3: It’s a Hard Knock Life

The alarm buzzed at 5:30 a.m.

Bharath groaned.

Jorge didn’t even pretend to get up right away. “Five more minutes,” he mumbled, face buried in his pillow.

“No,” Bharath said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk. “You said we’d go. You made me promise.”

“I hate past me,” Jorge groaned.

But ten minutes later, they were walking through the dewy morning toward the Georgia Tech Student Athletic Complex, water bottles in hand and gym bags slung over tired shoulders.

What greeted them made them both stop in their tracks.

“Holy ... shit,” Jorge whispered.

The gym was magnificent.

High ceilings. Massive open floors. Rows and rows of gleaming machines. Dumbbells were arranged like modern art. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Even the flooring smelled new — a mix of rubber, lemon-scented disinfectant, and ambition.

And the people.

Men with sculpted arms. Women with abs sharp enough to cut glass. Sweat glistening like it had been hand-painted by lighting assistants.

“Are they ... students?” Bharath asked.

“Or superhero cast rejects,” Jorge muttered.

A friendly-looking trainer in a Georgia Tech shirt noticed them hovering near the bench press stations and approached.

“New here?” he asked.

They both nodded.

“Alright. We’ve got beginner programs for you. First step—what are your goals?”

Bharath hesitated. “I want to tone. Condition. Maybe build a little muscle.”

“Same,” Jorge added. “Except ... a lot of muscle.”

The trainer smiled. “Great. I’ll get you started on a split routine. Push-pull-legs format. Three days a week. Compound lifts. You’ll learn the form. Rest and recovery are just as important.”

They both nodded, though Bharath wasn’t entirely sure what a “compound lift” was. Still, it felt good to be taken seriously.

After a brief orientation and a few laughably clumsy attempts at squats, lat pulldowns, and assisted push-ups, their session ended with protein bar samples and a promise to return Wednesday.

They headed to the communal showers, muscles already sore.

Bharath opened the door and sighed. “No curtains. Again. Don’t people ever want to bathe alone in this country?”

“America,” Jorge said dramatically, untying his towel. “Land of the free. Home of the shower shame.”

A quick scan of the room only deepened their discomfort.

The men here were jacked.

Big shoulders. Veins on arms. Towel-snapping confidence.

Bharath sighed. “Back to the gym tomorrow.”

“Absolutely,” Jorge agreed.

After the quickest rinse of their lives, they returned to Smith Hall to drop off their bags, now fully awake and already ravenous.

The dining hall wasn’t any more appealing than it had been yesterday.

Scrambled eggs that looked bleached. Bacon floating in grease. Something called hash browns that squeaked when bitten into - like an aloo tikki, only inedible. Again, the cereal bins ruled over the breakfast zone like sugary tyrants.

Ravi waved them over, two slices of toast in hand and a bowl of Cheerios already half-eaten.

“Idhar bhai (Here bro),” he said, gesturing to a seat. “You’re alive. Impressive.”

Bharath sat down and pointed at the eggs. “We’re going to die if we eat this every day.”

“I can live off cereal,” Ravi said. “Toast. Jam. Done.”

“I want protein,” Bharath muttered.

“Boiled eggs,” Jorge said, stacking three onto a plate. “Let’s hoard.”

Bharath grabbed milk. Jorge grabbed more eggs. Ravi stuck to toast.

Then Bharath spotted a bottle of Tabasco at the condiment station and snatched it like a man who’d found water in the desert.

“I thought I saw this yesterday,” he said, pouring a heavy stream over his eggs.

Ravi and Jorge followed suit.

Five minutes later, the three of them were downing the fire-spiked eggs with milk chasers, sniffing but smiling.

“This is it,” Jorge said. “Breakfast salvation.”

Tyrel walked past with a biscuit sandwich in hand and paused.

He stared at their plates.

“Are y’all trying to die?”

Ravi shrugged. “We’re just making this country’s food edible.”

Tyrel chuckled and sat down. “You guys are wild. That much hot sauce? Before 8 a.m.? You need Jesus.”

Just then, a burst of laughter erupted from a nearby table — sharp, deliberate, the kind of sound that was meant to be heard.

Bharath glanced over without meaning to.

There she was.

Ayesha.

