One Night in January

Chapter One: A Face from Home

Author's Note: 1. If you know where I could get a book cover, please let me know. 2. I try to update once a week. 3. I LOVE FEEDBACK! So if you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. 

When I woke up that morning, I did not know that my life would be changed forever. Ireverisibly different than when I went to bed the night before; the entire course of my life and those around me just altered, not turning back. Life is funny like that, I guess. 

Few days can we look at and go, "That's it, that's the day my life changed." But I can point to one single day when the entire course of my life was altered. January 5, 2016 was the date that altered the course of my life. I had returned to campus early to take an intensive class on Southern Literature. Completing three majors, in Business, Literature, and Political Science, was tough, but I needed to do it. My entire life revolved around one goal: to get into Yale Law School. I had been working for it my whole life. My dad went to the University of Arkansas and then to Yale Law School before moving back here to Arkansas to work at Wal-Mart, and since I was little I knew that's what I wanted to do.

People had been comparing me to my dad my for as long as I could remember. "Oh, you're Jake Tyler's son, right?" That was my legacy, my life, living in his shadow. His jersey hung in my high school's stadium, he set records at my college, my teachers and coaches remembered him, he was on every executive board in my town, and I could never escape his shadow. So when I was twelve, I figured out a way. One night, I heard him on the phone with one of his law school buddies. Rankings had just been released and he was upset that Yale beat them. That's it, I thought. I'll go to Yale, and I'll beat him. That began my goal: I lived, breathed, dreamed, and structured my life around getting in. And today, it became finalized. At lunch. I received my LSAT score: a perfect 180. Perfect. One of the only in the world. I was going to Yale. My life was complete.

Even Mother Nature knew how important this day was for me. As I walked back to my room after class it began to snow. Snow. Something that rarely happens in Arkansas. As I stood and looked across campus, I took it all in. The lights flickering as evening colors swept across campus, the girls twirling in circles as they tried to catch the snowflakes on their tongues, the sounds of the guys laughing as they attempted to make snowballs and throw them at one another. I closed my eyes and shoved my hands in my pockets as I took a deep breath. This. This is how it feels for dreams to come true.

I had never felt this before. The fear of failure was usually hissing in my ear, reminding me of everything I had to do. I had to get straight As. I had to get into the frat. I had to make the captain of the club lacrosse team. For the first time in my adult life, I felt free. I no longer had to do anything. 

I was in such a daze that I didn't realize where I was wandering. I was brought back to reality as a felt a push against my shoulder and heard my name being called. "Blake, Blake Tyler? Is that really you?" I shook my head and ran my fingers across my eyes as a girl blurred into vision. She was a good 6 inches shorter than me, with straight blond hair, and blue eyes that pierced through the gray gloom of the January evening. She wasn't beautiful, just average, but she looked familiar.

"Yeah, I'm Blake." The girl frowned and looked down at the books on the ground. I quickly crouched down and frantically tried to pick them up. I must have bumped into her and caused them to fall to the ground. I look like an idiot. I need to recover.

"Medieval Literature," I said placing the books back in her hands. "That was one of my favorite classes. The Fairie Queen was one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read, especially how Una represents truth within the Church and they..." I stop rambling and my eyes met hers as she's raised an eyebrow. She nodded and bit her lip as she chose her words. I smileed and let out a long sigh.