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it, and every puff of air across the old wooden boards sent the whole thing creaking. Behind me was my past, and ahead of me my future. And someone was slowly but surely working a sharp blade through the ropes.
     
    Chapter 5
     
    My applications and subsequent acceptance were both late. It was mid-July when everything happened. The semester at Redeemer began in just over two weeks.
    In all that time I had to explain to the landlord why we weren't giving him two months' notice about leaving the apartment. I had to throw a ton of ads up on Kijiji, Craigslist, and eBay to get rid of as much stuff as possible.
    Then I had to find some way to either get rid of or give away whatever remained.
    Not having to pay August's rent really helped with things, of course. It even let me get rid of enough shifts down at the diner so that I was no longer locked in that cycle of sleep, take care of mom, work, sleep.
    For the first time since mom had sat me down in the kitchen last year right before I graduated to tell me she had an inoperable tumor pressing against her spine, I felt free.
    But freedom doesn't mean the same thing as good or happy.
    No, I had to spend some time down at the Galleria, picking up notebooks, pencils, pens, a messenger bag, and a few bits of clothes I had to constantly fight with myself over whether or not to return them.
    I used the free internet access down at the library to wrap all my online dealings up, as well as to do a little research on Massachusetts.
    It was going to get cold there, I knew. I'd never really left SoCal my whole life, and I had countless tubes of sun block to prove it.
    But buying winter gear would have to wait until I got there. No one sold anything like that around here. Why would you? It snowed maybe once a year. Ninety percent sunshine, baby!
    Snow looked like it could be fun, piled all high like in the movies. But I had this awful feeling I was going to hate it like a cat hates taking a bath.
    All this gear I packed into two old suitcases and a backpack I'd gotten in a trade off Craigslist for some DVDs.
    I'd followed the checklist the school had sent, but it still felt like I was forgetting everything. For a few days there, mom became my mother again, consoling me when I flew into a panic over whether I'd remember how to take notes in class, or if I should use a three-ring binder or a clipboard.
    It really made her happy to see me like that, and I felt almost as though I was putting on a show for her. I couldn't really be this girlish over choosing a few new pairs of jeans and flats, could I?
    One night I woke up in a sweat, realizing that there would be boys at this school.
    I hadn't hung out with guys my own age since high school ended. I stayed up for an hour, the weak digits on the clock ticking away the minutes of the early morning as I fussed with my hair and tried to remember how to do my makeup in a more everyday manner, rather than the exaggerated stuff expected at the diner to try and get more tips.
    By the time the week ended, I felt even less prepared than when I'd started getting ready.
    It was Friday morning. For once, the sky outside was overcast. Outside, the street looked damp. Looking straight down from my bedroom, some big rectangles of cardboard someone had tossed the night before sagged under their own weight as they absorbed the moisture from the air.
    My bed was gone, as was my dresser. I slept on an old comforter spread across the parquet floor, with a sweater balled up for a pillow. There were still a few bags of old clothes I had to drop off at the Salvation Army a couple blocks over.
    But I wasn't really looking at the cardboard. I was looking for the big white van coming to take my mother away.
    They were supposed to be here for 9:30. It was a couple minutes shy of 10:00. It was like they were sadists, dragging the entire experience out to prolong my apprehension.
    I didn't have any breakfast that morning. My stomach had tied itself into a nice, tight knot as