A/N - This is a first, completely unedited draft. There WILL be spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
Honestly, I don't want to spend the next three years doing a degree in linguistics. Not because I don't enjoy learning. I do, it's how I landed the scholarship in the first place.
I'm aware that I applied, interviewed and studied as much as I could in order to get into Oxford. I know it's an incredible opportunity. I'm very fortunate to even be offered it. But what I really wanted to do is go travelling with my best friend, Lauren.
In many ways Lauren is extremely lucky. She hates her parents and will do anything to spite them, like, sack off uni and buy a one-way ticket to Bali. Which is what I was supposed to be doing. It's why I've been waitressing everyday for the last two years. Unlike Lauren, however, I adore my mum.
Mum migrated to England, from Ireland, when she was nine months pregnant with me. She had no friends, family or money. We stayed in the outback of a B&B near Yorkshire. Our home was basically a shed and mum worked her way up from a maid. Now, she runs the B&B all on her own.
In all the sacrifices she's made, all the hours she has poured into me, the love she showers me with, she has only ever asked for one thing. That I do well in school, go to a good university and get a decent job; one that will ensure I won't have to live pay-check-to-pay-check.
Would you want to be the one to tell your mother (the best person you know), that you refuse to fulfil the only thing she ever asked of you? I think not.
I keep telling myself that if I didn't want to go to Uni, why the hell did I spend hours applying to all the best ones? I spent weeks on my personal statement. I put all my charm into my interviews. I think deep down I always knew this was going to be the way.
The only saving grace is Him.
I met Him at my orientation. I never got his name, I know nothing about Him. It was he who made me decide that four more years of education might not be the worst thing that can happen. Not to be that girl or anything, the one who changes her mind because of a boy, but I guess he gave me hope.
I wish I could say we met under a set of extremely cute circumstances. Like our eyes connected across the room in a bar, or a mutual friend thought we'd get on like a house on fire, or I bumped into him and he immediately knew I was the love of his life.
Actually, I met him because I somehow got locked in a bathroom, and then I got stuck trying to clamber out the window. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it) he was the first person who came along and saw me. The first person who could help me.
He stopped for a brief second, watching me dangling through the window.
I don't know why but I thought the smartest and best plan of action was to go headfirst out the window. Only the window was the width of me and halfway up the wall. I had to climb on the sink to even get to it in the first place.
None of that was even remotely a good idea. Yet I still went ahead with it and of course I got stuck. I had been there for a good five minutes (which felt like five-hundred minutes), trying to force myself through before he rocked up.
When he regained composure at the weird and sorry sight in front of him, he said, "Do you usually prefer to take windows over doors?"
"No!" I half-howled, half-huffed. "I'm stuck!"
"I can see that."
His voice was so nice it made me look at him properly. Tall, broad shouldered, dark haired, dark eyes. An absolute stunner of a man stood before me, whilst I was suspended midair like a horrifying circus act. In that moment death would have been kinder.
"Can you help?" I pleaded.
"Depends." He was giving me a charming, lopsided grin. "Do you get a kick out of being a criminal?"
"A criminal?" I hissed, trying to push myself through. No matter how hard I tried my arms weren't strong enough and my ass was too big.
"Last time I checked, breaking and entering is a crime."
"I'm trying to break out after being locked in! The only criminal here is you! Why are you refusing to help a poor lady in distress!"
He leaned against the wall, hands in pockets. "It's quite funny, watching you."
"Please," I begged. "Please help me. I think the blood supply to my legs is being cut off and I might die any minute."
"Are you usually this dramatic?"
"I'm not usually hanging out of a bathroom window!"
Silence.
I risked a quick glance at him only to see an amused look on his face. I imagine he was deciding if the lunatic he'd stumbled across was worth saving.
Finally, he said, "Can you go back inside? I'll see if I can get someone to unlock the door."
"And if you can't find someone?"
"I'll buy a big pot of vaseline and we'll slide you out like an oiled pig."
I didn't make a witty retort. I was too stunned by this random stranger calling me a pig!
Without another word he walked off and left me hanging there. Not so much as an offer to try and shove me back inside, which I probably needed as I was still bloody stuck! With all my might, I shoved and I pushed. My hair was starting to stick to my forehead, slick with sweat from effort.
I wasn't going to budge. The fire brigade were going to be called to cut me out. Hopefully, if the world was even a tiny bit kind, I'd pass out from lack of air before that happened.
"Ridiculous," I muttered to myself.
With one last valiant effort I shoved myself as hard as I could, and... I was FREE!
