I’ve always thought my father’s legendary protectiveness was about control more than anything else. You see it a lot in abuse cases—not that I was abused; my father would have circled me in Bubble Wrap and sent me to school wearing a helmet and shoulder pads if he could have. But the desire to keep tabs on me, the wariness of my more rambunctious friends, and the insistence I be home by a ridiculously early hour scream of controlling tendencies. He’s been around my feminist mother long enough to know better than to show it in obvious ways, but the biggest fights they ever had were over me—curfew, the length of my shorts, whether I could spend the night at Craig’s, what to do when they realized I’d been sneaking out to do just that. My mother’s policy forever governed by “If a boy can do it, so can she.” My father not so much, but he knew better than to argue this line of reasoning with my mother. Craig’s theory was different. The oldest in a family of four, he attributed my father’s protectiveness to an only-kid syndrome, an all-his-progeny-in-one-basket kind of thing.

I’m not a child anymore. Whatever his faults, I know that my father’s overprotectiveness stems from love. Both his parents died when he was in his early twenties. It makes sense he’d want to hold me close. But all those helmets were strapped too tight, the heavy woolen turtlenecks itched, the rain boots chafed. What kind of child worries about wet socks when there are puddles glinting in the sun? How do you learn to swim with a life vest perennially strapped to your chest? The desire for risk was pushed deeper every time my father reminded me to wear my seat belt, watch out for deer, be home by nine, so that when my world finally broke apart, I chose the most dangerous job I could find.

On Lumpkin, a few students trudge up the hill to the honors dormitory, but I’m not going fast enough yet to pique their interest. The student learning center comes into view—a beacon of light in the dark—and I’m still accelerating. Forty-five miles an hour.