Catherine Kos – Author

Happy Sunday!

I’ve recently begun trying something new to get my writing going. Over the past few months, I’ve struggled with finding time and motivation to write, so I started using a random photo generator and writing whatever comes to mind when I first see the photo. This is the first photo I’ve written about. Hope you like it!

The Letter

It had been a long time coming. So many different possibilities, different outcomes. Keira spent months stuck inside her head. Will the answer be no? If so, she’d be crushed. Her life as she knows it would be over. There would be no point in living anymore because she got rejected from the one thing she wanted to do in life. The only thing she’d ever dreamed of doing. 

If the answer was yes, great, amazing. But what if she couldn’t afford it. What if her loans didn’t cover it, and so her dream was just kept out of reach. Close enough that she could see it, but never actually being able to really fulfill it. That would crush her even more. Knowing that she had what it takes but a simple technicality held her back. 

Keira spent months watching her friends and classmates all around her getting their acceptance/rejection letters. One girl had a full-on meltdown in the school cafeteria. Keira felt bad for her. And she couldn’t help the small voice in her head that said ‘that could be you‘. No, she told herself. I’d be dignified. I’d handle whatever they say. 

But Keira knew that was a lie. Her pants are already starting to fit tighter from the sheer anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen. She knew that if she got rejected she’d spend the next few days gorging on Ben and Jerry’s and watching reruns of One Tree Hill just to try and make herself feel better. 

“Keira,” Mr. Otto, her science teacher, called out at the end of the day right before she walked out of class. 

“Yeah?” She answered walking up to his desk. 

“Stop by the office on your way out,” he explains. “Your mother dropped something off for you.”

Anticipation spread through her making her feel all light and fuzzy. Oh, God. What if this is it?

Keira practically charged out of the science classroom, knocking her classmates out of the way as she jogged down to the office. Forget the stuff in her locker, she needs to know what her mom dropped off and now.

The receptionist is startled when Keira barges in, slamming the door against the wall. 

“Sorry,” she breathes, feeling sheepish. “My name is Keira Monroe. My mom dropped off something for me.”

The receptionist nods and reaches for something on her desk, handing it over. 

“Here you go. Good luck, dear.”

Keira mutters a thank you as she dazedly walks out of the office, her eyes on her name that’s been attached to the front of the letter. In the upper left corner, she eyes the return address. Princeton.

But it’s a small letter. Oh no. Aren’t small letters usually rejection letters?

Her heart drops as she steps out of the school, walking down the front steps. 

Oh god, it’s a rejection. Get ready, mom, she thinks to herself. I should probably text her and tell her to have the ice cream ready when I get home. 

Oh come on you, big baby, she scolds herself. Open it. 

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. Here goes nothing. 

Tearing open the envelope, and practically ripping the paper inside in half, she unfolds it and scans it. 

Dear Ms. Monroe, yadda yadda yadda, we are pleased to accept you…

“Oh. My. God.”

Her eyes widen in shock, a blinding smile spreading across her face. 

“I got in,” she says. “I got in.”

She jumps into the air, her arms and legs flailing out in what might have meant to be a star jump. 

“Yes!”

She lands steadily on her feet and she hears a few chuckles around her but she doesn’t pay them any attention. She continues, walking towards home with pep in her step. Looks like I won’t be needing the ice cream after all, she thinks, grateful she didn’t text her mom before she opened the letter. 

Then again, maybe I’ll have the ice cream in celebration.

Yeah, that sounds good. 

The end. See you next week!