I went abroad for college for the same reason some people join the Military; to piss off my dad.
That's not to say that my father was against the idea of furthering my education. He fully supported each of his six children when the time came for us to start finding our way in the world. He just had certain, expectations, as to just where we'd go and what we'd study. And so it was no surprise that he was more than a little shocked to find that I'd not only applied to a college all the way over in America, but had actually been accepted. It may have helped if it had been somewhere a little more prestigious than a small, local college, but it was one of the few places that was running the course that I wanted, and my grades from the local Sixth Form had been good enough to get me a full scholarship. And that's how the middle son of a Lancashire cab-driver ended up in the small town of Evergreen Lake, northern California, my ears still ringing with my father's warning of the strange, unusual happening he'd read about in the papers. Even my pointing out just how far away the college was from places like Los Angeles or San Francisco on Google Maps hadn't helped, but home was a long way away, and my parents were relegated to voices on the other end of a telephone.
The first couple of weeks were a blur of orientation and settling in. I was assigned a room mate, but he never turned up, apparently deciding that his future lay in acting down in Los Angeles, and they never got around to finding me a replacement. This meant that I had more space to myself then would be considered the norm, something I would be thankful for much later. My classes were predominantly maths and English based, something I was thankfully good at, and I soon got use to being singled out as 'that English dude with the funny accent' by my classmates. I even managed to find work as a tutor for some of the other students, earning a little extra cash to spend on non-essentials. I've never been a big drinker, and thankfully the college wasn't home to the sorts of wild parties you see in films and TV, so I was able to keep my head above water academically.
I first saw her in the library, half hidden behind a pile of text books that looked big enough to break the table. She was dressed in a burgundy sweater and a black skirt, but it was her deep soulful eyes looking out from under her shoulder-length light brown hair that captured me. They spoke of someone who'd seen more than their fair share of pain and suffering in such a short life. I did a little bit of digging, asked a few questions, and discovered that she was the mysterious Dr Abigail Van Pelt that I had heard off. Some kind of child prodigy, she had been accepted into MIT at fourteen, graduated with a double doctorate in physics and engineering two years later. Much had been expected of her, but she had apparently suffered dome kind of emotional breakdown and turned down all the research grants and corporate positions she had been offered. Instead she had disappeared for the better part of four years, only to suddenly apply for the then vacant position as assistant physics professor here at Evergreen Lake. She had a reputation for being a total Ice Queen who didn't talk to anyone unless it was work-related. There were stories that she was a lesbian, or a transvestite, but that was just the rumour mill trying to make up for what little information there was about her. Everyone knew she lived off campus, but no one seemed to know just where. Nor did they know if she had anything approaching a social life, even in a town as small as Evergreen Lake. I put her out of my mind, given that she worked in a different department to the courses I was taking, and got on with my studies.
Given the cost of flying back home, my parents understood that I wouldn't be coming home any time soon, and that I'd be forced to spend most of my holidays in America to try and save money. As such I was one of the handful of non-local students still on campus over the Christmas holidays, a somewhat depressing prospect that I did my best to ignore by spending as much time as I could in the library, getting a head start on the work I'd face in the New Year. It was there that I had my first direct contact with Abigail. I had tracked down a hard to find text book amid the furthest recesses of the labyrinthine stacks, and sat at a nearby table reading it when I felt the presence of someone else. Looking up, I was surprised to see her standing over me, a perplexed expression on her face.
"Can I help you, Dr Van Pelt?" I asked, somewhat surprised to see her of all people.
"You are Mark Scott?" She asked, her hesitant voice like oil on silk to my ears, and I nodded, "Dr Long informs me that you're one of his better students."
"That's nice of him to say." I smiled weakly, still unsure what was going on.
"He also said that you were looking for a chance to earn some extra money." She seemed more confident now that introductions were over, but still somewhat distant, "I have a research project that I need some assistance on; I need someone to run some complex maths equations for me, and none of my students are up to the task. I mentioned this to Dr Long, and he suggested that you might be able to help. I can't pay you much; my research grant only goes so far, but I can pay you more that you're currently earning helping Lacrosse players avoid dropping out."
There was a slight edge to her tone, and I fully understood why. The college had one of the better Lacrosse teams in the state, something that generated a lot of prestige and money from sponsors and other benefactors. The downside was that there was a certain, expectation, that those students here on a sports scholarship would be given extra leeway when it came to attendance and grades. I never saw anything that suggested anything illegal, but the line came close on occasions.
