Chapter 9 - The Semester Nobody Could Do for Me
College did not reward me for having a difficult summer.
My first programming assignment took nine hours.
My first statistics quiz came back with a red circle around a mistake so basic I stared at it in disbelief.
A scholarship had opened the door.
It had not made the coursework easy.
For one terrible afternoon, I heard Dad’s old judgment in my head.
Maybe they had known something I didn’t.
Nia found me staring at the quiz.
“What did you get?”
I told her.
She showed me hers.
It was worse.
“Come on,” she said. “Office hours. We can be confused professionally.”
Professor Shah explained the concept without treating confusion as a character flaw.
I left with three pages of notes and a feeling I was still learning to recognize: difficulty didn’t mean I didn’t belong.
I got the campus data assistant job after an interview and a short skills exercise.
Most of my work involved cleaning survey responses and checking inconsistent entries.
It was not glamorous.
I loved being paid to notice when something didn’t make sense.
Camille struggled too.
The first time she texted a photograph of an assignment, I felt my shoulders tense.
Then another message appeared.
Can you tell me where the tutoring center is? I don’t want you doing this for me.
I sent the address.
A week later, she told me she had gone twice.
Our relationship improved in increments too small for photographs.
She returned borrowed things.
She stopped speaking for me.
When Mom asked us both to come home for a weekend and I declined because of work, Camille said, “Jessica already answered.”
She didn’t tell me afterward to collect credit.
Mom did, awkwardly, during our next call.
“I’m trying to ask instead of assume.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Dad called every other Sunday.
Sometimes the conversations were stiff. Sometimes he slipped into advice before listening, and I told him.
Once, he said, “You’re right. Start again.”
I wrote that moment in my journal because I wanted a record of improvement that didn’t require me to forget the damage.
In November, the university announced a student research exhibition.
Professor Shah encouraged me to submit an expanded version of the grocery project.
I hesitated.
The old file with Camille’s name still existed somewhere, attached to a memory I disliked.
“Do you want to do the research?” Professor Shah asked.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t let somebody else’s bad decision choose your next one.”
I worked with Denise to collect more approved data. Another small store agreed to participate through the same company review process.
The expanded results were less tidy than the original ones.
One recommendation worked well at my store and poorly at the second.
Instead of hiding that, I made it the center of the presentation.
A useful model needed local knowledge. A store wasn’t just rows in a spreadsheet.
The exhibition filled a campus hall on a rainy Thursday.
Grandma arrived wearing the earrings she saved for weddings.
Leah brought flowers wrapped in grocery paper.
Mom and Dad stood near the back.
Camille arrived alone and took a seat beside Nia.
When my turn came, I adjusted the microphone.
My hands trembled once.
Then I began.
I talked about waste, ordering habits, incomplete records, and the cost of making assumptions without checking them.
Halfway through, I looked up.
Dad was listening with his notebook open.
Afterward, a local business owner asked whether I would consider a paid summer project.
Professor Shah helped us discuss the next steps without making promises before we understood the scope.
Across the hall, Camille was speaking to another student.
“That’s my sister,” she said.
I braced automatically.
Then she added, “She did the research. You should ask her about it.”
No shared credit.
No explanation for why I had succeeded.
Just my work, directed back to me.
I looked toward her.
May you like
She met my eyes and smiled.
For the first time in months, I smiled back without having to decide whether it was safe.
