***
Emory was a walking campus, sprawled across 1,200 acres of lush green grass pocked with Magnolia and Dogwood trees in full bloom, the breeze tossing the flowers onto the sidewalk like snow. The sharp scent of spring filled my lungs and I sneezed, my mom picking petals out of my hair as we followed the guide down winding sidewalks and between Spanish style buildings.
We spent the morning touring the campus, me snapping pictures of every building and every sculpture. There was a series of bronze portraits near the student union building and some whimsical replicas of famous authors and storybook characters outside the library. I saw someone sharing a cigarette with the one of Edgar Allan Poe, a beanie pulled down over his head.
Everything was so bright and novel and alive. I wanted to feel that. I wanted to feel something other than fear. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Roman. About how I’d abandoned him, left him there with that…thing. That thing that felt ancient and angry and hungry. For me.
After lunch they let us sit in on a few of the art classes and I tried to absorb everything the professors were saying, to distract myself. One was an introductory Photography class, the teacher flipping through a slideshow of National Geographic’s photos of the year. The last class we sat in on was a Sculpture class.
The student’s long worktables were covered in scraps—pieces of plastic, torn strips of fabric, old road signs, rubber tires, and other miscellaneous things they’d picked up on campus. Their assignment was to construct the faux plant life for a bio dome project on waste and commercialism. Just the sort of rebel art I couldn’t wait to start making.
The professor let me play assistant to some of the students while he, the guide, and my mom talked about the curriculum. I held a bowl of marbles for a guy with a long beard and thick square glasses.
“My name’s Pete,” he said. “Where you from?”
“Austin.”
“Not too far. What is that, like five hours?”
“Four if you speed.”
“In a hurry?” he laughed. “You want to be an Art major?”
I nodded. “I make sculptures, mostly modernist stuff. I’m working on a sunflower installation for the scholarship contest. I missed the deadline in the fall.”
“I applied for that my freshman year,” he said. “Didn’t get it. They’re pretty tough. What do you use?”
“Mostly metal scraps from a local car garage. I have a friend who works there. I have a small weld and I just work in our garage.”
“Nice. I do a little welding.” He took some marbles from the bowl, gluing them like seeds along the bud of a flower made of a broken mirror. “Well, prepare to be broke,” he finally said. “I’ve been living off ramen noodles and microwave popcorn for the past five months. Oh and coffee. Lots of coffee.” He stood up straight, back cracking. He exhaled. “But it’s been the best fucking time of my life. You won’t regret it.”
“Is he trying to convert you to the dark side?” A blonde in an oversized button down stepped in front of Pete.
“She doesn’t need converting,” Pete said. “She’s applying for the Hendrix Scholarship. Hey Rachel, didn’t you win that your freshman year?”
The blonde nodded. “I made a self-portrait out of these really brutal stills from a documentary on puppy mills.”
“That’s…”
“A little over-dramatic?” she laughed. “I was seventeen.” She shot Pete a look, then turned back to me. “Hey, why don’t you grab some coffee with us after class? Are you free?”
“I think we were going to meet with the financial advisor.”
“Ditch. Your mom’s taking care of that anyway right?”
“Oh, yeah, I mean I guess.”
“Cool. We’ll just head to Sugar Brown’s. It’s not far. We make the walk every Thursday night.”
It took a good ten minutes to pry my mom’s hands from the sleeve of my sweater.
“How long?” she said.
“Not long.”
“And where is it?”
“Right down the street. Walking distance.”
“You have your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Charged?”
“Yes.”
“The volume’s up where you can hear it? You know I hate when you leave it on vibrate.”
“Yes.”
I saw Pete and Rachel waiting for me on the front steps of the Art building.
“Okay, but—”
“Mom, I’ll be fine. I promise.”
I followed them back through campus, the sidewalks more crowded than they’d been that morning. People were sprawled out on the grass doing homework, napping; clusters of students posed along the grounds like stills ripped from an enrollment magazine.
The coffee shop was a hole in the wall, literally. The entrance was down a side alley, the smell of hazelnut and coffee grounds mixing with the stale garbage sticking to the pavement still wet from the morning dew.
Rachel ordered me the house specialty—a dark roast that made my grandparent’s coffee taste like a chocolate shake. I tried to force it down without wincing, making my face as still and cold and sophisticated as the other art students sitting on mix-matched bar stools lining the painted windows.
“So how was your tour?” Pete asked.
“I loved it.”
“Yeah, we’ve got a great campus. That was definitely a draw,” Rachel said. “I love being outside.”
“When we have time,” Pete huffed.
“Right. I doubt I’ll lose this vampire tan by August.”
“And Johnson wants me to take on that apprenticeship this summer,” Pete said.
“What about your job at the gallery?”
“You mean my unpaid internship?” Pete shrugged. “I’ll have to ditch it, I guess.”
“It might not be so bad. Maybe you’ll be able to get some sleep this first summer session.” Rachel lifted her glass, looked at me. “Prepare to develop a rather severe addiction to caffeine if you don’t already have one.”
“Course load’s that intense?” I asked, trying to keep my voice cool.
“Hmm…” Rachel turned to Pete. “How many hours of sleep did you clock in this week Pete?”
“Let me count. Eight this weekend. Three on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday I was setting up a show at the gallery and finishing my project for Carter’s class, so zero. And yesterday four. Hey, I got more than last week.”
Fifteen hours? For me that was a normal, non-episodic weeknight. For Pete that was a victory over his grueling schedule.
“How many hours are you taking?” I asked.
I knew things would be different for me. Maybe I’d just be a part-time student, taking small bites out of the curriculum. Something I knew I could manage. I’d need notes from my professors, compliance with my unorthodox sleep patterns. I’d need flexibility.
“Twelve.”
“Isn’t that, like the bare minimum?” I asked.
“Bare,” Rachel scoffed. “Any more and we’d be dead. That’s twelve hours of lecture but we still have to make it into the studio on our own time. We still have projects and deadlines and every teacher thinks their class is the most fucking important thing on the planet.”
“Egos,” Pete muttered.
“Professor Carter had an installation commissioned for some prince’s thirteenth birthday party and he thinks he shits gold.”
“If he could, he’d probably try and sell it,” Pete said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he already has.” Rachel pulled her hair back, tying it in a knot on top of her head. Then she yawned, dark shadows spilling down over her cheeks. “Uh-oh. It’s catching up to me.”
Pete waved toward her cup. “Drink.”
She groaned, reached for it.
“Hurry, you’re scaring the kid.”
I shook my head, smiled, even though she kind of was. Even though they kind of both were. I knew my KLS would affect my college experience. Change it. Delude it somehow. B
ut until now I’d never settled for the idea that it might ruin it. Not completely. But sleep, how much you get and how often, is vital even in a normal person’s life. These two people were perfectly healthy and they were struggling. What was going to happen to me?
If I had to pull an all-nighter studying for a test or too many looming deadlines had me pulling out my hair, I wouldn’t end up with just some trendy coffee addiction. I’d end up in a mini-coma, face down in the middle of the studio or on the floor of the community showers.
Rachel smiled. “Glamorous right?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“But don’t let us freak you out,” she said. “It’s totally worth it.”
“Oh, yeah.” Pete exhaled. “I wouldn’t trade these stomach ulcers and insomnia for the world.”
“You’ll love it.”
Rachel smiled and I tried to smile back.