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Her eyes fell to the piece of paper as I continued rambling.
“I even looked up some things you could do between now and next semester. You know, if you decided to postpone for a semester to try and work things out.”
She cleared her throat. “I can do that?”
I nodded. “Yep. C.S.U. has a policy that allows all enrolled students to postpone their schooling for a semester before they either have to drop or declare a transfer to a different school. I listed some jobs around here that would work well with your grocery store experience. A few places hiring part time. I also looked up some rental places you could take a look at. You know, so you can root yourself here and not have to go back home to deal with your mother if you don’t want to.”
She swallowed hard. “You looked all this up for me?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it’s what I did when my father threw my life for a loop last year. I spent as much time as I could looking up all sorts of avenues for my life. I figured you could use the same information. Plus, there’s lot of other things you can do that I can’t. Like, working in a call center. Or online English tutoring services. There are some freelancing websites you should check out. It’s really cool.”
“Clint,” she whispered.
“Oh! And no overhead cost. Just the website taking a small percentage of the money you’re paid for jobs. All you’d need is a place to live and an internet connection.”
“Clint, I--”
“I mean, if you really made something of it, you could travel. I know you like traveling. Anywhere with an internet connection would work. I read a few stories online where people did this full time. They didn’t even go to school. Just did this freelancing work, and then did what they wanted on the side. You could do this, and then sell your drawings for--”
“Clint.”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
Rae sighed. “This is--this is generous.”
I shrugged. “It’s what you need. Options. I needed options, at least. And I figured they might help. I mean, you’ve got everything from what you can accomplish here at C.S.U. all the way to working and traveling at the same time. If you travel to the right places, too, you could make that look really good on an application form for some hoity-toity job along down the line.”
She giggled. “Hoity toity?”
I grinned. “Or something like that.”
“Clint… this is--”
I pressed my finger against her lips. “Your choice to make. Not mine.”
“Will you just listen for a second?”
“In my defense, you’ve done a lot of talking lately. Let me finish. Please?”
She nodded slowly. “You’re right. Okay.”
I sighed. “I’m not going to push you in any direction. You take the time you need to think about this. Pour over those notes. Think about what really would make you happy. I mean, just you. Not me, or Mike, or Ally, or your mom. Just you. If you fell asleep tomorrow and woke up with any of those options in play, which one would you want it to be? Once you know that, you know what your next step is.”
“You’re too good to me, Clint.”
“At one point in time, Rae, you were too good to me. I left you over less, because I thought I was protecting you from something. You helped me get through high school. I graduated because of you. I know it upsets you that I’m not going to college, but--”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t upset me.”
“Well, however it makes you feel, I know you’re not very happy with it. Which is okay. You guys put in a lot of work to help me graduate. And I won’t let you down because of that.”
“Clint, you don’t owe us any--”
“Will you just listen, Rae?”
She licked her lips. “You’re talking from a good place, but you’re missing some information you really need to know.”
“Can I finish anyway?”
