He laughed in my face when I had said I wanted to go to college.


My dad was a relatively practical man. He wouldn’t stand for any fantastical antics. Even as a child, scaling mountainous trees in the park and winding among the limbs like a snake, he made sure I knew my place in the world. “Hugo,” he would say, sitting on a dirty lawn chair and chewing the wooden stick of an eaten grape Popsicle, “you’re no fireman. You’ll only find bugs and squirrels up there, not the neighbor girl’s kitten.” I tried to have fun without anyone cheering me on like a real fireman. I pretended I was just a thankless hero who didn’t make it onto the front page news.


Of course, that was just a kiddie game. When I’d struggled my way through four years of high school and declared I wanted to go to medical school, he gave me a framed copy of my mere 3.0 GPA and hung it on the wall by my bed. He said even if I was smart enough to be a doctor, there was no way a single father who was still barely paying rent on his tiny upstate apartment could afford to send his son to college. I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to believe him.



I stomped right out of the apartment, down six flights of loud metallic stairs, and crossed several different streets to the park I used to play in. I was so mad at him. I sat on a bench fuming, arms crossed and lips puckered like an angry child. People passed by, jogging or walking dogs and pretending they couldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes. I pretended not to see them, either, until a girl who looked to be my age sat down next to me nose-deep in a dictionary like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I stared at her. She stared at the S’s like she needed to figure out what letter came next before her book club gathered in five minutes. I blinked. She turned the page, her breath catching on the fall of the page and swatting her floral scent straight at my face. I gaped.


“What’re you doing?” I asked, eyes trailing from the rim of her glasses down to the neat ink of “sad” and then “said”. She jumped like she hadn’t even noticed me and quickly nestled a thumb in the spine of the page before shutting the dictionary.


“You,” she said, settling on her knees and looking at me intently. “Maybe you can help me. My mom gave me this just a few minutes ago. I was telling her about this boy, how he cheated on me and how I still loved him. She said to go take a walk and look up the word ‘stupid’, then come back and tell her what it means. I’m just trying to humor her, but I’m no good with dictionaries.”
“You look smart.” She shoved the dictionary into my hands. “Find it for me.” Startled, I clutched the old book in my hands. The golden letters on the front were faded, and the pages were visibly worn and stained. I thought for sure she’d just handed me the first dictionary ever printed, and I was in no mood to be taking orders from anyone. However, when I looked up to tell her I didn’t care, her brown eyes were boring into me so fiercely that I looked straight back down at the cover and started flipping back to the S’s.
I pursed my lips, perusing the page. “Stupid means lacking intelligence or common sense.” I looked at her nervously. “…It’s an adjective...” She was still staring at me. I looked at the paper nervously.
“I heard what your dad said a few minutes ago.” I looked up and she was smiling at me. “I live in the apartment right next door. You boys are really loud. I just wanted to let you know that, no matter what your dad says, you aren’t stupid for wanting more out of your life than a tiny apartment and a cruddy job. You might not be a doctor, but you aren’t stupid.” She grabbed the dictionary out of my hands, stood up, dusted off her skirt and kept walking back towards the apartments.
I sat frozen for a few seconds. “W-wait,” I called finally, chasing after her. “You’ve been listening in on my conversations?!”