[2022 Wattys Winner] When love cynic Madison Watson starts university, she vows to follow three simple rules.
One: Work out at least twice a week.
Two: Get an internship.
Three: Stay away from men.
But after a chance encounter with th...
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I pulled my hair out of my high ponytail as I whizzed through the campus courtyard, dodging rose bushes and sweet-smelling garden beds and students lounging on the grass. I'd woken up painfully early to get to the gym before it was swarmed by meatheads and CrossFit bros, and my head was pounding from a mixture of exhaustion and misplaced adrenaline after a battle with the treadmill that I was nowhere close to being prepared for.
As much as I would have loved a lazy Saturday morning lie-in, I was already slipping on rule one of my college resolutions—work out at least twice a week—and I couldn't afford to fall into bad habits so early on. Especially since my ability to stick to rule three was very much up for debate.
My thumbs raced over the screen, the keyboard a blur as I complied with Ivy's requests for an update on our project after the Art Club's mixer. I'd suggested that we meet up in person to discuss it, but I was quickly getting the impression that Ivy was the kind of person who didn't show up for anything unless she absolutely had to. If her habitual lateness to Devi's lectures was any indication, then Intro to Argumentation wasn't one of her priorities. She was a final year student, after all, one who'd only taken the class in order to satisfy her course load requirements. She definitely thought herself above the lessons being taught to us first years—us Jaffys. She regarded herself above us full stop.
So I wasn't surprised when she revealed to me that she hadn't even started the assignment yet. She'd said that leaving things until the last minute worked best for her, then laughed when I'd replied that the idea of putting off a project worth fifty percent of our final grade gave me heartburn.
First years, she'd muttered.
At least she hadn't called me Jaffy. It wasn't much, but it was progress.
I entered my building and was about to tuck my phone into my purse when the screen lit with an incoming call. A familiar ringtone pricked my pulse, a vile concoction of curse words flashing through my mind as realization flared.
Just as I'd presumed, a photo of my mother lit up the screen, dressed head-to-toe in her signature shade of hot pink. The image twisted the knot of dread that had quickly formed in the pit of my stomach, the only way to get rid of it being to either accept or reject the incoming call. I'd already done the latter three times in the past twenty-four hours alone.
I said a quick prayer—and another curse word—before pressing the green button. "Hey, mo—"
"Did you see my Facebook post yesterday?"
Oh. So it was going to be one of those calls.
"No." I gritted my teeth, painting my lips in a phony smile as though she could see it through the phone. "I haven't been online. I was studying all day yesterday—"
"The sweetest little memory came up! Of you and Eli, that time he came with us to the snow..."
My eyes rolled into the back of my skull, and I pulled my phone from my face to spare myself the pain of hearing whatever story she'd called to remind me of that time. It wasn't that my mother meant to be an awful, insensitive control freak. She was just super overbearing, and she really, truly believed that she knew what was best for me. Sticking with Eli, she thought, was what was best for me.
