Chapter One
Imani
The Georgia sun feels personal.
It feels like the sun has scanned a parking lot full of people, picked me out, and pressed down on the back of my neck, just like a deacon’s hand choosing who needs a prayer.
I’ve only been a college student for nineteen minutes, and I’ve already sweated through my new university shirt. Move-in day at Bellamy University is noisy—carts rattle, trunks slam, and cicadas scream from the oak trees like they’re on the clock.
I stand by our car with my volleyball bag on my shoulder, and that familiar empty feeling opens up under my ribs. It’s a space shaped just like my mother, and it shows up at certain moments: when I see someone’s mom fixing their daughter’s hair, when I smell maple syrup, or when I’m about to do something she and I planned together late at night over saltines. College was one of those plans. She kept a folder with all the options, and starting this without her feels like stepping onto the court with half the team missing and being told to play anyway.
“Whew.” Dad squints up at the brick building, one hand shading his eyes, and lets out a low whistle. “You could fry an egg on this sidewalk. Whole chicken, probably.”
I get about half a laugh out. “You offering? Your famous secret-recipe fried chicken?”
A grin pulls at his mouth. It’s the familiar one that hasn’t reached his eyes in a year, but he sends it out every time anyway. “As long as you promise not to burn it like last time. Pretty sure the smoke alarm’s still going off at the house.”
I roll my eyes and pretend I don’t remember Practice Independence Week. It lasted about two days and ended with my dad standing on the kitchen counter in his socks, fanning the ceiling with a cookie sheet.
He hoists a box out of the trunk with the cardboard sagging in the middle. Across the side, in my own sharpie handwriting, it reads SHOES / MAYBE TOO MANY.
“Baby girl,” my dad calls over the trunk, “are you moving into a dorm or opening a boutique?”
“Those are essentials. You can’t start college without the right shoes for every possible social event.”
“How many social occasions are you planning to attend?” he asks over the car hood, his eyebrow raised slightly.
“I don’t know yet.” I shrug, smiling a bit. “That’s why I brought all of them.”
He laughs and keeps looking at me over the car hood for a moment. I know he’s trying to remember exactly what I look like, as if he thinks I might come home at Christmas a little changed, and the old me will be gone.
As I walk up the path under the oaks, I imagine Mom with us. She’d be fanning herself with an old church program from her purse, complaining about the humidity and her hair, then looking up at the trees and calling it God’s sauna. My mother always made discomfort sound both holy and funny.
Dad wrestles my key card through the lock four times before it gives up with a thunk. He pushes the door open, and a wall of arctic air-conditioning walks out to greet us.
A tall girl with deep brown skin and a crown of box braids piled on top of her head is balanced on a desk chair, hanging a strand of warm yellow string lights along the ceiling. She hops down effortlessly, smiling. “Hey! You must be Imani Parker. I’m Jayla.”
Her voice is warm and sure, with a little drawl stretched through it, and the room already smells like her, coconut oil and lavender. Her side has a collage of photos under the lights, a vintage record player spinning something low and soulful, and a thick pink comforter with, one too many pillows. My half is an extra-long twin mattress still in its plastic, a set of empty wire shelves, and a white desk.
“Hey.” I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. “Yeah, that’s me. Sorry, I look a mess.”
Jayla laughs. “Girl, everybody looks like that today. I’ve been here two months for summer session, and my hair still hasn’t forgiven the weather. Box braids for the win.”
Dad sets his box down and offers her his hand. “Nice to meet you, Jayla. I’m Imani’s dad. Chief logistics officer and heavy lifter for the day.”
She shakes it firmly, like she’s closing in on a deal with him. “Well, you’re doing a fantastic job, Mr. P. Here, let me help.” Before either of us can object, she lifts the heaviest-looking box out of his arms and carries it to my side of the room, like she’s been living here for years and we’re the ones visiting.
She sees me looking at my empty side of the room. “You’ll get there,” she promises. “First, claim your space with snacks. Next, build your personality wall. Then, survive orientation without crying.” She shrugs. “I’m still working on that last one.” I smile for real, and it feels strange, like using a muscle I haven’t moved in a while. “That’s a lot for one day.”
She winks. “That’s why God made iced coffee and air-conditioning. Come on, let’s get you set up.”
It takes about two hours to unpack most of the boxes from the last nineteen years. Afterward, Dad wants to get lunch, so we find a diner near campus with cracked red vinyl booths and menus that have been laminated so many times they look ancient.
When the burgers arrive, he goes quiet and studies me across the table the way he used to before a big match, looking for cracks. “You nervous?”
I draw a ring in the condensation on the table. “A little.” I draw another one. “Okay, a lot.”
“You’ll be fine. You always are.”
“I don’t know, Dad. Everyone here seems to have a five-year plan and probably a podcast about it.”
He laughs and picks up a packet of sugar, stirring it into the tea that is already too sweet. I watch the spoon go around and around, clinking against the glass. “Your mama would’ve told you the same thing I’m about to. You belong anywhere you work for. You earned this spot, so don’t you ever forget it.”
It’s been a year since cancer took her. A whole year of seasons passing like nothing changed. Most days I handle it well, but then someone says something simple in a diner, and I feel like falling apart again.
