Confirmed
Friday morning, a week after Berlin. Half asleep when the phone rings. I’d planned to sleep in before Silvi’s party. Slowly I hit the red button. Hello? My grandmother. Wants to know how I am, whether she should drop by for something, if I’ve cleaned my room. Good, no, thanks. Hung up. Back to dozing.
A couple minutes later, the phone again. Not her. This time it’s Berlin. The real call. Instantly awake. To cut to it: I got the job. Yes, I’m moving to Berlin, yes, I’m going to be a professional web designer, yes. Aperto. Starting the apprenticeship in September. I especially want to thank Ella and Tim for how much they looked after me. They made this happen. It sounds terrible to say, but it’s true. Anyone curious about Aperto can look it up.
That’s that for me and Buchloe. My hometown. Glad to be leaving. Nothing’s keeping me here. A lot of people start new lives in September. Becks just got into a relationship and is heading to Augsburg instead of Freiburg for psychology. Mental. Ana and the other girls will feel the final year of school hard, but they’ll make it. I know they will. Even though Nastja had tears in her eyes. And Hannah says once I’m in Berlin, she’s going to put together the best fashion show ever. I’m looking forward to that.
I’m not worried about the rest of them. My mom has everything here—her friends, the family, the job. And I can visit. Mille’s tearing it up in the fighting gyms and traveling Eastern Europe with his Annette. Eniz will make his first million before I do. Has some kind of sports betting system that works. And Ali is the last person I’d worry about. He’s got the brains and the charm to walk out of anything as a winner, and if he doesn’t, he learns from it.
But I’m still here. Hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m leaving. That this ends in September. I’ll miss it, I think. That’s how it goes. Tonight we’re burning down Silvi’s party. In the good way. And I probably won’t feel it until I’m drunk on a couch somewhere, either crying or laughing about the whole thing. We’ll see.