( AN: So you may notice that a couple of chapters will say finals week that is due to me speeding through his last year at UT Austin because MIT has a Arc as well.)
December 1993 – January 1994 · Medford and Austin
Finals week emptied out fast once it was over.
The morning after Stephen filed the last graphs for Kim's project, campus sounded tired—fewer doors slamming, fewer shoes scraping, voices kept lower like people had spent their last loudness on exams. The winter sun sat bright and cold. His hands stayed cool even inside his pockets.
He stood in his room looking at an open duffel on the bed, the folded stack of shirts beside it, and waited for his body to catch up to the fact that he was done.
Paige leaned in his doorway, arms folded, hair loose, lit by the window.
"You look like somebody turned you off and forgot to turn you back on," she said.
"Rebooting," Stephen said.
"Then here." She lobbed a granola bar underhand.
He caught it without looking and set it on the desk.
Paige stepped inside and started packing her own bag on the chair like the room belonged to both of them now. They worked in parallel—quiet, efficient, close enough that their shoulders bumped once when Paige reached for tape.
When Stephen said he was taking the train home, Paige paused with a sweater half-folded.
"Adventurous."
"Efficient," he said. "Cheaper than my parents driving both ways in holiday traffic. The shuttle runs to the station. Mom signed off. Dad pretended it was his idea."
Paige's mouth tilted. "Meemaw okay with it?"
"She already knows," Stephen said. "She said I'm fifteen, not fragile."
Paige smiled like she could hear the exact tone. "That tracks."
Stephen zipped his duffel and hesitated for half a beat, then added, "She told me to tell you she thinks you've got a good head on your shoulders."
Paige's grin came quick. "That's a real compliment."
"She doesn't give them out for free," Stephen said.
"Guess I'll have to earn the next one," Paige replied, and went back to folding like she hadn't said anything.
The university shuttle rattled on the way to the depot. It smelled like warm vinyl and peppermint gum. Austin slid past in blocks—brown winter grass, bare branches, students in hoodies moving like they were half-asleep and still proud of it.
At the station, the air smelled like metal and coffee. People stood with suitcases and paper cups, faces set in travel expressions. Stephen found his seat by the window.
A man across the aisle slept with a newspaper tented on his chest. A kid two rows up pressed her face to the glass and narrated everything out loud: cows, fences, cows again. Her mother tried to shush her without much hope.
When the train started moving, the car went quiet for a second. Everyone adjusted at the same time.
Stephen didn't read right away. He watched Texas come in strips—billboards turning into color, fence posts ticking past, ponds sitting dark beside pasture. The motion smoothed something in his head.
He opened his paperback and made it a couple pages before his pen was in his hand. He drew in the margin—thin arcs, arrows, lines curving toward and away from each other. He didn't try to justify it. His hand just did it.
The conductor clipped tickets down the aisle, the sound sharp and steady. The kid fell asleep mid-cow and slid against her mother's shoulder.
A woman from two rows back leaned forward slightly. "You draw a lot," she said.
Stephen glanced up once. "Helps me think."
She looked at the page. "Looks like art."
"It's not," Stephen said, and turned the page.
By the time the train reached Medford, the air outside was bright and cold. Dad's truck was already idling at the curb.
Dad didn't talk much on the ride home. He adjusted the heater. Stephen adjusted the radio. The road did the rest.
Home was loud the second Stephen stepped inside.
Mom's voice carried down the hall. Missy's laugh cut through it. Sheldon was already arguing with someone about something that didn't matter.
Stephen's duffel hit the floor for maybe ten minutes before Mom grabbed her keys again.
"They're across town," she said. "Mandy's parents. We're going over."
Across town meant too many cars in the driveway and one half on the grass. The front door opened before Mom knocked.
Inside, the living room smelled like cinnamon and fresh laundry. Stockings were strung across the mantle in uneven spacing—Cooper and McAllister names mixed together like nobody wanted to start a fight over symmetry. Casserole dishes crowded the counter beside baby wipes and bottles.
CeeCee was ten months old now, bundled in red, sitting supported on Mandy's lap. Her eyes tracked the tree lights with serious focus.
