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ALICIA
“Please. All I need is a little more time. I promise I’ll be able to get the money together. It just won’t be right now.”
I’d love to say this is my first time inside this office, but it’s not. It isn’t even the tenth time. By now, my advisor and I are on a first-name basis. That makes it even more painful when he sighs and leans back in his chair after hearing my sob story for nearly the one-hundredth time.
“I’m sorry, Alicia.” He shrugs and tosses his pen on the desk. “But there’s nothing I can do.”
I hold up my folded hands. “John, come on. Please,” I beg. “You know what it’s been like for me.”
“I do because we go through this conversation every time I have to call you in for late tuition payments.”
It takes everything inside me not to grit my teeth and roll my eyes. Instead, I make nice because, at the end of the day, I need him. “They cut back my hours at the store,” I explain even though I know he doesn’t want to hear it. “I could try to get a second job, but then I won’t have any time to go to class.”
As it is, I barely sleep at night since I hardly have time to study otherwise. I’m practically killing myself to get through college, so I might as well try to pass my classes. Otherwise, what’s it all for?
Like always, he is sympathetic, but that’s about as far as it goes.
“I understand. I really do. Many of us are going through hardships. It’s just the fact of life right now.”
I shake my head in frustration. “That’s not even mentioning the fact that everything is more expensive now. Tuition has been raised. I don’t see how anybody can keep up with this, even people with families paying for them.”
He leans forward, folding his hands on a stack of folders. He’s a nice guy, a family man with photos of his kids lined up on his desk. I get the sense he doesn’t make much in his job—his clothes are always a little worn. And once, I passed a shoe store at the mall and could’ve sworn he was one of the guys helping customers locate a style in their size. But the store was pretty crowded, so I could have been wrong. Still, it wouldn’t shock me to find out he has a second job.
“You aren’t the only person going through tough times,” he explains in a quieter voice than the one he used before. “And I agree with you; it’s startling the way costs seem to rise every year. Inflation’s a bitch, too—pardon my language.”
Yes, that was one of the reasons they gave me at the store for cutting back hours. It costs more money to ship products to the stores across the country and more to produce them, so they have to save money where they can. That means people like me go bye-bye.
“I do everything I can to locate money for the students assigned to me.” He plops a hand on top of a thick stack of file folders. “Here are just some of the people who’ve passed through my door in the last week alone. Pretty soon, my kids are going to forget what I look like if I keep pulling the kind of hours I’ve been putting myself through.”
I feel sorry for him, but what am I supposed to say? “And are you able to help them?”
“Some. Others have used every last resource at their disposal, but it still isn’t enough.” He lowers his brow, gazing at me from over the top of his glasses. “Does that sound familiar?”
“Are you trying to guilt-trip me?”
“Of course not.” He looks at me like he can’t believe I would think such a thing. “I’m just saying there’s only so much that can be done. We’ve been here before, Ms. Gutierrez, and every time we’ve managed to pull something out of thin air. But a lot of these programs are tapped out now. The grants, all of it. You’re going to have to find a way to make up the difference yourself. I’m sorry, but the school has policies in place for a reason.”
Policies. Rules. I’m so sick of hearing about them, sick of everybody else getting an extra pass except for me. There are so many other arguments I can make, but I’ve made them all before. He practically knows my entire life story by now. I’m surprised I didn’t get invited to his kids’ last birthday party. We spend so much time facing each other across his scarred, scuffed metal desk that we might as well be family.
Speaking of family, I don’t have any to fall back on. I don’t have anything valuable that I can sell. There are only so many hours in the day, and I doubt I could devote enough of them that anybody would bother hiring me.
His eyes light up, and for a moment, I have hope. “Could you find work someplace else? If they’ve cut back your hours—”
So much for hope. I shake my head, nauseated more and more with every passing moment. “I’ve already applied for everything anywhere near campus, but jobs are scarce. Everybody keeps telling me more spots will open after graduation, but what good will that do me now? Besides, the company covers part of my tuition as it is. I’d be in worse shape if I quit.”
“I know, it all seems impossible.”
“Seems?” I scoff, “No, it is. You’re telling me I’m going to be kicked out of school at the end of this semester unless I can pay the rest of my bill, which we both know I can’t.”
“You won’t be kicked out,” he reminds me, and while I know he’s trying to be nice, the fact that he sounds like he’s trying to talk one of his twin toddlers out of doing something foolish only grates on my nerves. “You’ll be put on a waitlist, then re-enrolled when you can pay again. And until then, there’s one last extension we can apply for, but that’s it.”
Yes, that’s it. I only have to wait until I can afford it. By then, tuition will go up even higher than before, I’m sure. It doesn’t help that some of the classes I need for my major are only offered next semester, then not again for a year. This isn’t a matter of just waiting until next year. It would be a year and a half at this point. A year and a half of everyone around me moving on and getting ahead while I work some crappy job, scraping nickels together to afford the basics.
There’s a knock on the door, and we turn to find the financial office administrator poking her head in. “Your five o’clock is here,” she murmurs, offering me an apologetic smile. In other words, it’s time for me to go.
“Don’t give up hope, Alicia,” he says, his brows pinched together in a pained expression as he extends a hand to shake.
