But when her lawyer read her will, I was astonished to find out that she’d saved enough to pay for my med school tuition. Yes, I’d still struggle to pay my other bills, my rent, food, books, all my expenses but still—having my classes paid for was such a gift.
We’d been living off of ramen and eggs and toast, me working as much as I could to pay for college while I lived with her, and here she was squirreling away every penny she could to pay for the next level of my education.
I still have the note she left me, tucked away in my jewelry box, but I don’t need to read it to remember her words. I memorized them long ago. As I drive back to Rawley’s place, I think about her message to me and how it shaped me over the following years.
My dearest Emmeline-
If you are reading this, then I am gone, but know I will always live on in your heart and your memories.
I know your dream is to one day be a doctor, and I know you will make that dream come true. Never ever give up on your dreams. Make sacrifices where you need to, as you and I have done over the years, doing without as I secretly scrimped and saved for your further education.
I wanted to surprise you with this gift, to remind you to always relish the unexpected, to grasp onto people and opportunities and love whenever those things arrive.
This inheritance should be enough to pay for your classes for the next four years. I wish I had more to give, and could cover your other expenses.
I wish I could give you everything you deserve.
Because raising you has been the greatest joy of my life.
Your loving grandmother,
Amelia
I’m almost to Rawley’s. My hands grip the wheel.
How much of the story does he need to know? Is half the truth enough? That I’m just a girl scared of getting hurt, that I don’t want to move in with a boyfriend until I have a formal commitment?
I mean, it's not like I can play it off as being old-fashioned, can I? We met because I was escorting, for goodness sake.
But if I tell him the whole truth, I have to relive the pain, revealing the lengths I went to, to make my dreams come true. How, that first year of med school, when my part-time job wasn’t making enough to pay the rent, faced with dropping out of school to find full-time work, I instead chose to move in with my then boyfriend.
And that was a mistake.
I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.
The last time I moved in with my boyfriend, I regretted it. When he came home, I could smell the perfume on his collar. I saw the random texts come in on his phone. I ignored his late night arrivals home, him insisting he was drinking alone at the bar.
I’m not the type to make accusations or think the worst, so I always made excuses.
Maybe I took my grandmother’s words too far, never give up on your dreams, make sacrifices when you need to, when I traded in my self-respect for a free place to stay. Living with a man that made me feel less than, every day, so I could not give up my dreams, so I could finish med school.
In the end, he grew tired of me, kicking me out with no notice. The hit to my self-esteem was deep, the knowledge that not only had I not been good enough, but I’d been had, crushed me.
After going through all that heartache and losing my self-respect, I wound up spending three nights in my car, a time so hard to cope with it was right up there with my grandmother’s death. Luckily for me, a kind professor found out what was going on and let me crash at their house in exchange for babysitting over the weekends.
So, yeah, I don’t want to ever go through that again. I don’t want to depend on someone else to meet my needs, to offer me security. I need to know that I have somewhere to stay, a place of my own, until I’m legally bound to someone.
Until a man is ready to commit his life to me, I feel safer having a lease with my name on it.
My palms are sweating, damp against the wheel of my car. I loosen my grip. I don’t like those memories. It rips me apart to think back on that time.
I want to leave the past in the past. But dishonesty isn’t a good look for me, and it makes me feel icky. I need to tell Rawley the second I get home that I’ve got my own place, that I’ve chosen not to live with a man who’s not my husband.