Chapter 6: The College Conundrum
My senior year of high school was great so far. I was finally taking some classes I had waited 3 years to get into, and was picking up college credits in AP classes. Kelli and I had grown a lot closer this year. She had broken up with Damion before school started, so I didn’t see him much anymore. And things with Sean were wonderful.
One lazy morning in October, I was eating breakfast with Momma when I was faced with the inevitable question: college.
“Have you narrowed down your list of schools?” she asked.
“Well, I already have scholarship offers from Sim State, Académie Le Tour, and Danview University. It might be nice to go to school with Sophia at Sim State, but you know I’ve wanted to go to Le Tour for… well, as long as I can remember!” I replied thoughtfully.
“Académie Le Tour is pretty far away Kat, are you sure you want to be that far from home?” Momma said. “You could always start at Sim State and transfer after your first year to help you adjust to living on your own.”
“Yeah, but Le Tour is only an hour and a half away from Nonna’s house, so you wouldn’t have to worry about me too much,” I said, hoping Momma wouldn’t object to me living out of state. I had done my research and Académie Le Tour was definitely the school of my dreams.
“Okay, Kat. I will set up tours of those three schools for next month and I’ll go with you. You still have time to decide,” she said.
So in November we toured my top three colleges and met with the Dean of the Nursing School at each one. Le Tour was still my top pick, and I could tell that Momma was starting to like it too. It was prestigious, had the best nursing program, and the campus was beautiful. It was also more expensive, but with scholarships we wouldn’t have to worry about that.
I spent December filling out applications, writing essays, getting references, and researching scholarships online. I wasn’t too worried about being rejected from Le Tour, but just to be on the safe side, I sent in applications to Sim State and Danview University as well. Both of them were in state, so it wouldn’t be too hard to fall back on them if necessary.
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One night Kelli was at my house for a sleepover. It was good to take my mind off of colleges for a couple of days. We camped out in my room watching an old Marilyn Monroe movie on TV. During my favorite scene of the movie, a news report flashed on screen.
“Good evening. We interrupt this program with breaking news,” blabbered the local anchorman. “A serial rapist is on the prowl in Danview Valley.” A fuzzy surveillance video was shown, followed by a black and white police sketch of the accused man. “If you have seen this man, or have any information on his whereabouts, we urge you to contact the authorities. He is a white male, in his 30s, and thought to be about 6 feet tall. Two local victims have…”
Kelli switched off the TV before the report ended.
“What’s wrong?” I asked from my spot on the floor. When Kelli turned away and remained silent, I became a little worried. I sat up and rested my head on my hand, thinking.
I didn’t know what to do or say, so I just sat there waiting for her to talk first. After a little while I heard a soft sob. Aware that something was seriously wrong, I jumped onto the bed beside Kelli and hugged her tightly. Things were starting to make more sense. I’d had my suspicions that whatever had happened after Prom last year had been a serious tragedy for Kelli, but she never wanted to talk about it. It was easy enough for me to put two and two together after seeing her reaction to that news report. I hated to assume the worst, but my friend was hurting and needed help.
“I’m listening if you ever need to talk about it, Kelli,” I said quietly.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, but Kelli finally began to speak with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, I just needed a few minutes to collect my thoughts,” she explained. She paused before starting again. “It’s about Prom. You know how I told you I wanted to sleep with Damion that night?”
I nodded in reply.
“Well, I told him the day before – you know, to tease him a little. Needless to say, he was overexcited. He said he was really nervous because he’d never had sex before, so he swiped some Vodka from his dad the night of Prom and was spiking his own punch that night. That’s why he was always by the punch stand instead of dancing. By the time we got to the hotel, he was completely wasted.” She paused to wipe at her tears and take a deep breath.
“It was my first time so I wanted it to be magical, and drunk Damion was not exactly what I had imagined. We got into a huge fight and I told him I didn’t want to do it that night because he was too drunk. Well, then he got really mad and started screaming at me, calling me a tease and much worse. He said he had waited so long for me and he wasn’t going to let me say no. He ripped my dress, threw me onto the bed, and had his way with me.”
What can you say after your best friend tells you she was raped? Don’t ask me because I don’t know. All I could do was sit there in silence and squeeze her hand for support. We were both crying.
Kelli continued, “That was nine months ago, and in his rush to satisfy himself, Damion didn’t use the condoms we’d brought for the ‘special’ night. When I saw that news report, I was just thinking how I could have been pregnant and having his baby by this time. Luckily, that’s not the case.”
“But, if he did that horrible thing to you, why didn’t you break up with him right after Prom?” I finally asked, dumbfounded.
“I… don’t… know… Kat.” Her words were hard to make out between sobs now. “He was too drunk to remember much of what he did… but he knew it had happened. So I used that as an excuse for his behavior… Damion apologized – a lot… and I loved him so I wanted to get past it. We tried to have sex again when… I got back from California. Damion was very gentle this time, but I couldn’t forget that horrible night and couldn’t go through with it... I needed more time to move past it, so I… broke up with him.”
“Have you told your parents?” I asked, handing her new tissues and crumpling up her old ones.
“No way! In fact, the reason I went to my Aunt’s house in California this summer was to avoid them. I hoped I could deal with my feelings before I had to face them or Damion again. They wouldn’t understand. You’re the only person I’ve told.”
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After that night Kelli made up her mind to go to college and I helped her research schools. Kelli had never pictured herself as college material, and had planned to be done with school as soon as humanly possible. But at this point in her life she thought that it might be the second chance she needed. And at least school work would take her mind off of all things Damion related for the next four years. It was pretty easy to talk her into applying to Académie Le Tour with me. She thought it was a great idea and we’d be able to stay together.
Kelli is an incredible artist and writer, so she put together a portfolio of her work. With her amazing talent, and family’s low income status, she won enough scholarships to pay her tuition at Le Tour for the next four years and planned on picking up a part time job to cover the cost of living.
One day, about two months before graduation, I came home from school to find a large envelope from Académie Le Tour sitting on my bed. I was accepted!
After doing a happy dance around my room for several minutes, I logged onto my computer to chat with Kelli and Sophia to tell them my good news. After a few minutes of messaging back and forth, I heard a knock on my door.
“Kat, Sean is here to see you,” Momma called from the hallway.
“Uh, okay. He can come in,” I replied, as I logged off.
“Kat! Guess what? I got my acceptance letter from Sim State yesterday!” Sean said excitedly.
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been so caught up in being accepted to my dream school that I had forgotten that it meant being separated from Sean.
“Oh, that’s great sweetie,” I said with mock enthusiasm. But I didn’t feel great about it. In fact, I felt terrible. I absentmindedly played with my hair as I shut my eyes and tried to force back the tears I felt coming on.
“Aww, Kat, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Sean said. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“Oh no, of course I am happy for you! I just… I just… realized how far away we’ll be from each other,” I frowned.
Sean sat down in front of me. “We’ve talked about this before. It’ll be okay. We’ll talk on the phone every day, and I’ll come visit you every month. Nothing will change.”
“My feelings for you will never change Katarina,” Sean continued. “We’ll make it work, you’ll see.” He smiled up at me.
“Really?” I asked, as he pulled me up into his arms.
“Yeah. We both got into our dream schools, what could be better than this?” Sean said, caressing my cheek.
All of my worries started to melt away as he took my hands in his and we sat in the floor making plans for a long distance relationship and dreaming about our futures.
Everything would work out, it had to. Right?
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Coming up next:
-Graduation
-The return of an old face
-Bittersweet goodbyes
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