Free Zero Sight by B. Justin Shier

step was gone, and he barely managed a smile the entire time. It killed me to see him like that. I didn’t visit again. Still, no matter how hard I tried to move on, the nightmares kept coming. At least two times a week, I would wake up screaming, fists clutched, having pummeled Tyrone’s face into the ground yet again.
    And then my waking hours started going to hell as well.
    As March 15th came around, I started a daily ritual: Every hour, on the hour, I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom only to run to the computer lab instead. The weeks were crawling on without a single response from the colleges. As March swung into April, I developed a set of hives and matching ulcers. My friends had all gotten responses; some were even planning out their new wardrobes. I started calling colleges to check my status. They gave me the rote “your application is still in process” nonsense and told me to be more patient. Then on April 7th, the first rejection message arrived from Harvard. Rejections from Yale and Northwestern followed the very next week.
    “ Why is this happening?” I would moan. The guidance counselor had approved all my choices. She said I was going to be a shoe-in. People started asking where I was going next year. I would wave them off saying I had some tough choices to make or that I was still deciding. In reality, I was a mess. When rejections from Stanford and Berkeley came in on the same day, I puked blood. Fucking ulcers. The school nurse sent me home with a prescription for extra strength antacids. She ordered me to bed, but bed was the last place I wanted to be. My world was collapsing. My dreams were crumbling. By the end of the month only Washington University was left on my list, and St. Louis, Missouri was sounding like a fine resort destination. Again and again, my mind drifted to a single thought: I was going to be stuck in Vegas working minimum wage for the rest of my life.
    A week later (and ten pounds lighter) I stumbled into the computer lab for perhaps the thousandth time. The proctor placed her oversized glasses on her desk and frowned. She was friends with the school nurse. She was probably worried she’d have to call an ambulance.
    I plopped down in a chair and typed in my password. My bleary eyes shot wide-open when I saw two emails waiting in the inbox. The subjects were titled: “Congratulations” and “Aid Package”. I clicked “Congratulations” first. It was from Washington University. I let out a gasp. I had been accepted into something called the Fontbonne Academy for Naturally Gifted Students. Cool! Then my eye tracked to the second paragraph:
     
    Unfortunately, given the current state of the economy, our ability to provide scholarship monies has been severely curtailed. We sincerely apologize, but given your family’s current income, we can only hope to cover half of your tuition. The remainder can be made up in loans through our office of financial…
     
    I sank into my chair. I had already run the numbers. There was no way I would be able to qualify for any loans. Lenders were too wary to give that sort of money to college students unless their parents offered up some serious collateral in return. My father had already refused. “No way they’re getting their hands on the house. It’s all we got,” he had said. “Life’s not fair, son. I can’t carry you through it. Besides, this whole college thing is a giant scam. Your job at Newmar’s is fine. Be grateful for it.”
    As much as I wanted to disagree with him, my father’s argument wasn’t baseless. In the past two years, a ton of kids had left college overburdened by their ballooning student loans. They had entered a job market with barely any openings. A great many of them had defaulted, and the banks had gone after their parents’ assets. Some families had been thrown out on the streets. There were newspaper articles about it every week. I had to face facts. Washington University was out of my reach.