Let Them Dare novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Move-In Day

Move-in day at Cromwell was the last Saturday in August, and my mother carried more boxes than the two of us together.

She would not let anyone take them from her.

"I carry things for a living," she told a very worried boy in an orientation shirt. "Point me at the stairs."

He pointed.

My room was on the third floor of a brick hall with a view of the lawn, and the roommate's side was still empty.

Robby had parked the truck behind the building, with the tailgate down and my lamp across his knees.

He lived on the other side of campus, in a dorm he had called "a cinderblock with ambition," and he'd already got lost twice.

"You're in the wrong hall," my mother said to him, kindly.

"I'm carrying a lamp."

"That's a reason."

She hugged me in the middle of the room with her chin on my head.

She had taken a third floor in June, a doctor's office on Fifth, and her hands were rougher than they'd been in March.

"Call me when you're finished being brave," she said.

"I'm not brave."

"You're not finished, either." She pulled back and looked at my face. "I'll see you Friday."

I walked her down to the car.

The quad below the hall was full of tables and balloons, and upperclassmen in matching shirts were calling out to every first-year who came near.

A banner hung between two trees: WELCOME, CLASS OF NEXT. FIRST-YEAR CIRCLE AT FOUR.

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