“This is not something you can walk away from. Your destiny. The calling. Nothing can stop the call. The call is why you exist. Either you keep fighting and it will destroy you. Or you accept the call and become what you must. Either way, there is no escape.”

The gravity of her words demands my compliance. I know she is right even without the Defiance ringing in my ear: She tellin’ the truth, you feel me? Hah, finally, someone with some sense. Yasss, bitch, yasss. She has laid me bare, marrow to flesh. There is no use continuing this parade of sorrow and self-pity.

“Find a better tutor. More than one. Learn how to access the knowledge of the field. This coursework won’t be hard for you once you unlock your mind. Now, it’s way past my bedtime. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Wait!” I yell as she walks away. “Who are you?”

“Yoda,” she jokes. “Rest well.”

Morning, like the end of the color tunnel, comes slowly. My body finds no rest, instead tossing and turning on Dean Harrison’s freshly laundered sheets in the guest room by the kitchen. My thoughts spin themselves into perfect webs of confusion trying to make sense of everything Dean Harrison told me.

When the sun finally begins her ascent, chasing the dark and all its unanswered questions back into the hills, her rays wash a new peace over me. I rise from the bed, tell the Defiance we’ve got work to do, and then start sprinting back to the life waiting for me on the other side of fear and self-doubt.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The student center is not open yet, but I am already sitting in the hallway in anticipation. I will ask who is the best tutor. The one everybody raves about. I want that person. I’ll take a new approach. Instead of pretending, I’ll tell them I don’t understand anything about math. It’s a foreign language to me. So teach me from the ground up.

I am sorting out my thoughts when I hear the elevator activate. It’s still early, but I hope it’s the staff on their way up. I want to grab a table in the back and get situated. Maybe they will wonder why I am here before they are. I try to look natural. I stand, but then decide to sit back down with my hands lightly folded on my lap. All of my tension evaporates when I see Earnell come bouncing off the elevator, whistling “Get Low” by Lil Jon to himself. I hear his whistling before he steps off the elevator and wonder which staff member would be singing such a ratchet tune. I should have known it was Earnell.

“Oh my God! Earnell! What are you doing here?”