I found out that the third floor of the library was the quietest place to study after nine o’clock and that the vending machines sometimes gave out free snacks if you hit them just right. I never told my parents about the struggle because I knew they would only use my hardship as proof that I had made a poor choice.
“We told you that this would be difficult for you,” I could almost hear my father saying in his calm and judgmental voice.
When Thanksgiving arrived, the campus emptied out almost overnight as students headed home to their families in cars filled with laundry and laughter. I stayed behind in the cold and quiet house because a bus ticket back to Minneapolis was a luxury that I simply could not justify.
I called home on Thanksgiving afternoon and heard the sound of bright laughter and clinking glasses in the background of the kitchen.
“Happy Thanksgiving, honey,” my mother said in a way that made me feel like an item she had forgotten to pick up from the grocery store.
“Can I speak to Dad for a moment?” I asked while looking at the cup of instant noodles that sat on my scarred wooden desk.
I heard her move the phone away and tell my father that I was on the line, but his muffled voice replied that he was too busy carving the turkey.
“He will have to call you back later because he is right in the middle of dinner,” my mother lied as she returned to the phone.
He did not call me back that night, and when I opened my social media, I saw a photo of the three of them sitting at a table lit by expensive candles. Brooke was wearing a new sweater and my father had his arm around her while they both smiled for the camera.
I counted only three plates on the table and stared at the image until my phone screen went dark and the silence of my room felt heavier than ever. My second semester was even more of a grind as the coursework became harder and my body began to give in to the constant lack of sleep.
One morning at the cafe, the room suddenly tilted and the sound of the espresso machine narrowed into a long and dark tunnel. I tried to grab the counter but missed, and the next thing I knew, my manager Brenda was kneeling on the floor in front of me with a look of deep concern.
“You just fainted in front of a dozen customers, Maya,” she said while handing me a glass of cold water.
“I am perfectly fine and I can get back to work right now,” I mumbled while trying to stand up despite the world spinning around me.
“You are not going back to work because you look like a ghost, and I am going to fire you if you don’t go home and sleep for ten hours,” Brenda threatened.
I went home and slept for fourteen hours straight, but I woke up feeling panicked about the wages I had lost during those hours of rest. That was the same semester I started taking an introductory economics class with a man named Professor Robert Maxwell.
He was a legendary figure on campus who was known for his brutal questions and his total lack of interest in students who did not put in the work. I admired him immediately because he was precise and brilliant, even though his red pen could slice through a weak argument in a matter of seconds.
I wrote a paper for his class about labor mobility and the hidden subsidies of family wealth, and I worked on it during every spare second I had between my shifts. I argued that merit was often a mask for privilege, and I used data to show how some students started the race with a massive head start.
When he returned the papers, I saw an A-plus at the top of my page, which was something I had never seen him give to anyone else before.
“Please stay after class for a moment, Miss Sullivan,” he said without looking up from his notes as the other students began to file out.
I approached his desk with my heart hammering against my ribs because I was afraid that he had found some sort of mistake in my calculations.
“This paper is exceptional work, but I want to know where you studied before you came to River Valley State,” he said while tapping the pages.
“I just went to a regular public high school in Minneapolis,” I replied while shifting my weight from one tired foot to the other.
He studied me for a long time with a patient silence that made me feel like I was under a microscope, but his gaze was not unkind.
“What kind of support do you have at home for your studies?” he asked in a voice that was surprisingly gentle.
“I do not have any support because my parents are not involved in my education at all,” I admitted before I could stop myself.
He nodded slowly and asked me how many hours I worked each week, and when I told him the truth, his jaw tightened with a visible flash of anger.
“Why are you doing this the hard way?” he asked while leaning back in his chair.