Perched at the center of a table that looked like it had been airlifted out of a student fashion catalog — a circle of guys in fitted tees and perfect fades, girls in crop tops and platform sandals who radiated the kind of effortless cool that made everyone else feel like background noise. They looked like they’d been here forever — as if Georgia Tech had been waiting for them.

Ayesha, of course, looked incredible. High-waisted jeans, a black tank top, and hoop earrings that caught the light with every tilt of her head. But it wasn’t her outfit that made Bharath’s stomach twist.

It was the way she threw her head back laughing.

Like she had no memory of who he was. Like they hadn’t shared a cab ride from the airport just two days ago. Like she hadn’t leaned across the seat with that easy smile and conversation.

Now, one of the boys beside her leaned in and whispered something, half-covered behind his Red Bull can. Ayesha glanced in Bharath’s direction, didn’t even blink — then smirked and said, loudly enough for the whole corner of the room to hear:

“Some of these FOB guys look like they’ve never even seen scrambled eggs before. Look at that dweeb trying to drown his eggs in Tabasco.”

The table exploded with laughter.

And not the polite, nervous kind — the kind that stabbed.

Bharath froze.

The fork in his hand felt suddenly stupid. The scrambled eggs on his plate — too soft, too yellow, too foreign — looked like they were mocking him now.

He didn’t turn around. Didn’t rise to the bait. He just looked down, jaw tight.

The Tabasco he’d added earlier burned the back of his throat. But it wasn’t the same kind of heat now.

It was the kind that made your eyes sting.

To his left, Jorge went still. “Yo. That was—”

“Uncalled for,” Ravi finished, mouth full of toast, his expression darkening.

Even Tyrel, who had just returned with a plate stacked like a Waffle House ad, paused and frowned. “What the hell’s her problem? She was all chill at the airport, wasn’t she?”

Bharath nodded, slowly. “We split a cab when we came to the airport at the same time. She seemed like a nice person then.”

“And now she’s trying out for some kind of telenovela villana?” Jorge asked, incredulous.

Tyrel shook his head. “Zara I get. That girl looks like she came out the womb judging people. But Ayesha? What’s her deal?”

Bharath picked up a piece of toast, then put it down. “Maybe ... maybe I misread it. Maybe she was just being polite that day.”

“Dude,” Tyrel said, leaning forward. “If this is some twisted hazing thing, or her way of climbing the social ladder — screw that. That’s her insecurity, not yours.”

Bharath didn’t speak for a moment. He just stirred his eggs slowly, like they might give him answers.

“She changed,” he said finally. “Or maybe I just didn’t see it.”

“Or maybe,” Jorge said, “she’s surrounded by people who treat being cruel like a personality.”

“Classic case of ‘impress the cool kids by kicking down,’” Ravi added, rolling his eyes. “Oldest trick in the book.”

Tyrel narrowed his eyes in Ayesha’s direction. “Man ... she looked at you like she didn’t know you. That ain’t just cold. That’s calculated.”

Bharath chuckled under his breath — not from humor, but disbelief. “And all this ... over eggs.”

They all laughed — a little bitterly, but still together.

Then Jorge said, “You know what? Let her keep her cool-kid table. I’d rather sit here with the breakfast misfits.”

“To the FOB table,” Ravi said, raising his paper cup like a wine glass.

“To scrambled eggs and biscuit diplomacy,” Tyrel added, clinking his syrup bottle against it.

Bharath smiled despite himself.

It still hurt. It still stung. But the sharpest edge of it had been dulled — not because it didn’t matter, but because he wasn’t alone in it.

He had friends now. Brothers in awkward assimilation. Survivors of cafeteria injustice and social warfare.

And together?

They’d figure this place out.

Even if it meant building their own table from scratch.

Later that morning, back in the common room of Smith Hall, the boys had gathered around the ancient tube television that buzzed faintly in the corner. Tyrel stood proudly with the remote like it was a sword of destiny and flipped through channels until he landed on a sports highlight reel.

The screen exploded into action — hulking men in tight uniforms crashing into each other like angry rhinos, a marching band blaring in the background, and slow-mo replays of a helmeted player diving dramatically into the end zone.

“Yo,” Tyrel said, pointing at the screen like Moses revealing the Ten Commandments. “Y’all know football?”

“You mean... this football?” Bharath asked, gesturing vaguely toward Bobby Dodd Stadium, which loomed across the street like a Roman colosseum made of concrete and bad acoustics.

