Far From Home - Chapter 13: Chapter 13
You are reading Far From Home, Chapter 13: Chapter 13. Read more chapters of Far From Home.
Mid-October
Kris hadn't been lying when she said the corn field lab 'sucked ass.' Jake thought spending years living in the midst of them would have prepared him for anything that had to do with corn, but he was somehow painfully wrong. His soil samples weren't matching up with what the land map said, and somehow the soil he identified shouldn't have even existed in this part of Ohio either. He texted Rose for help, but she hadn't answered, and Jake had had about two hours too much of staring at the screen hoping he would catch some major flaw in his calculations. Frustrated with his condition, his head hit the desk.
This is my career path? I am so fucking screwed.
Midterms were killing him. This lab write-up was the nail in the coffin. His original plan was to meet Nat in the library across campus to go over the review guide for Stats, but when he had called her earlier in the afternoon, she was already on the way out of town for a hockey game. She joked that Jake should have come with them to study on the road, and however last minute it would have been, Jake thought he might have actually gone with her this morning if it meant saving his sanity. He didn't know the first thing about hockey, but he would have been willing to learn on the way there. 'Maybe another time then' she had promised him, but Jake didn't need her help next weekend or three months from now, he needed it now.
I am so fucking stupid. How did I get in here?
He had taken two out of his three midterms already, and although he thought his high school study habits would have worked well enough, he was deeply humbled at the first glance of a 'real exam.' Even now, after the anxiety of taking the test had subsided, his heart still raced for his results—the only thing able to settle the sinking feeling in his stomach that this was all more than he was cut out for.
Maybe Aaron and Hunter were right. College wasn't meant for people like them. Jake had always been called 'smart,' but the term 'smart' itself was deeply relative to the population at study. Of course someone like Jake could be smart in a town where no one cared enough about high school to try harder than passing, let alone getting into college with a flashy ACT score and extracurriculars. Their town's definition of 'extracurriculars' was sports, 4H, or whatever job you worked on the side. There was never a chess club or student government. They had a student body president and a small marching band—that was as festive as their student involvement got.
Jake wasn't an outlier like he thought he was, he was just like all of them. He lived the same boring life that every other boy in that town did. Outside of academic transcripts, he and Aaron were practically interchangeable. The stereotypical football-playing, church-going, hard-working boys who drove old trucks and got drunk on occasion. Jake was nothing special, he was quite unremarkable, and the thought that maybe he had overestimated his abilities was hitting harder today than it ever had before.
His fingers wove through his hair frustratedly as he tried to catch a complete breath of air. Each strand pulled a little bit harder than it should have, but it was so easy to hold on to, Jake hadn't noticed his increased tolerance for pain. At this point his mother would have picked at him about needing a haircut—she always noticed when his hair started changing style even when Jake couldn't tell it about himself. If Jake were home, he might have even asked her to do it. But Jake wasn't home, he was in the city where he didn't know the first place to look for a haircut, and his mother hadn't talked to him since the day before he left.
He wondered if he called right now if she would even recognize his voice. Maybe he could wait for her to pick up the phone just to listen to her tone as she answered. Would her voice be filled with that same surface level cheer she gave every stranger, or would she sound diluted by the weight of getting out of bed to answer the phone at all? He couldn't help but feel a bit guilty that he hadn't reached out to find out sooner. Did he owe it to her to try? Or was it the other way around? Shouldn't she be the one calling to check up on him? She was his mother after all, why did all the responsibility fall on him? Jake hadn't decided whose fault it really was, but it sent an ache through his chest that was not mild enough to be comfortable.
For the first time since he had been here, he actually missed home.
He wanted to climb into his truck and drive over to Aaron's—knocking on his door to play Xbox with him until the light of the morning came through the window and made them both hate each other for staying up so late. They would be tired, but they would trudge to work with bags under their eyes and a can of RedBull in each hand, and then they'd do it all again on some unfortunate night the next week. He would go home to his family that night—his dad passed out on the couch, his sister barging into his room and leaving the door open without a single thing to say, and his mother passing by with a smile as the dog followed her from room to room. In the morning, the kitchen air would smell like cinnamon, and Jake would smile as he grabbed a muffin to take with him to another day out in the sun.
He allowed himself to idolize it, but he knew—he knew—if he went back now, none of that would be the same. That vision of home lived in his castle of memories where a younger version of himself played in its halls and frolicked through its forests, too naïve to know what his future there held. Life wasn't simple anymore—if it ever was. He had always had some faint understanding that belonging was a bit like an audition. He no longer played the part. His role had to be recast. Jake was an extra in that part of his own story.
In a trance, Jake didn't know when the first tear had escaped down his cheek. It surprised him enough to center him back to reality, but not enough to find its presence unwarranted. He dragged his hands down over his face and wiped it away—just as soon as the wall had cracked, he had begun patching it up. He didn't want to think about home. He didn't want to think about what he left there and what was there for him if he returned. He didn't want to miss a place that had hurt him so badly, but it was second nature to someone who had never known any other place to go.
He needed to find something else. He needed something else that felt like home.
Jake closed his laptop down on his desk, registering that he was going to get nothing done if he sat and stared at it for the duration of the night. Even as stressed as he was, he knew himself well enough to know he needed a fresh start. He needed to clear his head if he wanted to be able to use it.
At home, nature had offered a refuge. On a tough day, he could find himself walking the woods to study the new ways branches fell over his path or how the bird's song sounded different than it had the week before. On nights that seemed too claustrophobic inside his bedroom, he wandered out to his truck bed and watched the stars—connecting the dots with imaginary lines that made his thoughts a little more clear.