“I just wish she could see this,” I whisper. “You know? Me starting college like we always talked about.”
His jaw works cautiously as he weighs his next words. “Yeah, baby girl. I know.” His voice is thick. “So do I.”
We don’t say much after that. For a second I let my mind wander; I let Mom slide into the booth next to me, giving my Dad a hard time about the amount of salt on his fries, the way she did at every restaurant we ever went to.
Dad pays with a crumpled wad of cash, and we walk back to campus in a silence that feels both comfortable and heavy. The sun is finally setting, stretching our shadows long across the lawns; his and mine, with a space between.
In the parking lot, he opens the trunk one more time, hoping for something left to carry. “Well.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “Guess this is it.”
I cross my arms over my chest and try my best to smile. “Guess so.”
He smiles, and I can see what it’s costing him, a kind of strain around the eyes. Then he gives up on the smile and pulls me in instead, pressing a long kiss to the top of my head.
“I love you, baby girl. More than anything.” His voice has gone rough. “You know where to find me. Day or night, no matter what.” He pulls back just far enough to look at me. “And Ni? She’d be proud of you. I need you to know that.”
I nod quickly before I fall apart in a parking lot in front of a hundred strangers, refusing to let this be the first thing Bellamy University knows about me. As he gets in his car and drives away, I stand on the curb and watch his taillights until they turn the corner.
I don’t go back to my room yet, even though there are still boxes to unpack. I walk until the sound of my flip-flops on the pavement is louder than my thoughts. She’d be proud of you, Ni. It’s meant to comfort me, but tonight it feels like a test. Proud of which version of me? The volleyball player, the grieving daughter, or the freshman who can’t find her building.
The heat finally gives way to something cooler, and I hear laughter coming from the quad. The magnolias catch the last bit of sunlight in their big, shiny leaves, and Bellamy Tower stands dark against the sky. I feel a small, sharp ache, thinking Mom would have stopped here and made us all look up.
There’s a building made mostly of glass, with the last of the sunset burning in its doors. Inside, the air is cool and smells like old paper and floor wax. I wander the ground floor, and the carpet eats my footsteps. Nobody looks up. In the library, I’m just one more quiet body.
I drift into the stacks and run my fingers along the spines. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but somehow I end up in the self-help section. Fitting.
The titles in this corner are anything but subtle. Resilience Through Loss. Playing Through Pain: The Athlete’s Guide to Injury and Recovery. Becoming More. It’s like someone put all my feelings on one shelf, and I can’t help but laugh.
I pull out Resilience Through Loss. The cover is a stock photo of a single tree hanging off the edge of a cliff. It’s cheesy, but it also looks exactly how I’m feeling, hanging on by the roots.
I carry it to the circulation desk fast before my mind catches up and tells me to put it back.
There’s a guy behind the counter, bent over his laptop. Dark skin, waves cut fresh, a thin mustache, and thick black frames he keeps nudging up with one knuckle. He’s in a faded university T-shirt that’s been through a lot of washes, and he’s tall enough that the stool looks borrowed. Everyone else today seemed eager to stand out. He’s lost in his own thoughts and needs nobody’s attention, which makes him hard not to notice.
He glances up, takes the book and my ID without a word, and scans them with a soft beep. His eyes go to the title. Then to my face. Then back to the title.
I brace for the same thing I’ve heard for the past year. The head tilt, followed by the “oh, sweetie,” but it doesn’t come. His expression doesn’t change at all. Like whatever he thinks about a girl checking out a grief book at dusk on move-in day, he’ll keep it to himself as a courtesy. For that alone I could hug him.
“Freshman?” he asks, his voice low.
“That obvious?”
Something that might be amusement touches one corner of his mouth and leaves. “You’ve got the look. Like you’re trying to remember your room number and hoping you don’t get lost on the way back.”
I grin. “Maybe I am. The map they gave us might as well be written in ancient Greek.”
He slides the book back to me, and our fingers touch for just a moment. I feel it all the way up my arm, even though I’m used to getting hit in the forearms with volleyballs at fifty miles an hour.
“You’ll figure it out,” he says. “Campus is smaller than it looks.”
“Thanks.” I tuck the book under my arm and turn to go. I make it four steps before something makes me glance back. He’s already looking down again, back into whatever world is on that screen. A plastic name tag is clipped to his T-shirt.
ELI.
I don’t know why I bother to remember it, but I do.
Back in the dorm, the air smells like lavender, and Jayla’s record player is humming something low. She’s sprawled across her bed, scrolling her phone, with a half-eaten bag of chips balanced on her stomach. She looks up when I come in.
“Hey! You survived your first solo expedition?”
“I think so.” I set the book on my desk, slide Mom’s silver bracelet off my wrist, and lay it down next to it.
I haven’t spent a day without that bracelet since the funeral. The string lights reflect off the metal and the book’s shiny cover at once. Something old and something borrowed. A past I can’t let go of, and a future I just borrowed for three weeks.
“Good.” Jayla sits up and points a chip at me. “Tomorrow, we conquer something else. Maybe the dining hall? They have surprisingly decent waffle fries.”