“Yeah,” Tyrel said, grinning. “Not that soccer ballet y’all play back home. This is real football.”

Ravi squinted at the screen, confused. “Wait ... I thought this was rugby.”

“This is football,” Tyrel declared, spreading his arms like a preacher. “The real kind. Pads. Helmets. Passion. Pain.”

“What’s with the gear?” Jorge asked, watching a slow-motion replay of a guy getting flattened like a piñata. “They look like crash test dummies.”

Tyrel chuckled. “That’s the point, man. This is strategy and violence with cheerleaders and marching bands. It’s war with school colors.”

“Is it ... popular?” Bharath asked, genuinely confused.

Tyrel blinked. “Is it popular?”

The room went silent for a beat. Tyrel looked at Bharath like he’d just asked if water was optional.

“This is America, dawg,” Tyrel said solemnly. “On Saturdays? Football is religion. Down here in the South? It’s the gospel, communion, and rapture all rolled into one.”

“Georgia Tech has a team?” Ravi asked.

“Hell yeah we do,” Tyrel said proudly, puffing up. “We ain’t Alabama or Florida State, but we hold our own. This year’s gonna be fire. Joe Hamilton is our quarterback. That man’s fast, smart, throws like a damn rocket. If anyone can take us back to glory, it’s him.”

“Glory?” Jorge said skeptically. “You mean winning?”

“Beating UGA, “ Tyrel said, with the weight of centuries in his voice.

“UGA?” Bharath asked.

“University of Georgia,” Tyrel said with a sneer. “Athens. Our mortal enemies. The Bulldogs. We hate them. They hate us. If you don’t feel deep irrational hatred toward anything red and slobbery by the end of the semester, you’re doing it wrong.”

Ravi leaned over to Bharath and whispered, “I thought this school was all algorithms and robot competitions.”

Tyrel heard him. “It is. Monday to Friday, it’s all labs and lectures and nerddom. But come Saturday? We’re warriors in gold and white.”

“Do students actually go to the games?” Jorge asked.

Tyrel laughed. “Are you kidding? Everyone’s there. Frats, nerds, alumni, babies in bee costumes — hell, even the band kids walk around like they own the place.”

Bharath tilted his head. “And what exactly do we do?”

“Yell,” Tyrel said immediately.

“That’s it?”

“Oh no, my sweet FOB prince,” Tyrel said, clapping a hand on Bharath’s shoulder. “You scream. You chant. You wave terrible towels. You learn songs you never knew existed. You lose your voice, your dignity, and possibly your shoes by halftime.”

“And this is fun?” Ravi asked, raising an eyebrow.

“This is college,” Tyrel said, like it explained everything.

Ravi folded his arms. “Still looks like armored rugby to me.”

“You’ll learn,” Tyrel promised. “Come game day, I’ll take y’all. We’ll tailgate. I’ll get you barbecue. Teach you how to boo properly.”

“You’re going to teach us ... how to scream and eat?” Bharath asked.

“Exactly. It’s an art form.”

“Are there rules?” Jorge asked.

“Yes,” Tyrel said seriously. “Rule one: always boo the refs. Rule two: if the other team fumbles, you scream ‘FUMBLEEEE!’ as if your life depends on it. Rule three: you’re not allowed to say ‘football is confusing’ out loud once you’re inside the stadium. They’ll hear you. They’ll sense it.”

“Who will?” Bharath asked.

“The alumni. They’re everywhere.”

There was a beat of silence as another player on-screen got launched into the turf.

“Is that guy okay?” Jorge asked.

“No,” Tyrel said proudly. “But he got the first down.”

Ravi sighed. “This is insane.”

Tyrel grinned. “This is the USA. USA. USA. USA”

Then louder, “Shout it with me boys! USA! USA! USA!”

Suddenly as though there were some magical harmony in the dorm, shouts of “USA” heralded from every corner of the building. It appeared as if some mystical voice that existed in the very walls of Smith came to life with that war cry.

“Patriotic, aren’t they”, whispered Ravi to a confused Jorge and Bharath.

Later as the morning sunlight filled the Smith Hall common room, and the screen blared with crowd noise and helmets crashing, the three international students stared at the screen — part horrified, part fascinated.

They didn’t understand it yet. But somehow, Tyrel knew they’d be screaming by midseason. He would make it his mission to convert these football ignoramuses into raging Ramblin Reck fans.

