Chapter 5

Olivia

After four years at The University of Detroit Mercy, living at Holden Hall with a group of girls I grew to either love or avoid, I am finally free. I look down at the last bag I have to lug out into the hall, down three floors, and across the yard to my car.

I don’t have family waiting; I am doing this on my own. My parents live on separate coasts with separate families. In fact, the only thing they have in common is me—the product of a business trip fling.

My father and I were close until I was eleven. Well, as close as we could be only visiting summers and every other holiday. I only met Victoria once before they married, which is when everything changed. Along with Victoria, came her three boys. It was awful, and I couldn’t wait to get home to my mom and half-brothers. I was forced to go every summer for an entire month. However, my junior year in high school, I stopped going all together.

I couldn’t handle it anymore, and I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to feel judged by his wife. I didn’t have to feel the looks from my stepsiblings. The looks that made me feel like I was odd or an intrusion on their lives from Colton and James. More so, I didn’t have to deal with Bryce, who was once my playmate and eventually became something else entirely. I didn’t have to deal with any of them.

My dad, on the other hand, was supportive, kind, and we had our own unique bond. He was just too wrapped up in Victoria and keeping her happy to see everything going on around him. When I stopped visiting, my dad refused to pay for any of my schooling. I should say Victoria refused to pay for anything involving me.

My mother is a strong woman, but she is also proud, so when he told her he wouldn’t help, she told him to go to hell. Their once friendly, coparenting relationship was quickly a tolerance of one another’s existence.

I throw my last bag in my car—the one I am sure won’t last longer than another month—then open it to retrieve my keys to give to the RA. Inside, I see the rolled up paper—the symbolism of my degree, my bachelors in social work. I should feel a sense of accomplishment. The single paper holds my future in the ink that is practically still drying on the paper.

Accomplishment is not what I feel, though. No. Instead, I feel the pressure of the student loans looming over me. The loans that are unending as I currently only hold an assisting position at a hospital until I complete my masters, something that isn’t happening anytime soon.

*.*.*.*

I walk into my little studio apartment that I was so excited about moving into just nine months ago. After four years of sharing half a shoe box to having a place that is practically four shoeboxes, it feels like I am getting somewhere in life. However, the size doesn’t matter. One shoebox or four, it is cold.

Of course it’s cold, I tell myself, it’s February in Detroit.

I nearly run to the bathroom and then turn on the shower. Knowing the neighbors all seem to come home around six, if I don’t do this now, I will be taking a cold shower. Well, no shower, actually, because the point of this shower is to get warm after my walk home from the hospital. I need to defrost my bones right now and that requires some serious hot water.

My car stopped running on New Year’s Eve, just like I knew it would. If it is under twenty degrees and I have any extra money, I take a cab, the bus, any form of public transportation; otherwise, I am reduced to using my own two feet. Unfortunately, it isn’t often that I have extra money.

New Year’s Eve, an unforgettable night. I have made a couple friends at work. One is a nurse on the pediatric oncology floor, Tabby, and the other is my co-worker and office buddy, Toni. We went to dinner at one of the hotels throwing a New Year’s Eve bash where we danced, drank, danced again, I stopped drinking, we danced some more, and they got snookered.

It was already planned that I would drive. I like knowing I can leave when I want to. I never want to get stuck in a place I can’t escape from if need be. It has happened. I am older now, though. I know better.

We finally left shortly after midnight, but I lied and told them it was after one. They were so messed up it didn’t matter—they would never know. We got to my car, got in, I turned the key over, and … nothing. I tried again, gave it a little gas, still nothing.

They laughed, and I cried. When they tried to assure me it was no big deal, I agreed, knowing full well it was since I couldn’t afford to fix it.

The next morning—the start to my new year—I walked to where my car was parked a mile away while freezing my buns off. The entire way, I said a little prayer. Please Lord, let my problems disappear just for one day. I truly wanted to get it back to my place, park it in the lot across from my apartment building—the lot I paid way too much money for the privilege to park in—and let it sit until I could figure out where to scrimp and save.

When I arrived at my destination, I stood there, looking at an empty spot, and glancing up at the sky, I laughed.

“Thank you, Lord, but this isn’t what I meant when I used the word disappear.”

Eventually, I found my car. She had been towed and impounded. I had to come up with three hundred dollars and then more money for a tow just to get her back here to sit in the parking lot across the street.

I walked to work the next couple days, waiting for my paycheck so I could spring my car.