Chapter Text
Dennis had imagined college differently when he was younger. Well, to be fair, he never imagined it much at all. He’d been content with the expectation of forever working on the farm; it was what his family wanted.
But when his mind did wander, he didn’t expect easier, exactly. He’d never expected easy. Nothing in his life had ever been.
But brighter than this dull town, maybe.
Bigger.
A future.
~~~
Nebraska heat is miserable in a deeply personal way. Thick and wet and impossible to escape. The kind that settles into your skin and stays there all day no matter how many showers you take.
That July, Dennis meets a woman while sweating through a plaid shirt and unloading sweet corn onto a folding table outside the farm stand. He’d been up since five helping his brothers fix fencing before moving to the stand once customers started showing up.
By noon his back hurts, and he’s pretty sure he smells like dirt and livestock. Normal. Typical day’s work. That’s how his whole life has felt: normal in exactly the same way. Nothing more, nothing less.
There’s a woman buying tomatoes. She looks wealthy, just enough that it’s obvious she doesn’t belong there. Not rude about it or anything, it’s just—obvious. Her nails are clean, obviously taken care of. She has expensive sunglasses pushed into dirty blonde hair untouched by the Nebraska humidity.
Tourist, maybe. People pass through Nebraska sometimes on their way elsewhere.
“You heading back to school soon?” she asks casually while Dennis bags her produce.
“Senior year,” he says.
“Oh.” She smiles politely. “Excited?”
Not particularly.
Dennis shrugs one shoulder.
“S’just school.”
That gets a laugh out of her.
“Plans after graduation?”
He almost says nothing. Instead:
“Probably stay here. Help with the farm.”
The words come automatically. It’s what’s expected. His brothers all stayed. His father stayed. Everyone in his family stayed.
The woman goes strangely quiet.
Dennis glances up.
She’s looking at him with an expression he can’t quite place. Not pity.
Something heavier than that.
“My son said that once,” she says finally.
He waits.
“Before he left for St. Abbots that is.”
The name means nothing to him.
He must look confused because she reaches into her purse and pulls out a dark-colored pamphlet, smoothing it once with her manicured hand before handing it over.
The paper feels expensive.
Everything about it looks expensive.
The front shows a massive stone building overlooking dark water beneath storm clouds. Dark gothic-esque windows. Iron gates. Sharp towers cutting into the sky.
It looks less like a school and more like the setting of a nineties knock-off Dracula movie. Dennis snorts softly before he can stop himself.
The woman smiles faintly.
“You know, that’s the same reaction my son had.”
Something about the way she says son catches strangely in his chest.
Like she’s talking about someone long gone.
“He liked it there?” Dennis asks.
Her fingers tighten slightly around the strap of her purse.
“I think he did.”
That catches his attention, the wording.
Before Dennis can ask anything else, another customer approaches and the moment disappears. The woman pays, thanks him quietly, then pauses beside her car.
“You seem smart,” she says.
Dennis nearly laughs at that.
Nobody back home calls him smart. Stubborn, maybe. Difficult. Too opinionated for church, according to his father once.
But not smart.
“You should think bigger than this place,” she says softly.
Then she leaves.
~~~
Dennis keeps the pamphlet mostly because it feels rude to throw it away.
Later that night, sitting at the dining table, he opens it again beneath the dim light hanging overhead.
St. Abbots Academy.
Northern Maine.
Prestigious university.
Full scholarship opportunities.
He traces his thumb absently over the printed photograph of the building. Something about it leaves a weird feeling in his stomach.
It isn’t bright and shiny.
It looks—
Cold.
Still, he applies two weeks later mostly on impulse.
The acceptance letter arrives absurdly fast.
Dennis gets home from feeding cattle to find the envelope sitting beside his mother’s Bible on the kitchen table.
Heavy cream paper.
Dark lettering.
St. Abbots Academy stamped across the front in silver.
His mother looks nervous before he even opens it.
“Dennis, hon,” she says carefully, drying her hands on a dish towel. “I think this might be important.”
His brothers immediately start hovering.
“What is it?”
“Another church thing?”
Dennis tears the envelope open mostly to shut them up.
Then he stills.
YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED.
FULL SCHOLARSHIP.
For a second, the words barely register.
Housing covered.
Tuition covered.
Meal plan included.
His mother makes a small sound beside him.
“Oh my God.”
One of his brothers leans over his shoulder.
