“The captain has turned on the fasten-seat-belt sign, indicating our initial descent into New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts for the remainder of the flight.”
I watch the city far below appear through a blanket of clouds. I already feel better. I can already breathe easier. See more clearly. Think without all that noise in my head.
As soon as I got back from Laney’s house last night, I made a decision. I figured out what to do with the money in the lockbox.
I used it to get as far away from the Windsor Academy as possible.
When I woke up this morning, I called a cab to the airport, I bought a plane ticket, and I left. I didn’t tell anyone I was going. I figured it wouldn’t take long for the school to call my mom and my mom to call me. I’ll explain everything to her then. If I can even explain it.
When we land, I grab the small bag that I packed and my winter coat and follow the stream of people eager to get back on solid ground. I found the name of my dad’s hotel in an email on my phone from a few weeks back. When he first started the job for Cuddles Diapers.
He won’t be done with work until much later in the day, so I direct the cabdriver to Columbia University.
He drops me off at the entrance on Broadway, between the Miller Theatre and the journalism building. I immediately feel the chill as a gust of wind blows across my face. I zip my coat up to the top, burying my face behind the nylon fabric.
I stick my hands in my pockets and walk down 116th Street toward the iconic Low Memorial Library where the famous Alma Mater bronze statue of Athena sits, welcoming you to the school with her open arms.
As with Windsor, I visited Columbia University once and immediately knew I wanted to go here. The campus, the buildings, the leaves, they called to me. They sang enchanting melodies to my soul. Later, in high school, when I found out they had one of the best journalism programs in the country, my resolve solidified.
It was Columbia or bust.
I didn’t even want to apply to any safety schools, but my dad made me. He said you should always have a backup plan. I said I didn’t need one. I was going to Columbia. I was so certain.
I was so certain about so many things.
As I stand in front of the grand columned building and stare up at the statue of Athena, I try to imagine what it would feel like to stand here as a student. A freshman on her first day of class. With my entire future laid out ahead of me. Nothing but promise and possibilities.
I wonder if Other Me felt that way on her first day at the Windsor Academy. The first time she drove through those black iron gates and ascended the grand staircase of Royce Hall. She must have. There must have been a time when she was happy. When she thought she had everything she always wanted.
I wonder how long that lasted. How many days, weeks, months did it take for her to realize her happiness had soured? How long was it before she realized that she was the frog in the pot and the water had boiled around her?
As I walk alongside the snow-covered lawns of the beautiful city campus, I think about that personal essay I found on my laptop. The first version. The one Other Me wrote and deleted. Those pages were so saturated with sorrow. And bitterness. And regret. The Windsor Academy had turned her into someone she didn’t recognize anymore. A shadow of the girl she thought she was.
And I know exactly why she never turned it in.
It’s the same reason I never broke up with Austin.
Three and a half years passed, and somewhere deep down, I knew we weren’t right for each other. I knew we would never last. But I wanted to believe I had made the right decision in choosing him. I wanted to believe that I had followed my heart and that my heart would never mislead me.
And so did she.
If she had turned in that essay—if she had admitted she was unhappy and her world was flawed and her family was falling apart—she would have invalidated her entire life. Her entire existence. It would have confirmed what she didn’t want to admit: that she had made the wrong choice.
But in the end, both choices came with their own varieties of heartbreak and regret. Neither life was perfect. Neither path was free of obstacles.
Which means maybe the problem was never the choice.
Maybe it was me.
I stop and sit on a park bench, bristling against the cold. I remove my phone from my bag and scroll through my SnipPic feed, staring at the countless pictures of my so-called perfect life. Me and Sequoia studying in the student union, me and Sequoia dressed to the nines at the fund-raising gala. Me and Sequoia with the wind blowing through our hair, smiling in front of the steps of Royce Hall.
Up until a few weeks ago, I was so certain about so many things. My future. My past. And all the mistakes I had made in between. I was so certain I knew what I wanted and exactly how to get it. But now I’m not certain of anything anymore. And I wonder if I ever will be again.
I always thought certainty was one of my biggest strengths. A character trait I could lay claim to and proudly write on a college application in between “meticulous” and “strong leader.”
But maybe certainty is more of a weakness. A flaw. A limitation. After all, when you’re so absolutely certain about what you want—about the life you are meant to lead—you miss out on everything else that’s out there. Every other possible happiness.
Every other potential road that could have led you exactly where you’re supposed to go.
Instead, you end up here.
Cold and confused. Sitting alone in the middle of a city you don’t know. Haunted by a version of yourself you don’t recognize. Surrounded by a place you thought you could call home.