Windows on the World (OLD VERSION) [BEING REWRITTEN]

[¹²] ʸᵒᵐ ᴷⁱᵖᵖᵘʳ

When Phoebe first started college she was absolutely ready for it. This was the path, she thought, of achieving that adulthood and independence she longed for. That little by little, nothing would be holding her back. Then the weeks began to sink in and pile up, and she had settled in the atmosphere and routine enough for her to think with a cool head. Phoebe was subtly invaded by second thoughts. Would she really end where she wanted after four years of Mathematics? She tried to shrug it off, concluding it was normal to feel that way, and that everybody else was going through the exact same thing.

Sylvia wasn't, though. Her friend was having the time of her life drowning in numbers at NYU too. If there was ever one big upside to being there, it was having a good friend by her side. The pair studied every week at the library. Instead of their mutual company being a distraction it proved to increase their productivity. And after a summer of no contact-Sylvia always went away to Nantucket-they couldn't help but to make up for lost time getting together with the rest of the gang.

Jake and Ty were also classmates, but at a public college. Even though Jake's family was capable of sending him to a private one, it was not what he wanted. Jen had started beauty school and was loving it, it showed on each of the creative looks she came up with. Trevor had a knack for engineering, which he pursued at Columbia. As for Ben and Mike, Sylvia and Phoebe sometimes ran into them since they were at NYU too, but buried in work while Ben doubled in chemistry and biology and Mike tried out political science.

The only ones who really got Phoebe and her unsure feelings were Ty and Jake. They were a little lost too, but said that hopefully they would find out while in college-in between the wild parties they no doubt attended, that is.

Phoebe crumbled the paper she had torn from her notepad. She thought taking up drawing again would clear her mind, but it leaned more into frustration than anything. The drawings would not disperse the fear. The fear that, maybe she had spent so long worrying about whether she would be able to afford college or not that she hadn't had the time to stop and think if it was what she really wanted.

Suck it up, she told herself. It was still too early to form any conclusions. She would keep on doing her best and hopefully figure it out along the way. She would do it for her mother, and for Walter. Who had so generously taken those worries away and given her shelter over the past year. A year that was building up to the best one in her life yet. Largely thanks to the man she once used to loathe.

It was why Phoebe was trying to sketch him. Over the months she'd stolen and stored mental images of his face and his side profile to make secret sketches of him that would cease to be secret soon. Phoebe had decided to compile them as a small thanks. It didn't match up against his deed, and there was a chance he would dislike them. But it was the way she best communicated, given that Phoebe was not precisely known for her oratory skills. It was her language, and it was something she could do to give back to him. But maybe not the only thing.

As Phoebe became more in touch with her tolerance and with Walter's life, changes were visible in the horizon, and they unconsciously approached them while they planned as many outings together as their schedules allowed. Sometimes, the constant phone calls he received ruined the mood. But the fact that he still made an effort despite them spoke volumes.

They returned to his apartment one afternoon after a sporadic visit to the recently opened Museum of Jewish Heritage. Having acclimatized his habitat, Phoebe acted as if it was her place too. Even wearing what used to be his t-shirt.

Phoebe spoke up when she caught him staring blankly at it.

"I get the sense you don't really want to part ways with it," she told him with a hint of intrigue, an orange juice glass already in her hand while Walter observed from the kitchen isle at how she roamed freely.