Chapter 3: MIT and Chelsea

I was still incredibly tired. I looked up at the alarm clock on the night stand, it was after noon. I'd wasted my first three days in London just trying to adjust to the time difference. Five hours was a lot harder then it seemed. I hoped that readjusting to Boston time would be easier, I was supposed to start my sophomore year at MIT about a week after I flew back. If I flew back. I was tempted to call the admissions department and tell them I was dropping out.

I thought about Robbie before climbing out of bed. He had those bright sparkling blue eyes and that dirty blond hair that was always a mess. I pictured his teeth, perfectly straight and white. And once I got past his physical appearance there was our physical relationship. Nope, I had to stop thinking about that because it could possibly break my resolution to stay in London. I wasn't going back to Boston to chase after Robbie, not in this life time at least. But the things he could do with his tongue… stop it, stop it.

As I showered I thought about how I could work things out. I had a small amount of savings, about five thousand dollars, and then if I managed to contact admissions before the start of the semester, I would get all my tuition back, that was at least twenty grand. Twenty five thousand dollars, if I got a job, even if it was just as a barista in a café, well, whatever minimum wage was in England to add to my twenty five, which would be considerably less in England. I could just have an apartment that was empty of furniture, just to show my parents that I could live alone, because that was why they weren't willing to fund this.

That was a sore spot. They had bought Quincy's house when he married Marilyn, and they were paying Afton's school tuition. Liam kept an apartment in Boston, my parents paid the upkeep for it. But they wouldn't pay for me to live in England, or not right off. My mother had lived her entire life in Boston, she didn't know anything else, and I wasn't going to be trapped like that. I was much more like my father.

My father had done a lot of traveling and lived a lot of places. Of course, that was with the advantage of having parents who had money and would give it freely. My parents had money and spoiled my older brothers, but I'd had a job since I was 15, I'd never asked my parents for much money, and the one time I did… I didn't want to remember the lecture I'd gone through a few months ago.

I went for a run, timing myself. But I couldn't make my normal three miles, or I didn't think I had, I hadn't run long enough before I had to turn back to my hotel. I was kicking myself for eating like a college freshman, pizza and ramen noodles. But when you live in a dorm on a campus as large as MIT-Boston, you don't have many other options. Right off campus was a McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut.

I was blaming the unhealthy food for the freshman 15 I'd gained, but really, it could have been the cigarettes and the fact that I had lain in my bunk with my laptop propped on my legs too much. My roommate had been the boniest thing, but then, it was possible she'd kept weight off because she was always strung out on drugs or getting fucked by the random guys she met. Another reason I didn't want to return to MIT, I'd walked in on her immoral acts too many times. Spring finals had been straw that broke the camel's back, I just needed my chemistry text, I didn't need my roommate asking if I was interested in a threesome. I'd complained to my housing advisor a dozen times.

College had its highs and lows. The low was my roommate. The high had been Robbie until about a week before the end of the spring semester. We'd never had sex, or not actual intercourse, we'd messed around a lot though. Robbie was a Junior but he had enough credits to graduate if he went took a few classes over the summer. He proposed to me. Robbie was doing everything his parents wanted him too, finish college, find a girl, marry her, settle down, have children. Staying a virgin until he got married, I'd heard a lot about that, he grew up Catholic. I liked Robbie, but not enough to see myself spending the rest of my life with him. I was only 18, marriage was the last thing I wanted.

Specifically, I didn't want the image that had come to mind when I saw the ring. It was me in a white dress in a cathedral style church saying 'I do' and then a flash to five years down the road, me with a gaggle of children climbing all over me and Robbie 'working' all the time but really banging his secretary in the copy room. Ok, so I'd probably been watching too much TV. But they guy who holds out for sex until he gets married? Well, he'll probably wander afterwards, especially if he's Catholic and doesn't believe in birth control. No one wants to have sex with a 23 year old with five children, and that would make my extra freshman 15 pounds seem like supermodel weight. No children, no marriage, not for a long time.

I started running again, every morning I'd managed to get out of my hotel room in decent time and would just jog until I got tired, or bored. I always left my cell phone in my room, London was noisy, not like Boston noisy, not like fish ports and drunk sailors, not like the echoed rumble of cars in the Tunnel or the train whizzing past, it was different, a peaceful noisy.

Sunday morning I was back to my hotel before noon, my phone was buzzing. I answered it, still a little breathless. "Lo," I said, not recognizing the number.

"Emma? It's cousin Chelsea," I racked my brains for a moment, then remembered, she was Uncle Freddy's daughter, two years older then me.

"Oh, hello, Chelsea."

"Hey, I hear you're in London for a few weeks, I know it's short notice but I'm in town for a few days and was wondering if you wanted to go out for lunch."

"Oh, sure," I had probably been three the last time our fathers had talked. After my grandmother died and they had to settle the estate, they had a falling out. She started giving me information on a restaurant she'd treat me to. "Hold on, I need a pen," I looked around on the desk where all the hotel pens had been sitting before I left. Of course the maid had come in, I was betting she had pilfered them.

"So how are you enjoying London?" I was kind of amazed at how strong her accent was, she hadn't grown up in Boston like me, after the falling out my uncle and his wife and two children had moved to Bristol, he had taken some job, or that was the official story.

"Um, it's nice, peaceful," I found a pen near the room service menu. "Ok," She started to rattle of information again. "Um," I didn't know London well enough, but I was pretty sure the address she had just given me wasn't in the small section I'd explored.

"Just get a taxi, and give the cabbie the address and he can find it, k?"

"Alright," There were a few more formalities before she told me she had to go.