My application was the only thing to come of those thoughts. Comically large, hunched over at a decrepit desktop, ignoring spider webs pooling beneath the clunky desktop computer, my hopes eroded pragmatism, a river against the rock. I could feel my heart dripping onto the application, blood spilling, transforming into ink and essays. Every night that week ended in the hope dancing from the page into my dreams, after I was knocked half-dead striving for something more. What if you tried? On Friday, I mailed my soul to the university. In the interim, I waited. Every day, I made a customary stop to the mailbox, finding it consistently empty.
The routine of checking the mailbox on the way home from school became second nature, and I was taken aback when I found a sharp cornered, manila envelope in the mail. I snatched it, dirty calloused hands immediately wrinkling the paper. Tossing it onto the passenger side chair, it had barely grazed the upholstery before I pulled into the driveway.