The rest of the day unfolded like a fast-forward button pressed on a brand-new life.

After their first meal of protein-and-Tabasco salvation, the boys gathered in the Smith Hall lounge with a flurry of printouts, course guides, and fluorescent highlighters.

Ravi spread his schedule out like a map of the known universe. “Okay, so CS 1331 is MWF at 10 a.m. Recitation on Thursdays. That one’s locked in.”

Jorge highlighted his econ elective. “I somehow landed in Microeconomics at 8 a.m. on Mondays. Pray for me.”

Bharath circled Discrete Math with a thick red line. “This one has a waitlist. Should I panic?”

Tyrel walked in wearing sunglasses and a grin. “If you ain’t got your books yet, that’s what you should be panicking about.”

The Georgia Tech bookstore was a zoo.

Students crammed into every aisle, balancing piles of textbooks with names like Data Structures in Java, Discrete Math with Applications, and Modern Physics: Concepts and Connections. The air smelled of new paper, coffee breath, and panic.

Tyrel led the charge. “Listen. Rule one of college economics — don’t buy new books.”

“But they look so—” Bharath started, reaching for a shiny hardback.

“Put that down unless you want to spend your tuition on page gloss,” Tyrel snapped, batting his hand away.

“Used books are in the back,” Jorge translated.

They maneuvered through the labyrinth of shelves and finally found the smaller, less glamorous section: bent covers, scribbled margins, the occasional highlighted mess.

Perfect.

Jorge grabbed a Java textbook with only mild water damage.

Ravi found one with a doodle of Batman swinging across the recursion tree diagram.

Bharath unearthed Discrete Math with all the answers faintly penciled in. He hesitated — then hugged it like treasure.

Tyrel gave him a thumbs up. “Now that’s a win.”

But first they needed money - they were yet to open a bank account. Hiding their treasures in a corner where they wouldn’t be discovered, the four of them entered the SunTrust Bank branch at the Student Center like explorers entering a temple of adulthood. The office smelled of leather, paperwork, and air conditioning. The carpets were too clean. The pens were on chains. The counters were too high.

Bharath had never opened a bank account on his own before.

Back home, everything was joint, ritualized, overseen by a parent or uncle with godlike authority. Here, it was just him, a passport, an I-20, and a hesitant signature.

The teller, a kind woman named Susan, guided him gently through the process.

“You’re international?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bharath said proudly. “India.”

“Well, welcome to Georgia, sugar.”

She smiled and handed him a small envelope.

Inside: a temporary debit card, his first bank statement, and a blue-checkbook with his name printed at the top.

He stared at it like it was an award. It looked so official. So permanent.

He didn’t even care that he didn’t know how to write a check yet.

To celebrate, Bharath insisted on treating everyone to coffee.

“Your first bank account and you’re already wasting money on us?” Ravi teased.

“It’s not wasting,” Bharath said. “Just a treat.”

“Your funeral,” Jorge said.

They went to the on-campus coffee shop, which was full of over-caffeinated graduate students typing on ThinkPads.

Bharath stepped up to the counter first.

The girl behind the register looked at him, eyebrow arched. “What can I get you?”

Bharath looked up at the menu.

And immediately regretted everything.

There were too many options.

Espresso. Americano. Cappuccino. Cold brew. Nitro cold brew. Latté. Mocha. Macchiato. Pumpkin spice something. Oat milk. Soy milk. Whole milk. Almond milk. Skim. No whip. Extra shot. Venti. Tall. Grande.

“Where’s your ... filter coffee?” Bharath asked helplessly.

“What’s that?”

“You know where they put the hot coffee with powder into something with a filter and you collect it in another bowl?”

“Drip?” she said.

“Drip?”

“Drip,” she stated with certainty.

That settled it. She seemed to know what she was talking about until her next question.

“Hot? Black?”

Why were there so many questions to answer just to get a cup of coffee? “I guess”

“Size?”

He paused. “Uhh ... medium?”

“You mean grande?”

“Sure”

She nodded. “Room for cream?”

Bharath blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe? Is the cup not big enough? How do you like it?”

She gave him a strange look as she scribbled something. “I have a boyfriend, you know. I’m not interested. Anything else?”

“I think that’s enough confusion for today.”

Jorge ordered an iced vanilla latté. Ravi got a mocha. Tyrel got a triple-shot espresso “with menace.”

