AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d decided. She was going to start tutoring. And if that wasn’t enough, she could get a job, waitressing or something. Or maybe she’d find a job on campus somewhere. She was ready to work. It wasn’t like her school would suffer.
She already had her bachelors, after all. And was working on her master’s. She absolutelylovedcollege. Learning. Being with others who felt the same way.
Crispin hadn’t understood her mother’s hesitation in letting her go so early at the time—but maybe she did a little now. The culture of a college campus was a lot different than a high school’s, that was for sure. Like take the nearest campus food court, for instance. It was in the bottom of the life sciences building. She thought that was a bit ironic—humans, the ultimate example of life science—needed food to operate efficiently.
She definitely did. She was starving.
She pulled her black jacket closer around her, even though most people were still wearing T-shirts and tank tops.
Sensory processing disorder was a real thing—whether people accepted it or not.
Even if it wasn’t. It certainlyfeltreal to her.
Her next class started in one hour. She could swing into the food court and still have plenty of time to read that article she’d found about physical and occupational therapy for those with gifted overexcitabilities. Those extreme sensitivities to stimuli had been driving her crazy her entire life. It drove her family crazy having to deal with her. Even though some of them were just as whacky in their own ways.
Maybe she’d give serious thought to teaching at FCU after she earned her doctorate someday. She was definitely going to get it in applied mathematics. She already had her bachelor’s in math. She was working on her second year of coursework for her master’s now.
Math was so finite. She loved that.
Numbers never lied. She had learned that long ago. When she was really upset, she’d just run equations until she calmed down. Sometimes, the overexcitabilities got to be too much. She’d found strategies to help her cope. Her mom had made sure she could handle whatever life threw at her, even when some of her senses were going sideways.
She was mostly good with who she was now. It was her mom who was concerning her today. Her mom had been preoccupied lately. Crispin thought it most likely had to do with them moving back to the area. Her mom had grown up in Garrity. Crispin had never been there, but she’d googled it. And their last name.
It was kind of hard not to find it interesting when the medical sciences building right there across from the life sciences building was theColesonMedical Sciences Building. Her mom was always telling them stories about their grandfather’s adventures before he’d married and had so many daughters.
Her mom should probably write them down someday. Try to hunt down photographs and records, that kind of thing. Most of their history had been boxed up and auctioned off when her mom’s dad and stepmom had been killed in that accident. Her mom could find them. Publish them or something. So who the Colesons were wouldn’t be forgotten. Her mom could do it, too. As smart as she was. Sometimes her mom really didn’t see how wonderful she was.
That drove Crispin bananas. Her aunt Marcia had told her once that her mom’s oldest sisters had been really mean to her mom when she was little. And they’d left an impression.
It had taken Crispin a while to realize older siblings could be emotionally abusive, too. She’d had a friend in junior high whose older brother had bullied him constantly. Crispin really hated bullies.
Kids had tried to bully her for a while. When she’d been really young and had skipped first grade. And about her different eyes. Until Cara and the rest of her sisters of the heart had all shown up. Who wanted to bully someone with nine older sisters to protect her? That just wasn’t smart at all.
Her grandfather had had a lot of daughters. Eight of them. Those daughters had had a bunch of daughters now, too. She had two boy cousins—and her half brother Iagan—and that was it. The other eight were Coleson girls through and through. Miniature Coleson Stick Girls—all of them had the dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin, too. Even Heather’s newborn looked like the rest of the Colesons.
Crispin was hoping to hold Ember again soon. She was so sweet and so tiny. Crispin wanted four or five babies of her own someday, too.
Her grandfather was world famous for what he had done. He’d died before Crispin had even been born, though.. Maybe at some point, she’d tour the Coleson museum inside that building. See where her family had come from. That would be cool. Maybe there would be photos. She’d tried googling him once, but a lot of the records had been destroyed in a fire in Garrity or something. She hadn’t found anything anywhere. Which…was kind of weird, really, too.
Her mom didn’t really know where the old family photos had ended up either. Something to do with her father’s old estate being auctioned off to pay his bills when he and his second wife had died twenty years ago.
That made Crispin sad to even think about. That was when her mom had gotten Marcia, Heather, Joy and Hope. She’d already had Cara and Cashlyn, then. Within two years, her mom had gottenher,Eden, Samia, and Summer, too. Worrying about her father’s bills probably hadn’t been much of a priority. Not when her mom had had six little girls to take care of. Then she’d ended up withten.
Maybe someday Crispin would track it all down. For her mom. She could organize it all, and maybe have it printed into a special book. Or make eleven copies. One for her mom, and one for each of her mom’s girls to keep. To pass down.
She’d start with the Coleson museum, even though she thought the college brochure had said that it was a small museum in the larger gallery sponsored by some big wig rich archeologist’s family here in Finley Creek. ABarrattor something. Barratts in Finley Creek had lots of money, apparently.
Sometimes she’d heard girls in her classes talking about how hot the guys in that family were. Really hot guys freaked Crispin out. They probably always would.
Mostly she wanted a guy she couldtalkto. One who would listen. He didn’t even have to like math—justlearningin general. She didn’t even care if the guy was five feet tall, forty years old, and even a little ugly. As long as he understood her, and stuff.
But, well, ok, maybe it would be nice if he was taller than she was. She’d been called a too-tall freak, before. Multiple times, actually. But if he was taller, he wouldn’t think that.
Mostly, she wanted a guy to look at her the way Uncle Norman looked at Aunt Marcia and the way Uncle Nick had looked at Aunt Joy before he’d died. With just that kind of love.
The Coleson Museum was in the Barratt Cultural History Museum. She’d seen that archeologist once, she thought. He had been in the food court, with people following him around like a bunch of drone bees or something. Hanging on his every word. Like he was some sort of god or something.
She shuddered. That kind of crowd and people who got that kind of attention really freaked her out sometimes. But…she’d check out his museum someday. See if he was as smart as people said he was.
