coursework. He hates when teachers only go over the syllabus and don’t teach anything. He wants to dive straight into the material.
In his case, he wants to dive straight into his modern physics homework so he can find some control.
He still can’t believe he’s walking across the cobblestone quad of Montgomery University. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.
Ivy adorns each brick wall, and the architecture of each building makes him feel like he’s in some kind of nineteenth-century boarding school.
But—in a good way.
He’s in love with the campus already, like it was calling his name for years and he had finally returned home, the walls welcoming him like an old friend. Like he always belonged there.
It was the only place he had dreamed of going since he was a kid.
Burgundy, maroon, gold, and mustard yellow hued banners, posters, and Montgomery paraphernalia decorate a corkboard in his bedroom back home. A reminder of where he was going to end up. His dream school. Well—his parents’ dream school.
It’s the Fanning’s alma mater. He comes from a long line of Fannings that attended Montgomery for decades before him, but he truly wanted to go to Montgomery, not because of the legacy his family had here.
It just felt like somewhere that was made for him, and as he walks from the quad to the football team’s practice field, life feels like everything is going well for the first time in a while, even if the heat is making him want to throw his iced maple latte at the sun.
Despite his aversion to football as a sport, their practice fields are his favorite study spots. It reminds him of being back in high school. Back in Northwood, his hometown, sitting on the metal benches on the top bench in highschool, overlooking the field and having a canopy of trees to shield him from the sun was the perfect spot to distract himself.
To study. To read. To think.
Back at Northwood High, football had been the bane of his existence. It was the most glorified thing there, much like at every high school, where it seemed to be the crowning jewel of the place, where all the school’s budget went to support the team.
He knows football is big at Montgomery too. Twenty-foot posters of the players hang on many of the walls of the quad.
One of them he intentionally averts his eyes from.
Either way, disliking football won’t stop him from using the bleachers to study and relax. He has to bide his time before his best friend, Jenna, gets out of her classes for the day.
His sneakers make metallic squeaks on the bleachers as he hoists himself up the much taller and more numerous stairs. The bleachers are much bigger compared to the ones at football games back home.
This is truly professional football, where even the practice field has bigger bleachers than high school games.
It’s stupid of him to think that Montgomery wouldn’t be like that; it’s known for its ability to send players to the big leagues. But he never keeps track or understands much of the hype.
He slowly makes his way to the top, passing by an older student reading a likely older issue ofThe Goldberg, Montgomery’s school paper. He plops his bag down on the bench and sets his iced latte on the top bench. He straddles the bench and rifles through his bag, taking out his notebook and modern physicstextbook.
He opens them to the first section problem sets.