They sat by the window, sipping slowly.

Bharath took a cautious sip of his drink.

It was hot. Bitter. A little sour. But oddly comforting.

“Not bad,” he admitted.

“Freedom in a cup,” Tyrel said.

“You can’t even spell freedom hermano,” Jorge muttered.

Tyrel flipped him off.

Bharath hadn’t expected to feel this exhausted from something as simple as managing paperwork and buying books. His shoulders were sore from his first real morning at the gym, his head still spinning from the banking jargon, and his tongue felt slightly burned from the harsh black coffee that now sloshed around in his stomach like sour motor oil.

He was walking back from the restroom in the bookstore, still tucking the printout of his schedule into his hoodie pocket, when he saw her again.

Marisol.

Standing under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the textbook aisle looking like an angel without her wings.

She had one hand on her hip, the other leafing through a used Discrete Math textbook with the air of someone trying to divine the future through its margins. She wore tight, dark jeans and a burnt orange crop hoodie with a Georgia Tech logo that had been stylishly cut to hang loose at the collar. Her wavy hair was half-tied— somehow only enhancing her magnetism rather than softening it.

Bharath stopped dead.

She looked up. Saw him.

Her lips curved.

“Lost in the math section, huh?” she called out.

He smiled, awkward. “Always.”

Marisol slid the book back into the shelf and walked over, her black boots making confident, measured clicks on the linoleum.

“Are you following me?” she said, arms crossing in front of her. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” Bharath said quickly. “I swear I’m not stalking anyone. Just ... absorbing America. Slowly.”

She laughed. “You still look like you’re about to ask someone if this entire week is a prank show.”

“Is it?”

“Only emotionally.”

He smiled, but was still too stunned to find a real comeback. She was standing close now — not too close, but enough that he could smell the faint scent of citrus shampoo, maybe some coconut lotion, and whatever confidence smelled like when it came wrapped in curves and sarcasm.

“I was picking up the books for CS,” she said. “Do you already have all of them?”

“Almost. Got lucky. Used ones. Pages intact. Some answers scribbled in. Best kind of theft.”

“Smart man,” she said, tilting her head. “We really are in all the same classes?”

He nodded. “Looks like it.”

“Guess you’re stuck with me.”

Stuck was the last word he would’ve chosen.

She stared at him for a moment, eyebrows raised. “You gonna say something, or just keep looking at me like I walked out of a music video?”

Bharath blinked. “Sorry. You’re just ... always dressed like you’re about to star in a music video. Like Shakira. Only prettier.”

She laughed — warm, genuine.

“That’s ... not a bad line, actually,” she said.

He scratched his chin, flustered. “It wasn’t a line. I meant it.”

Even better.

Something about his honesty disarmed her. She was used to smooth talk from men. Slick. Guys who looked at her like a trophy. Bharath looked at her like a phenomenon he hadn’t prepared for. A pleasant disruption to his operating system.

“I’ll take it,” she said. “You’re charming. Accidentally. It’s cute.”

Just then, a voice echoed from the next aisle.

“Yo, B! We done here or what?”

It was Tyrel, followed by Ravi and Jorge, each carrying a few books and looking mildly lost.

They rounded the corner, saw Marisol — and stopped.

Ravi blinked. Jorge smirked.

Tyrel grinned like he’d found gold.

“Well damn,” Tyrel said, stepping forward. “Who dis fine thang talkin’ to our boy like he the prince of Tech?”

Marisol turned slowly.

Her eyebrow arched.

Tyrel leaned in slightly, the swagger oozing from every inch. “I’m Tyrel. ATL native. Triple espresso connoisseur. Sometimes I DJ. You need someone to show you where the real party’s at?”

Bharath visibly winced.

Marisol stared at Tyrel like she was measuring him for burial.

“That’s your opener?” she asked.

Tyrel’s smile widened. “Straight to the point.”

She crossed her arms. “Here’s a point: if I wanted to hear someone butcher hip hop slang while imagining they’re God’s gift to women, I’d rewatch a Milli Vanilli interview.”

Jorge and Tyrel gasped.

Ravi and Bharath were confused. Bharath blinked and asked, “What the hell is a Milli Vanilli?”

“Exactly,” Marisol said.

Jorge whispered to Bharath and Ravi, “She just dropped a nuke.”

They just tried not to laugh too loudly, still a little unsure about how much of an insult it really was.

