Chapter 2

Princeton was four years of bad decisions with dumb friends and equally bad girlfriends. But it was also the first time anybody expected anything from me besides high grades. It was the first time people spoke to me like an adult, even if I wasn't ready to be one. Responsibility was thrust upon me whether I wanted it or not. My freshman year was a complete disaster. If it wasn't for a couple of my fraternity brothers and a very understanding math professor, I might not have gotten through it at all.

People say college is freedom. That's true. But with freedom comes trust. Expectation. Responsibility. Accountability. I was an 18 year old idiot. I ended up in the ER three times that year. Twice to get my stomach pumped from drinking too much, once because I broke my wrist when I jumped off the roof of the frat house onto a bounce house we rented but I didn't land right. I was also pretty high at the time. Each time my Dad heard about it and thankfully kept it to himself. Had he told my mother, I would probably be dead and my skin made into fashionable driving gloves or something. He also made sure I wasn't given any pain killers once I left the ER. That might be one of the best things he ever did for me. Still, I was just about to fail everything when my brothers sat me down and gave it to me straight.

I had to get my shit together, they said. Of the five classes I was taking, only one had a passing grade. I was partying too much and completely unfocused. The frat was there for fun, but I couldn't just blow off the education part, they said. I might have shrugged all of it off and dropped out had it not been for that one class I was passing.

I liked math. I always had. People made no sense to me. History was wild and unpredictable, literature was an opaque mystery, and all I got out of my government class was how broken the system is. But math had order and logic and everything always made sense. Two plus two was always four, in every country, in every language. It always came out the same. I could count on it, as my grandfather used to joke when I was a kid. When it came to college courses, I had taken a math class each semester so I would have something I liked to depend on. Going to math was never a struggle unlike my bi-weekly battles with poetry and spanish.

So when Professor Hillard started noticing bad patterns in my behaviour, he asked me to come to his office hours for a chat. Curious, I went.

"Logan, I wanted to speak to you honestly, man to man," my statistics professor began, surprising me. He paused and met my gaze with a serious expression. "How have you been adjusting to college life?"

I was about to brush him off with my standard "I'm fine," but something in his face made me reconsider my token response. I gave it a moment or two while looking at the floor and fiddling with my wrist splint before I swallowed my pride. "Honestly, Hill? I'm… struggling a bit actually." I looked back up to his face. He just sat there, waiting for me to continue. He didn't look disappointed or angry. He didn't immediately start off on a tirade about me being a failure. So I continued, carefully choosing my words. I had a gut feeling that I should be truthful and leave my bravado and sarcasm out of the conversation.

"I wasn't expecting… well, so much. The ability to make my own choices about what I'm doing- where I go and when, what classes to take, what to eat, when to sleep… I didn't think I would be quite so…" I struggled for the right word. "Overwhelmed. My mom was always around the corner, in my business, making all my choices for me. I never thought I would say this, but I kinda miss having her around. I thought she was just controlling and annoying but with her calling the shots, I didn't have to worry about SO much. Now… I don't know what I'm doing."

There. I admitted it. He was going to lecture me now, I could feel it. I waited, fearing the guilt trip I was going to take. I could hear my mom's echoes in my mind. You're too lazy Logan. You're irresponsible Logan. How can I trust you to take care of yourself when I still have to remind you to tie your own damn shoelaces?

She had always micromanaged my life so much so that without her, I was letting everything slip away, all that I had worked for. The silence stretched on and I dared to look Professor Hillard in the face, hoping he wasn't too angry.

He was sitting on the edge of his desk, brow furrowed, obviously thinking. He hadn't started shouting, or lecturing, or doing anything that I expected. I let the silence continue, too unsure of myself or him to dare and break it.

He finally sighed and I braced myself for the blow.

"Logan, I get it. And I want to help."

With the help and advice from Hill and my brothers, I eked out passing grades for that semester. In an effort to keep some structure and responsibility in my summer so that I wouldn't slip back into decadence and sloth with drinking too much, sleeping til noon every day, and generally letting myself become useless, I sought a summer job once I was back home after finals. Also, Hill advised, a job would give me an excuse to be out of the house and away from my mother and her meddling. I couldn't just go home and let her take over my schedule and my life again. It would only set me up to flounder once more in the fall. I had to be an adult and retain my newly-achieved control.

About three days after I came back home, I was driving around town looking for "help wanted" signs in the windows. This town was much too backwards to have anything listed online; I know because I checked there first. My luck seemed to be out until I saw Mr. Fischoeder walking down the street. I decided to ask and see if he knew of anything available, since he seemed to have his fingers in a lot of pies, including the new bakery in town, Live Free and Pie Hard.

I rolled down my window and shouted out to him. The next two hours turned my life upside down but in a great way. We walked over to a coffee shop and talked. He did actually know of someplace that needed help- his own accountant had up and quit on him. Again. That was the third accountant in as many years, Fischoeder said.

I had taken accounting in my first semester but I was pretty new to the whole thing, I warned him. He said so long as I didn't get my knickers in a twist over every little thing, he was willing to take a chance on me. Before I knew it, we were headed back to the Wonder Wharf business office to go over his books. They were… well to call them a mess would be rude to actual messes. Calvin wrote out receipts on cocktail napkins. He paid almost everyone on the wharf under the table. He would acquire a business, forget about it for a while, then remember it and write out notes on whatever was nearby- in one case, the tshirt he then had to buy off the guy he wrote on.

I was terrified I was about to get in over my head, but a reckless little voice pointed out that it wouldn't ever be boring here. With a small amount of trepidation but a foolhardy enthusiasm for chaos, I began work with him right then and there. Summer was going to be a lot more interesting than I expected.