“‘We are pleased to offer—’” He cuts himself off loudly. “Holy shit.”
“Language,” their mother says automatically, though she sounds distracted.
“Maine?” another brother blurts. “Dennis, that’s like the opposite side of the country.”
The kitchen erupts immediately after that.
“Wait, you applied there?”
“When?”
“You didn’t tell anybody?”
Dennis can already feel himself getting defensive.
“For one, I didn’t even think I’d get in.”
“That’s not the point,” one of his older brothers says sharply.
The back door opens before Dennis can answer.
Their father steps inside smelling like rain and motor oil, pausing immediately at the noise.
“What happened?”
Nobody answers right away.
Dennis looks down, hands tightening nervously around the letter.
His father steps forward and gently takes it from his grip.
The room quiets while he reads.
His father’s face barely changes at first.
“They’re paying for all of it?”
Dennis nods once.
His father rereads part of the page before looking up slowly.
“You applied to colleges.”
Not a question.
Dennis shifts his weight.
“A few.”
“And didn’t mention it to anyone.”
There it is.
The thing Dennis had known was coming.
He shrugs because if he acts casual enough, maybe this won’t turn into a whole thing.
“I didn’t think anything would happen.”
His oldest brother lets out a humorless laugh.
“Yeah, because people totally get full rides to elite schools every day around here.”
“Drew,” their mother warns.
“No, seriously.” He looks at Dennis now. “You were just gonna leave and not tell anybody?”
“I wasn’t leaving,” Dennis says weakly.
The second the words come out, he knows they don’t sound believable.
Because obviously he was.
His father folds the acceptance letter carefully before setting it back down.
“I thought you were staying.”
Quietly said.
Somehow worse than yelling.
Dennis feels irritation rise hot and immediate in his chest.
“Nobody asked me if I was.”
Three of his brothers start talking at once.
“The hell does that mean?”
“Dennis—”
“We all knew—”
“No,” Dennis cuts in sharply. “You all assumed.”
Silence.
His pulse pounds unpleasantly hard.
He hadn’t meant to say it like that. But now that it’s out, he can’t really take it back.
One of his brothers scoffs.
“So what, you’re too good for the farm now?”
Dennis laughs once, harshly.
“I’ve been shoveling shit since I was twelve, Caleb. Obviously that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
That he can’t breathe here sometimes.
That every year feels exactly the same.
That everyone in this town dies where they were born.
That the thought of spending the rest of his life on the same land makes something inside him panic.
Instead he says, “I just want something else for myself.”
The room goes quiet again.
His father leans back against the counter slowly.
“You should’ve talked to us.”
Dennis looks down at the acceptance letter.
At the silver crest stamped into the paper.
At the proof that a life outside Nebraska might actually exist for him.
“I know.”
And he does know.
The guilt sits heavy in his stomach already.
But if he’d told them before applying, they would’ve talked him out of it.
Not cruelly. Not intentionally.
Just slowly, carefully, lovingly.
Until staying would’ve felt easier than disappointing everyone.
His mother reaches across the table first, resting her hand over his wrist.
“You got into a very good school,” she says softly.
One of his brothers mutters, “Three thousand miles away.”
She ignores him.
“You worked hard for this.”
His father studies Dennis for a long moment.
“You really wanna leave that bad?”
The question lands harder than the anger did.
Dennis opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Because the honest answer is complicated.
He loves his family.
He loves the farm—sometimes.
He loves Nebraska sunsets and thunderstorms and the sound of his brothers yelling at each other across fields.
But he also wants more so badly it aches.
“I don’t know,” he admits quietly.
That’s truthful enough.
His oldest brother shakes his head.
“Man. Mom’s gonna lose her mind without her ‘Denny Baby.’”
Dennis snorts despite himself.
Another brother elbows him.
“You come back acting all rich and pretentious, we’re beating your ass.”
The tension breaks enough for laughter after that.
Even his father scoffs faintly.
~~~
Later that night, Dennis finds him standing alone on the back porch smoking silently into the dark.
“You mad, Pa?” Dennis asks quietly.
His father exhales smoke slowly.
“No.”
The answer comes too fast.
Dennis leans against the porch railing beside him.
Crickets hum loudly across the fields.
“You think I’m abandoning everyone?”
Dennis stares out into the empty fields.
His father glances at him.
“No.” A pause. “I think you’re leaving.”
Which somehow hurts worse.