thing in the first place. At this point, it feels like all we can hope for is space. Distance. Space, distance, and time will allow both of us to move on and, perhaps one day, be in that nice space again where we can talk to each other without wanting to kill each other.
USC will be my opportunity to start over. It’s a good school in a warm climate near my home. I know LA. LA is my home. Nothing bad, nothing this bad, has ever happened to me there. It sounds like the best thing. I’m only in my freshman year and I can barely see myself making it through this winter intact.
It is with this attitude of cautious optimism and hopefulness that I walk into my Public Speaking class that Friday and raise my hand to make my first real speech. I have not had anything to drink, and I’m under no mind-altering substances, not even caffeine. Surprisingly, the jitters and the fear that plagued my other speeches didn’t accompany this one. No, it’s like I’m a completely different person now. I clear my throat and look down at my notecards. The assignment is to give a public speech in a professional situation and I’ve prepared a lecture on Jane Austen. I did my midterm paper on Jane Austen for my Victorian Literature class and I give a cautious, but thorough, speech on her life and work. Yes, I rely on the notecards a little too much. Yes, I avoid eye contact with almost all students in the class and instead choose to look out into space, somewhere beyond their sight lines. Overall? Overall, the speech goes incredibly well. I speak clearly and my voice only shakes a little bit when I forget to breathe. I take a few sips of water as my mouth runs dry, but I don’t rush through them and I don’t worry about tipping over the water bottle and everyone laughing at me.
“I don’t know what it is, but something about me feels different now,” I tell Dr. Greyson at our next meeting. I’m going on and on about the success of my speech and how in awe I am over the whole experience.
“What do you think it is?” she asks, taking off her reading glasses and letting them dangle around her neck on the ornate leather rope.
“I’m not sure.” I shrug and really think about it. “I sort of think it has something to do with everything that has happened. In the beginning of the semester, I was so focused on Hudson and our relationship and how he wasn’t helping me prepare for the speeches that I was paralyzed by them. Now—now that everything happened as it happened—I don’t know, it feels like I’ve been through too much to almost care what those people think.”
“Very good,” Dr. Greyson says, nodding approvingly. “I’m very proud of you for making so much progress, Alice.”
“What progress did I make?” I ask.
“You’re giving yourself a voice. When you first came here, you were lost in your own mind. You didn’t care what you thought and felt. You only seemed to care about what other people thought and felt about you. It’s almost like you, the inside you, didn’t exist. Now…here she is. You’re embracing your flaws and mistakes. You’re owning them, but you’re not letting them dominate your life. You’re no longer silencing yourself.”
I think about that for a second. She’s right. Of course she’s right. I have been silencing myself for way too long. I’ve been living trapped in my own fears and insecurities instead of simply embracing myself for who I am. The ironic thing is that the more I seem to embrace myself and my insecurities, the less insecurities I seem to have. It’s as if I have only been manifesting them as a way to protect myself, when in reality, they’ve been hurting me more than they have been helping me.
29
Spring break couldn’t come soon enough. I am going back home to California. I am going to spend the week watching beautiful sunsets over the green valley below my parents’ house, swinging in the hammock on our wraparound deck, and eating oranges straight from my mom’s carefully maintained orange tree.
By the time my mom picks me up from the airport and we finish eating dinner in front of their new wall of windows looking out onto the valley spotted with wildflowers, I forget all about my life in New York. It’s as