Chapter 82
“Anyway!” She said glancing between be and the trail ahead. “Tell me what your plans are after high
school.”
“Ahh.” I chuckled nervously. “That’s the big question isn’t it. I don’t really know to be honest. I’ve thought about law school for a while, but I’m not sure.”
And I wasn’t sure. I have spent the last 8 years of my life obsessing over school, that I never took the time to find the one thing I was interested in. In the back of my mind I always wanted to be a lawyer because I thought it would be cool to put all the bad guys in jail like they do in Law and Order: SVU, but I know that reality isn’t some TV show.
Law school requires an additional three years of school on top of the four years of undergraduate. Not to mention the bar exam. And then what? I get an entry level job as a paralegal and spend the next 10 years of my life slaving away to make partner?
A part of me, the ambitious and over achieving part, was very intrigued by the notion of being a big–shot partner at a law firm. It would mean all of my work had paid off and I could say I had succeeded. However, the other part of me, was absolutely appalled by the notion of wasting all that time only to end up with your name on some random office door.
“Law school huh. That’s ambitious.” She smiled. “What field of law?”
“Family law.” I replied without a beat. Although I wasn’t sure about becoming a lawyer, I knew that if I did become one it would be within that field. When my parents divorced, my mom got the crappy end of the divorce settlement. My father basically left her with nothing and never even bothered to pay for child support. She was forced to work two jobs so that she could provide for us which meant I rarely saw her. Once she got the job she is currently in, things got better but I’m convinced that if she had someone better to fight for her, she wouldn’t have missed out on so many of my childhood years.
“Interesting.” Ella nodded apprehensively as we walked across a wooden bridge. The water underneath shone a dark green under the afternoon sun. Then, Ella stopped and turned towards me as she leaned against the bridge’s railing. “Look Scarlett, I’ll be blunt. I see a lot of myself in you. It’s the reason I asked you to meet me today. I used to be you ten years ago, all caught up in my school
work and too busy to enjoy my teenage years.
“But my best friend died in a car accident on prom night because some drunk asshole thought it was a good idea to get behind the wheel that night. After her death, I realized just how short life is. You
The Divorce Contract Five Requests to Let YOU GO!!
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Chapter 82
can have the next five, ten, even twenty years of your life planned out, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be here to see it. And I know that sounds so morbid, and I’m sorry. I know I probably sound like a crazy person considering you and I don’t even know each other that well, but I wish someone had given me this speech 10 years ago.
“A day doesn’t go by in which I don’t miss Anna. I wish I had spent less time with my nose in a book and more time with her because there were so many things we didn’t get to do. I missed out on so many experiences and memories because I was too worried about getting a hundred on my math test and acing that essay. And you know what? At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter!”
All I could do was stare at her as she poured her heart out to me. I felt a pang in my heart when she
mentioned her best friend’s death. Call me a softie, but what happened to her friend Anna is horrible. And I can’t even imagine what Ella must have gone through. Prom is supposed to be every senior’s dream, and that night will forever be plagued as one of the worst nights of her life.
Ella took my silence as a sign to continue. “Sure, I got my Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from Northwestern and maybe that opened some doors from me when I interviewed for my first job, but the CEO of the company I worked for went to St. John’s University in Queens! My boss right out of college was a DePaul University Alumni.”
“The point I’m trying to make is that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you go to an Ivy League school and whether you have the perfect grades, employers value experience more than grades sometimes. Obviously this doesn’t mean fail your classes, it just means don’t spend so much time caught up in your head. Live your life, you’re young; go out and experience new things, fall in love,
be reckless.”
I was speechless. I mean what do you say to that her speech goes against all of my beliefs up until
this point. After sometime, I lamely reply “I don’t know what to say.”
The Divorce Contract Five Requests to Let YOU Gol