He didn't have any of that here, but Jake was determined to find something that felt the same.
Kris hadn't been lying when she said the corn field lab 'sucked ass.' Jake thought spending years living in the midst of them would have prepared him for anything that had to do with corn, but he was somehow painfully wrong. His soil samples weren't matching up with what the land map said, and somehow the soil he identified shouldn't have even existed in this part of Ohio either. He texted Rose for help, but she hadn't answered, and Jake had had about two hours too much of staring at the screen hoping he would catch some major flaw in his calculations. Frustrated with his condition, his head hit the desk.
This is my career path? I am so fucking screwed.
Midterms were killing him. This lab write-up was the nail in the coffin. His original plan was to meet Nat in the library across campus to go over the review guide for Stats, but when he had called her earlier in the afternoon, she was already on the way out of town for a hockey game. She joked that Jake should have come with them to study on the road, and however last minute it would have been, Jake thought he might have actually gone with her this morning if it meant saving his sanity. He didn't know the first thing about hockey, but he would have been willing to learn on the way there. 'Maybe another time then' she had promised him, but Jake didn't need her help next weekend or three months from now, he needed it now.
I am so fucking stupid. How did I get in here?
He had taken two out of his three midterms already, and although he thought his high school study habits would have worked well enough, he was deeply humbled at the first glance of a 'real exam.' Even now, after the anxiety of taking the test had subsided, his heart still raced for his results—the only thing able to settle the sinking feeling in his stomach that this was all more than he was cut out for.
Maybe Aaron and Hunter were right. College wasn't meant for people like them. Jake had always been called 'smart,' but the term 'smart' itself was deeply relative to the population at study. Of course someone like Jake could be smart in a town where no one cared enough about high school to try harder than passing, let alone getting into college with a flashy ACT score and extracurriculars. Their town's definition of 'extracurriculars' was sports, 4H, or whatever job you worked on the side. There was never a chess club or student government. They had a student body president and a small marching band—that was as festive as their student involvement got.
Jake wasn't an outlier like he thought he was, he was just like all of them. He lived the same boring life that every other boy in that town did. Outside of academic transcripts, he and Aaron were practically interchangeable. The stereotypical football-playing, church-going, hard-working boys who drove old trucks and got drunk on occasion. Jake was nothing special, he was quite unremarkable, and the thought that maybe he had overestimated his abilities was hitting harder today than it ever had before.
His fingers wove through his hair frustratedly as he tried to catch a complete breath of air. Each strand pulled a little bit harder than it should have, but it was so easy to hold on to, Jake hadn't noticed his increased tolerance for pain. At this point his mother would have picked at him about needing a haircut—she always noticed when his hair started changing style even when Jake couldn't tell it about himself. If Jake were home, he might have even asked her to do it. But Jake wasn't home, he was in the city where he didn't know the first place to look for a haircut, and his mother hadn't talked to him since the day before he left.
He wondered if he called right now if she would even recognize his voice. Maybe he could wait for her to pick up the phone just to listen to her tone as she answered. Would her voice be filled with that same surface level cheer she gave every stranger, or would she sound diluted by the weight of getting out of bed to answer the phone at all? He couldn't help but feel a bit guilty that he hadn't reached out to find out sooner. Did he owe it to her to try? Or was it the other way around? Shouldn't she be the one calling to check up on him? She was his mother after all, why did all the responsibility fall on him? Jake hadn't decided whose fault it really was, but it sent an ache through his chest that was not mild enough to be comfortable.
For the first time since he had been here, he actually missed home.
He wanted to climb into his truck and drive over to Aaron's—knocking on his door to play Xbox with him until the light of the morning came through the window and made them both hate each other for staying up so late. They would be tired, but they would trudge to work with bags under their eyes and a can of RedBull in each hand, and then they'd do it all again on some unfortunate night the next week. He would go home to his family that night—his dad passed out on the couch, his sister barging into his room and leaving the door open without a single thing to say, and his mother passing by with a smile as the dog followed her from room to room. In the morning, the kitchen air would smell like cinnamon, and Jake would smile as he grabbed a muffin to take with him to another day out in the sun.
He allowed himself to idolize it, but he knew—he knew—if he went back now, none of that would be the same. That vision of home lived in his castle of memories where a younger version of himself played in its halls and frolicked through its forests, too naïve to know what his future there held. Life wasn't simple anymore—if it ever was. He had always had some faint understanding that belonging was a bit like an audition. He no longer played the part. His role had to be recast. Jake was an extra in that part of his own story.
In a trance, Jake didn't know when the first tear had escaped down his cheek. It surprised him enough to center him back to reality, but not enough to find its presence unwarranted. He dragged his hands down over his face and wiped it away—just as soon as the wall had cracked, he had begun patching it up. He didn't want to think about home. He didn't want to think about what he left there and what was there for him if he returned. He didn't want to miss a place that had hurt him so badly, but it was second nature to someone who had never known any other place to go.
He needed to find something else. He needed something else that felt like home.
Jake closed his laptop down on his desk, registering that he was going to get nothing done if he sat and stared at it for the duration of the night. Even as stressed as he was, he knew himself well enough to know he needed a fresh start. He needed to clear his head if he wanted to be able to use it.
At home, nature had offered a refuge. On a tough day, he could find himself walking the woods to study the new ways branches fell over his path or how the bird's song sounded different than it had the week before. On nights that seemed too claustrophobic inside his bedroom, he wandered out to his truck bed and watched the stars—connecting the dots with imaginary lines that made his thoughts a little more clear.
He didn't have any of that here, but Jake was determined to find something that felt the same.
End of Far From Home Chapter 13. Continue reading Chapter 14 or return to Far From Home book page.