After sending the email confirming I wanted to go through with it, I felt scared, nervous, but most of all, excited. I think the fact that I still had time before I had to go made it feel less real, and therefore less frightening. While sorting these thoughts in my head, I realized something really important. I hadn’t even told my parents yet. I’d been sitting in my room for an hour now mulling this over without getting their input. I went downstairs, ready to tell them the news. The stairs creaked as I went down. It was now a quarter past eight, so at this point it was fair to say my parents were up for breakfast. They’ve always been early risers. I saw my mom first, she was cooking scrambled eggs in the kitchen.
“Hey, mom. I’ve got some really crazy news,” I said, trying not to show the excitement I was feeling.
I was eager to see her reaction to the fact that her son was actually going to be someone.
“What is it baby?” she said without looking up from the pan.
It doesn’t matter how old I get, I’m always “baby” to her.
“You know about the Fortune’s Favor University Lucky Student program? Well, I happen to personally know who was chosen this year.”
I tried to contain the smile on my face, but it wasn’t working.
“What a small world! Who was it? Someone you went to high school with?”
Now she was looking right at me with a slight excitement to her voice.
“Yeah, it’s someone we both know pretty well.”
“Well, go on! Don’t keep me in suspense! I’m too old for that.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“It was me, mom. I was chosen. Here’s the proof.”
I showed her the email on my phone. She scanned it for a while. Something in her eyes looked like she thought I was pranking her. After a minute though I saw her expression change into something much more intense.
“OH MY GOD!” she screamed.
This prompted my dad to come in to see what the commotion was about.
“What’s going on in here?!” my dad said, bursting into the kitchen.
“Our boy is going to college, Harold! A great one too! I can’t believe this…” my mom said while rubbing tears from her eyes.
“I swear I’m going to make the most of it mom,” I said while hugging her.
Hopefully, I wasn’t lying.
“I’m happy for you Ryder. You must be the luckiest kid in the world. Make sure to make us proud while you’re there,” my dad said, joining the hug.
Now that my parents know the situation, there is no way I can back out. I guess this was my way of making myself commit. When you want to make someone with social phobia do something they don’t want to do, you have to make sure if they don’t do it, they’d be disappointing people they deeply care about. That’s exactly why I told my parents. A weaker version of myself would have waited until the last minute and then not gone, but I don’t want to be that person anymore.
Time really flies when there’s something coming up that you don’t want to do. The day of orientation was there before I knew it. I packed my things, kissed my parents goodbye, and was on my way to my dorm to move in before the entrance ceremony. Apparently, every student was being chauffeured independently by the university to their dorms, which seemed weird to me at first, but it made sense that things would be different with something as high class as this. The black car that rolled up in front of our house had no branding for the college on it, but that was most likely because of them not wanting anyone following them to the university to get a look at the new freshman class. The driver was a man in a black suit and sunglasses. He looked like the definition of Hollywood-hired security. It made me feel like a celebrity.
After about an hour of driving I felt myself barely able to keep my eyes open. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my lack of sleep from being nervous or something else. Next thing I knew, I was asleep.