Dr. Lee’ s authoritative, yet kind gaze soothed me. “Go on,” he encouraged. “You’ve made so much progress. Say the words. You can do it.”
My mouth felt like a seagull, tongue leaden with British Petroleum. I opened it anyway.
“I’m”, I began, my voice cracking. He smiled and nodded. “Going. To.” This time, like every time, I hesitated.
The last word was the hardest. I could see his lips pursing that initial “P”, then his tongue curling back for the “r”, pausing only to dislodge some pear stuck between his two shiniest molars. The movement looked so simple, so deceptive. I opened my mouth and stammered.
“A- a liberal arts school in New Jersey.”
His face fell. The falling of his face caused mine to fall, which then made Dr. Lee’s face fall even further. I wanted to cry out, to scream, to yell out, or to wail. When would I ever be able to say those four simple words?
Getting that admissions letter in March had changed everything, but life wasn’t all guns and roses. I loved the shirt that came in the mail and I even wore it to the bathroom. But I just couldn’t wear it outside without taping another school’s name on it, or worse, a slip of paper that said “Trust me- not Princeton.” For a while, my secret was safe.
When my buds asked me where I was going to school, my brain shut down like the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to just give a straight answer. “Oh, you know, near Rutgers,” I told one pal. “It’s considered the Stanford of the mid-Atlantic,” I told another. What on earth had happened to me?
If our trusty plumber Helga hadn’t found my copy of This Side of Paradise floating in its hiding spot, I might never have gotten the help I needed. The first step was finding out what I could do. Even if I couldn’t say the words, I could compliment my dad’s orange and black selfie stick, or clap my hands with glee when I saw Ted Cruz on the television box. Little by little, I was making progress.
If it weren’t for Dr. Lee and his therapy, I might still huddle by the septic tank, whispering the lyrics to Old Nassau. I might still be flipping through the J. Crew catalogue, like a stamp collector flipping through a stamp catalogue. He taught me to be proud, not deeply ashamed of where I was heading for school.
Until my very first victory, however, I still hadn’t won, though. When my uncle, former BP executive Tufan Erginbilgic, asked me where I was going to college, I almost froze up. But instead, I didn’t! I thought of everything Dr. Lee had sensually coughed at me and gleefully announced, “I’m going to Princeton, you stupid idiot!” My family was never prouder, and I was finally allowed to eat at the dining room table again! From that moment on, I knew things were going to be perfect!
— GW ’16, Illustration by AF ’17