Abby Ryan has her whole life planned out, up until graduation that is. As a journalism student at the University of Southern Washington, she has one goal in mind for her last semester of senior year: secure a scholarship for graduate school. But whe...
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"Abigail, are you there? Hello?"
I click the BlueTooth button on my phone and turn up the volume in my car to hear my mother's impatient voice ringing through the speakers. I barely had enough time to get my car turned on and the heat circulating before she called. I really need to stop telling her my work schedule.
"Yes, Mom," I say, clicking my seatbelt into place.
"How was work?" she asks. The shuffling of papers in the background and the clicking of her heels on the hardwood floor of her office echoes through the line.
"It was fine, kind of slow."
I look both ways before slowly pulling out onto the main road toward my apartment. I hate driving during the winter in Washington. The thought of hitting a patch of ice and crashing into a tree to my very painful death always seems to haunt me whenever the temperature drops, especially because I never had to worry about icy roads growing up in Florida.
"How are your classes going?"
"They're going good." I try to sound upbeat, but honestly, today has been terrible, and I just want to get home and hide away in my room for the rest of the weekend, drowning myself in ice cream and terrible reality TV shows.
An uncomfortable heat washes over my body as the memory of Tristan walking me out to my car replays in my mind.
He almost kissed me.
Almost.
"Good as in you're going to have a 4.0 semester? Or good as in you don't really care?"
I bite down on my tongue as her words pull me out of my reverie. "My classes are going well, Mom," I rephrase.
"I'll take that as a no to the 4.0 question."
"I don't know yet. I'm only a few weeks in, and I'm taking some really hard classes." I glance over at the screen on my dash illuminated with her contact name, and I'm tempted to press the end call button. This is hardly the conversation that I want to be having right now.
"You need to study more if you're struggling, Abigail. Jeff was in a much harder program than you, and he had no problem graduating with a 4.0. At some point, you have to stop blaming the classes and start taking responsibility for yourself and your lack of discipline."
My 3.9 GPA will haunt me for the rest of my life.
"I know, Mom. I'll study tonight."
I hear her typing on her phone, and I wait for her to return to the conversation. "I ran into Tyler's father today." If I weren't driving, I would have rolled my eyes so hard they might have fallen out of my head. "He asked about you. He mentioned that Tyler is still single."
"Hmm," I hum, trying not to take the bait. The end call button is looking even better now, but I focus on keeping a safe following distance between myself and the car in front of me, trying to ignore the rush of annoyance that always seems to accompany my phone calls with my mother.