Mandy looked tired and steady. Audrey sat beside her, passing wipes and advice like they were the same category. Mandy accepted both with a tight patience that looked practiced.
Jim McAllister stood near the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching everything like he was proud and a little overwhelmed.
Georgie hovered near the bassinet, grin stuck halfway between joy and panic. "She owns the whole room," he said when Stephen walked in.
Stephen crouched beside Mandy. CeeCee's eyes found him. She reached out and grabbed his finger with a small, impatient fist.
Mandy's face softened. "Looks like she knows her uncle."
Stephen watched the grip. "Or she likes hands," he said.
Mom laughed. Audrey laughed too, different accents, same tone.
Missy leaned over the arm of the sofa making faces until CeeCee giggled, bright and breathy. Georgie's whole posture loosened every time she did.
Sheldon hovered at the edge of the room with a small notebook.
"Infant response patterns—"
Mandy reached out without looking and took the pencil out of his hand. "She's fine," Mandy said. "Doctor."
The room laughed, and even Sheldon backed off.
Meemaw lifted her mug from her chair and aimed it at Stephen. "Well, look who came home taller."
Stephen set his bag down. "Guess I caught up."
Meemaw's eyes moved over him, quick and exact. "You been working," she said. "Boxing still twice a week?"
"Yeah," Stephen said. "And mornings before class."
She nodded once. "Shows." Then, plainer: "Strong's fine. Just remember—strength's a tool, not a trophy."
"I know," Stephen said.
"I know you do," Meemaw replied, and took a sip like the point was made.
The days before Christmas turned into constant movement. Mom ran the kitchen like she was scheduling a launch. Dad pretended he didn't need help, then accepted it. Stephen drifted through small jobs without being asked—fixing a loose outlet, hauling boxes from the attic, stirring when Mom needed an extra set of hands.
It felt good to be useful without proving why first.
On the twenty-third, an envelope arrived with sharp handwriting Stephen recognized immediately.
Paige.
He opened it alone in the hallway and read the card once, then again.
Don't fix the lights too straight; crooked ones look alive.
P.S. I'm trying to cook. Send fire insurance.
P.
His mouth lifted before he noticed.
Missy tried to lean over his shoulder. Stephen raised the card out of reach without looking at her.
"Girlfriend?" Missy asked.
"Study partner," Stephen said.
"Uh-huh," Missy replied, stretching it until it sounded like a verdict.
Christmas Eve stayed loud. Caroling that leaned heavy on enthusiasm. Georgie almost starting a fryer argument and getting shut down by three adults at once. Sheldon reporting NORAD updates like it was his job. Stephen sat on the floor untangling ribbon because Missy refused to throw anything away that could be "saved."
They opened presents after midnight.
Meemaw waited until the room was half-distracted, then slipped a small box into Stephen's hand.
Inside were two rolls of quarters, a tiny chrome-heart keychain that looked old, and a note in Meemaw's handwriting:
For calls and machines. And to remember you ain't one.
Stephen stared at it longer than he meant to.
"Thanks," he said. His voice came out rougher than normal.
Meemaw waved him off. "Just call," she said. "Don't disappear."
"I won't," Stephen said.
When it was time to go back, the train left early on a cold, bright morning.
Dad carried Stephen's bag. Mom instructed the universe. Sheldon attempted to quantify goodbye length and stopped when Missy started crying on purpose to ruin the data.
Meemaw pressed one last quarter into Stephen's palm. "For luck or laundry," she said. "Either way it spends."
On the train, condensation feathered the windows. Stephen found his seat, set his bag against the wall, and watched Medford slide backward until it turned into fence lines and then into nothing.
He didn't draw at first. He let motion do what it did.
When he finally opened his notebook, he wrote:
Systems reset. Signals resume.
Equilibrium isn't stillness.
It's motion you can live with.
Back in Austin, the shuttle rattled him from the depot to campus. His dorm room smelled the same—paper, recycled air, a faint trace of detergent. He set his bag down, pinned Meemaw's keychain to the corkboard above his desk, and taped Paige's card beside the field line printout.
He taped it slightly crooked.
On purpose.
Stephen stood there a moment, listening to the room—vents humming, pipes settling, a distant door down the hall.
Then he turned off the light and let the day end without trying to solve it.
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