Chapter Two
When I returned to campus in September of my sophomore year, things had
changed. Over the summer Crystal and I
kept in touch. She called me one evening
to tell me that she wasn’t sure if she would be returning to school.
“What do you mean, Crystal?”
“Girl, I’m just not feelin’ Britechester anymore.”
“I know, but I thought we were going to get an apartment together. Where are you thinking of going?”
“Well, I haven’t decided for sure yet, but my girl Tanisha’s in
Twinbrook. She decided to go to an HBCU
there. That’s where I need to be.”
“Come on Crystal, you can’t leave a sistah out here by herself.”
“You could come with me. I just
can’t deal with Britechester anymore.
Ain’t no brothas out here. I need
to be with my people.”
“But, moms can’t afford to send me to an out of state school. I’m struggling with tuition here. Girl, please don’t leave me out here.”
“Like I said, I’m not sure yet.”
Although I begged her not to leave, when I got back to campus during the
Fall, I found out that she transferred to an HBCU in Twinbrook. Most of my other friends either dropped out
of college altogether or they became involved in things I wasn’t interested
in.
I now lived in a different dorm. I
moved into the small red brick dorms on the other side of campus. These were the dorms that everyone avoided
because they were almost a good twenty-minute walk away from most of the other
buildings on campus. I ended up with a
different roommate named Rebecca that I just couldn’t relate to. Rebecca grew up in Oasis Springs near Del Sol
Valley. Her parents had money. The word “struggle” was not in her
vocabulary. Anything she wanted was a
phone call away. If she ran out of
money, she’d call her father and it was there the next day. Rebecca drove a brand new convertible. Her father bought it for her as a reward for
passing all of her classes last semester.
Rebecca was a B and C student, and her father paid cash to get her a
brand new car. I earned almost straight
A’s last semester and had to practically beg momma to let me pay for my own
car. I guess you can say that I was
very bitter about living with Rebecca the “princess”.
Don’t get me wrong, I had momma’s support, but it wasn’t as easily
accessible to me. Newcrest wasn’t a
two-hour drive like Del Sol or Oasis Springs.
If I wanted to go home, I had to either fly or spend 5 hours
driving. Momma was working two jobs to
support herself and granny. She would
send me money when she could, but I had to either take out college loans or
work for most of what I got. I knew that
I could call daddy for money, but it wasn’t worth hurting momma’s
feelings. Mom and dad divorced when I
was young. Daddy spent a lot of time out
of work in those days, so momma did the best she could to support me. Now that daddy was back on his feet, I just
didn’t feel right asking him for money.
I didn’t want him to think that momma couldn’t provide for me. I’d rather continue working and struggling
than to have him think that.
Labels: Window Eyes Window Heart Window Mind - Part 1