I pushed myself back into the bathroom letting my foot ease onto the sink just below. Once safely balanced, I jumped down. As my feet touched the floor a key went into the door and it swung open, revealing my dashing saviour and a female member of staff.
I begun to take a step forward but the continuous dangling clearly had started to cut off my blood supply. Both my legs were engulfed by pins-and-needles. Each step excruciating. I hobbled towards them like a ninety-year-old woman who had barely walked in the last ten years. I tried to nonchalantly act as if this was all completely normal.
He looked at me over the staff members shoulder, smirking. "Is that your usual walk or do you need me to call nine-nine-nine?"
The pain had started to wear off the closer I got and more steps I took. "Are you usually this snarky with girls you don't know?"
He laughed, it was extremely pleasant. Deep. Soothing. "Only the ones I like."
I hoped to God I was not blushing.
"No, seriously." He said, watching me hobble like a three-legged dog. "Are you okay?"
"I am absolutely fine."
"You're moving like something from The Walking Dead."
"No, I'm not."
"You really, really are."
"Nope."
The teacher or whatever suddenly found her voice, "You are."
I'm due to start this university in a mere few weeks and this is what I will be remembered by. The students and staff alike will sit around and be all, 'hey, is that first year here yet? The one who got stuck in a window at orientation?' and someone will reply 'yeah, she's over there', they'll point at me and everyone will laugh in unison.
I straightened and forced myself to walk like I knew how to, even though it caused the pins-and-needles to intensify. If I can endure periods every month and mostly ignore them, I could also ignore the pain in my legs.
To my absolute horror, the teacher turned to the boy and said, "Why don't you help her back to her home?"
He grinned at my obvious embarrassment. "What a fantastic idea."
"That's okay." I said quickly. "I don't actually go here..."- they both frowned at me- "yet. I'm just here for orientation before we start in October."
"Oh!" The woman gasped sympathetically. "You poor thing."
I stared for a second to see if she was mocking but she was being sincere. Which, somehow, seemed absurd - or cemented the fact that getting stuck in the window was the most embarrassing thing to ever happen.
My eyes slid over to the boy who had a hand covering his mouth and his body was shaking with laughter.
"I need to catch the train back to London." I announced, cheeks aflame.
The woman turned to the boy, eyes serious as anything. "You must escort her and make sure she's okay."
"No," I said. "It's okay, I swear."
"Nonsense." The teacher said, before she turned to look at the beautiful mocking man before us. "We insist, don't we?"
"Sure." He grinned. "I'm more than happy to take you."
Which is how, not five minutes later, he and I were trundling through Oxford and towards the station.
It's a beautiful city. A weird mix of old and new. Restaurants sat amongst historic looking buildings, sprawling spires and skyscrapers. A perfect mixture of things I love, old and new in harmony. The sun was setting giving everything a golden glow and made it seem even more magical.
It was the sort of place a girl could get excited about, especially when she was walking next to a beautiful, witty, man.
He gave me a sideways glance before asking. "You're going to be a student in September?"
"Um, yeah."
"Quite an impression you were willing to make." A pause. "I don't think I know anyone who decided to go to the orientation. You must have been one in about ten?"
"Four."
"What?"
I sighed. "I was one of four who were sad enough to come for the orientation."
"And the only one who wanted to become a spit-roast through a bathroom window."
"That's the second time you've called me a pig. Do you know not every thought that runs through your pea-brain needs to be aired?"
"No." He said quickly. He gave me a glance, a small smile on his face. "My school report from when I was three says I am extremely opinionated."
I laugh. "You're joking?"
"Actually, I'm not."
I was close enough to see golden flecks in his brown eyes and how perfectly proportionate his lovely face was. My heart sped up.
"This might be very forward of me," he said, "but would you like to grab a bite to eat?"
I would have. I would have really, really liked that. But I chose to look down at my watch and see my eye-watering priced train was going to leave in fifteen minutes.
"I can't."
"Oh." He rocked back on his heels and crammed his hands into his pockets. "Boyfriend?"
"No! Nothing like that, it's just... my train home is literally in fifteen minutes and actually, I really have to go."
"Ah."
"I know this is all very Cinderella of me, but please believe I would have loved to take you up on your offer."
"I believe you."
"I'm sorry." I said.
Then I rushed off, leaving him behind.
It wasn't until I was sat on the train that I realised I asked him nothing about himself. Not his name or what he was studying. In a university of hundreds of students, it depressingly dawned on me I was unlikely to ever see him again.
But there was hope that I would.
For the first time that summer, giving up my travelling dreams didn't seem like the worst thing at all.