What to Do (With my Life)

“I literally don’t know what to do with my life.” It was a statement that each of the Four had made at least once in their lives, but it passed Carine’s lips the most often. 

Emma was going into social work and child psychology, and despite her grades and less than shining track record, she wrote a killer entrance essay that got her into over 14 colleges of varying fame and tuition fees. Savannah was planning on taking cooking classes and working towards at least an associate’s degree for business on the side to open her restaurant. And Rosie had known what she wanted to do since before she was a freshman; get accepted to a school with a good soccer program, get a scholarship, and explore for a few years before declaring something within the athletic field, whether it was something like sport and exercise science or sports management. 

Carine was bent over at Savannah’s desk scouring through the various university pamphlets and websites to find something that interested her. Goldie was stretched out on her bed, leg bent at a nearly 90 degree angle in its brace as she paged through the literature book. Sav was sitting across from her on her own bunk and completing financial aid forms for the community college down the road.

“You could go into zoology,” Emma had spread out on the ground doing… a whole lot of nothing, actually, “Work at a zoo or an animal rescue or something.”

“Go simple. Do business. You could go anywhere in the country,” Sav said without looking up from the spread of papers in front of her.

“You’re only saying that because that’s partially what you’re doing,” Carine turned around and felt her back pop all the way up her spine. 

“You could take a year off,” Goldie set the book off to the side and propped herself up with her elbows, “You’ve always talked about that a little bit, no matter how much of a joke it was.”

“That’s all it was though, a joke,” Carine pushed herself away from the desk and went to sit next to Goldie, letting her braced leg rest on her lap, “My parents would kill me if I decided to do that.”

“No they wouldn’t. Your parents are some of the most understanding people I know.” 

And that was exactly the problem. Her parents were so understanding that it was basically an allowance to do whatever she wanted. But at the same time, Carine felt that as the eldest daughter and sibling, she had no choice but to be perfect. It wasn’t entirely self-fueled; her dad was the principal of the Lutheran grade school nearest to the high school, and her mom was a jewelry maker selling on Etsy or whatever online resource she used. Good grades were rewarded with a special dinner or dessert, and there had nearly been a party thrown when Carine was awarded the title of the team’s captain. 

If she had asked for her mom’s home office to be turned into a bedroom so that she wouldn’t have to share with her 2 younger sisters, she would’ve gotten it. If she had asked for a new pair of cleats when the bottom of hers had broken nearly in half, she would’ve gotten it (instead, she taped it with duct tape and carried the roll with her in case of emergencies). If she asked for a few less responsibilities at home, she would’ve gotten it, even if the house would’ve slowly started to fall into disarray. She was good at taking on more responsibility than she should’ve, but her family had come to rely on it. 

“Car,” Goldie was the only one allowed to call her that, “it’s okay to be selfish sometimes.”

“This coming from you?”

She grinned, “It’s not a self-application.”

“I’ll take it into consideration, thanks,” she grabbed the literature book from near Goldie’s left hand, “So what are you reading?”

They weren’t in the same literature class; even though their high school was one of the smallest in the Lutheran association and definitely the smallest in their division of California, they were able to have British Literature for the majority of seniors, but also A.P. Literature and Composition. Carine was in A.P. Lit with Emma while the other two were in Brit Lit. 

Technically speaking, Goldie didn’t have dyslexia, but there was something about the subject that she couldn’t wrap her head around. She didn’t have a problem reading for fun or for any other assignment, but the second you asked her for a theme, symbol, or motif, her brain hit the road and hitchhiked away. In any other subject, she was pretty smart, but literature was her worst subject by far.

“Beowulf,” she moaned, “We’re not even discussing it until next week, but Mrs. Nake wants me to read it before Thursday.” 

“You ready for it?”

“I’m going to answer yes, but we’re both going to know that I’m not.”

Thursday marked exactly two months since she had torn her ACL and the date of her reconstruction surgery. Thankfully, the night of the “Incident” as they were calling it, took place near the beginning of the school year, so if everything in surgery and during recovery went right, she would miss around four games by the time the season finally rolled around. The doctors said it was “lucky” that the tear happened the way that it did without knowing that she lost her dad and had gotten herself thrown into a court case at the same time. 

“Zach said he’ll be here in, like, ten minutes,” Emma said. It was another tradition of theirs, to meet up Sunday night and make dinner together and study or complain or turn on a bad sitcom and ignore the homework for a while. 

“To the kitchen we go,” Sav was already shoving documents back into the folders she had pulled them from, “What are we making tonight?”

“Your house, your choice, Sav, those are the rules,” Emma had followed after her, stretching and balling her hair up to the crown of her head for a bun that revealed the shaved part underneath.

“If she makes us pizza again she better have spinach,” Goldie mumbled, “Maybe I’ll just make a bastardized version of a salad.”

Carine laughed and held out a hand to help her off of the bed, “What, just spinach and ranch?”

“I’ll steal some peppers from a cutting board,” she answered, “maybe some pepperoni if I feel daring. And ignoring Beowulf until later.”

“If you want, I can walk you through it,” Carine offered, “It’s more simple than you think it is once you get into it, and the history of it is pretty interesting too. See, the story was part of an oral tradition, so it was told around Anglo-Saxon fireplaces and social halls and stuff until it was written down, and I’m pretty sure part of it was lost at some point, so what we have might not even be the entire story. And it’s also pretty crazy to think that what we have is only one person’s interpretation. Some of the other story tellers may have had more flourishes or minor plot points and things like that, but we’ll never know.”

“That is pretty neat.” Goldie paused at the top of the stairs and braced her hands on either side of the hall, “Maybe you could go into English or something.”

It was probably just a passing idea, just like the travel idea, but it made Carine pause in her thinking even if she was physically still walking behind Goldie to make sure that she didn’t slip and fall down the stairs. Goldie seemingly had a gift of knowing exactly what to say even if she didn’t realize it, and it was something that Carine loved about her, just like her passion for soccer or her deep, deep love for the people she allied herself with. 

Zach got there shortly after and Carine was able to put her worries in the backseat with her friends surrounding her. There was laughter, and even though there was pizza, Goldie was able to make a salad and have a slice or two as a treat. Emma and Sav had a short wrestling match on the ground before the movie they chose, and Zach shared that he had gotten a call from a Midwestern sports broadcasting radio station about the possibility of him joining the next year, even though he was still planning on college. 

It was cool enough for sweats and blankets as they watched their movie, and Goldie fell asleep like she always did, even though she swore that she wouldn’t. Emma was giving running, cynical commentary and Sav was cackling along and Zach was psycho-analysing, and Carine was happy to just let it happen. She wasn’t usually one to get sappy at the end of the year or when deadlines or ends were coming up, but there was something bittersweet about parting with the best group of friends that she’d ever had in her entire life. But it wasn’t happening tonight, and it wasn’t happening for another couple of months, so Carine let it lie and settled in as Zach started the second movie.