Marisol turned back to him, now smiling as though the moment had never happened.

“Catch you in CS tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Bharath said, still stunned.

She looked at the others. “See you around, boys.”

And with that, she walked away, hips swaying, hair bouncing, a stack of books balanced on her hip like she owned the entire campus.

The silence she left in her wake was thunderous.

Ravi exhaled. “I think I just fell in love.”

Jorge clapped Bharath on the back. “You lucky bastard.”

Tyrel muttered, “She disrespected me like I was a parking ticket.”

“Yeah,” Jorge said, “but you kinda earned it.”

Bharath was still smiling, eyes on the last place she’d stood.

He didn’t know what this was.

But he liked it. A lot.

Marisol walked out of the bookstore and into the thick Georgia heat, her arms aching from the weight of overpriced textbooks and her chest buzzing with something she refused to call nerves.

That boy — Bharath — he’d been sweet. In a way she hadn’t seen in a long time. Not polished. Not trying to be cool. Just ... awkward and oddly sincere. He didn’t know how to flirt. Which was the only reason she hadn’t immediately dismissed him like the rest.

She glanced over her shoulder. The boys were still back there, laughing about something. Probably Tyrel trying too hard again. She smirked.

Bharath was different.

But so was her father. Once.

She didn’t talk about him — not to anyone at Tech, and barely even to Mia.

Her dad had left when she was just a baby. Packed up and gone before her sister had even turned six months old. According to her mother, he said something ridiculous like, “This isn’t the life I imagined.” He was apparently working at a car dealership at the time. One day, he stopped showing up to work and to home.

The last thing they heard was that he’d moved to Tampa with some girl ten years younger — a waitress who used to flirt with him at the diner.

That was it. That was the end of their family.

Marisol’s mom never begged him to come back. Never cried in front of them even though she had barely been older than Marisol was right now. She just went to work. Took evening shifts at the grocery store. Cleaned houses on the weekends. Paid the bills. Kept her hair tied back in a bun and never brought another man home again.

Watching her mom hold it together like that? It taught Marisol two things early: Men can leave; You don’t fall apart when they do. Still, that hadn’t stopped her from getting curious.

Her first kiss had been in middle school — behind the gym after a school dance. She couldn’t even remember the boy’s name anymore. Just the scratchy polyester of his dress shirt and the way he smelled like Axe body spray and Juicy Fruit.

Then in high school, it was Jeremy. Tall, part of the yearbook club, always borrowing her notes. He’d called her “beautiful” once and it had made her chest tighten in all the wrong ways. They’d dated two months — if you could call sharing fries at the mall food court dating.

Then came Carlos.

The one she really thought might be different.

He made her a mix CD. Said he’d drive her to prom. Prom never happened. Because three weeks before, she caught him making out with a junior near the parking lot, their hands on each other like they were in a telenovela.

Now?

Now she didn’t fall for anything.

She liked her boundaries. Her headphones. Her schedule.

And yet here she was — thinking about a boy who barely said ten words in a row without stumbling over one. Who looked at her like she was a page in a textbook he couldn’t believe he got to read.

And maybe that’s what scared her most.

He wasn’t trying. He was just being ... him.

She crossed the quad slowly, letting the crowd thin around her. The sun was lower now, staining the sky with that soft orange haze that always made Atlanta look prettier than it had any right to.

Her fingers adjusted the strap of her backpack, her mind replaying the way Bharath had looked at her when she teased him.

Not flustered in the gross, twitchy way guys did when they were thinking about what you looked like naked. Flustered like ... he didn’t know where to look because he was too busy trying to not mess up the moment.

That was rare. Especially here. Especially now.

She’d already had two guys ask her what club she was joining “because a girl like you can’t go unnoticed,” and one of them had winked — winked — while glancing at her chest. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Gross.

Marisol hadn’t wanted to go to Tech at first.

She’d gotten into other schools — smaller, private ones that were more artsy. But Tech had the better program. Better scholarships. Closer to home, too, even if she told everyone that didn’t matter.

Her mom cried when the acceptance letter came. Said her daughter was going to be an enginera — even if it was Computer Science and not civil like her uncle in Havana.

She wasn’t doing this for her mom, not entirely. But it helped, knowing she could look back one day and say, “We made it.”

She stepped onto the path near the fountains, the sound of water bubbling under the hum of cicadas.