The community college was nothing special. Just a cluster of old buildings, some newer renovations, a few scattered trees that barely provided shade. The parking lot was always packed, the cafeteria smelled like reheated food that had given up on being edible, and the fluorescent lights in every hallway buzzed just loud enough to drive a person crazy if they stopped to listen too long.

  But Ezra wasn’t here for the experience.

  He was here to keep up the lie.

  At first, the idea of college had been ughable to him. The entire system—debt, years of stress, jumping through hoops just to end up in the same workforce struggling to make ends meet—it all seemed like a cruel joke. Mr. Key had already shown him a better way. You didn’t need a degree to make a life for yourself, not if you knew how to work smart, not hard.

  So why the hell was he here? Because Julie had to believe in it.

  He had been quick on his feet during their argument. "I’m saving up for college," he had told her. "Trying to build a future." And she had bought it.

  So now, here he was, stuck in a cycle of exhaustion—working part-time, juggling csses, squeezing in study sessions between shifts.

  It was miserable.

  Not just because of the added workload, but because every time he sat in css, staring at a PowerPoint about things he didn’t care about, all he could think was:

  "I could be making money right now."

  But it wasn’t just about the lie anymore.

  Reality was smming into him every time he checked his bank account.

  Prices were climbing—food, rent, gas, even the cost of keeping his truck running. It felt like every dolr disappeared faster than he could make it, and the part-time gig at the hardware store wasn’t cutting it.

  Something had to give.

  It was mid-afternoon, the kind of warm fall day where the wind was cool, but the sun still burned if you stood in it too long. Ezra had just finished a css he barely remembered, and his stomach was running on fumes. He wandered toward the cafeteria, stepping outside to eat, needing fresh air more than food.

  That’s when he noticed him.

  A man in a sharp bck suit stood near the edge of the courtyard, watching students with an unreadable expression. He didn’t belong—too polished, too detached. Ezra wasn’t sure why he caught his attention, but something about the way the man stood, hands folded neatly, shoulders squared, reminded him of foremen surveying job sites.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, Ezra strolled over.

  "Hey. Fancy suit like that—you don’t look like a student."

  The man turned, caught slightly off guard, then chuckled—a tired, deep sound.

  "That’s because I’m not," he admitted, offering his hand. "Dr. Livingston. College president."

  Ezra blinked. He had just walked up to the highest-ranking guy at this whole damn school.

  He shook his hand anyway. "Ezra."

  Livingston eyed him with mild amusement. "Construction worker?"

  Ezra gnced down at his calloused hands. The answer was obvious. "Yeah. That easy to tell?"

  Livingston smirked. "I’ve had enough home repairs done to know the difference between a guy who works for a living and one who doesn’t."

  They found a bench nearby, and surprisingly, the man actually sat down to talk. Not in the rehearsed, patronizing way that most administrators did. Just… talking.

  Ezra told him about work, about struggling to bance shifts with school, about how it felt like he was running in pce while everything else moved faster. Livingston listened, then shared something of his own.

  His divorce.

  The way it had upended his life, made him question if all his achievements had been worth anything. He had power, influence, a career people envied, and yet, when he went home at night, there was no one waiting for him.

  That kind of loss? Ezra had seen it before. Too many times.

  On construction sites, it was common talk.

  Divorces, breakups, custody battles—most of the older guys had stories about what they’d lost along the way. Some bmed the job, some bmed themselves, but in the end, the result was the same.

  A life split in half.

  Ezra thought for a moment, then said, without really thinking: "Sometimes… you ask God for help, and He says no."

  Livingston gnced at him, surprised.

  Ezra shrugged. "And that’s okay."

  The older man exhaled, a slow, tired breath. Then he smiled.

  "Yeah," Livingston murmured. "Yeah, it is."

  The older man exhaled, a slow, tired breath. Then he smiled, but there was something behind it—a deeper curiosity, a thread of understanding that hadn’t been there before. He studied Ezra for a moment, tapping his fingers against his knee in thought.

  "You know," Livingston mused, his tone softer, "most young men don’t think like that. Not until they’ve been through it themselves."

  Ezra shrugged, gaze flickering to the distant skyline. Divorce was something he had seen wreck too many lives. He had watched grown men, tough as nails on the job site, crumble when they talked about what they’d lost—the families that slipped through their fingers, the mistakes that couldn’t be undone. It scared him. It terrified him.

  He had no idea what the future held for him and Julie, but he knew one thing: he didn’t want to end up like those guys.

  Livingston’s voice cut through the silence. "What’s a kid like you really doing here, Ezra? You don’t strike me as the college type."

  Ezra let out a quiet chuckle. "That obvious, huh?" He hesitated, but for some reason, he didn’t feel the need to lie to this guy. He let out a slow breath. "I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here because of a girl."

  At that, Livingston’s smile broadened, a knowing glint in his eye. "Ahh," he sighed, shaking his head. "What don’t boys do for love?"

  Ezra smirked, but it faded quickly. "She wants me to have options. A future. So I figured if I at least tried, she’d—" He trailed off, unsure how to finish that thought.

  Livingston leaned back, crossing his legs as if considering something. Then, with a thoughtful nod, he made his offer. "Tell you what, Ezra. You give this pce a real shot. One full year. Try your hardest—really try—and just maybe… I might be able to make your time here a little easier."

  Ezra raised a brow, curiosity flickering in his tired eyes. "What kind of deal are we talking about?"

  Livingston just smiled. "Stick around, and maybe you’ll find out."

  They sat there a while longer, quiet, but comfortable, before going their separate ways.

  Ezra didn’t know why, but for the first time in weeks, he felt like he could breathe again.

  Chemistry was a nightmare.

  No matter how much Ezra studied, how many notes he scribbled, or how many sleepless nights he spent flipping through his textbook, none of it stuck. It wasn’t like construction, where everything was tangible—where you could feel the weight of a pipe, measure twice before a cut, and physically see if something was level or off. Chemistry was a whirlwind of abstract rules, formus, and equations that all seemed to contradict themselves.

  Stoichiometry? Impossible.Moles? Who the hell decided atoms needed their own unit of counting?Bancing equations? Might as well have been bancing on a tightrope over a pit of alligators.

  By mid-semester, he was drowning, barely clinging to a D. It wasn’t just frustrating—it was humiliating. Ezra had never been the top student, but he wasn’t dumb. He knew how to work hard, figure things out, push through the struggle. But this? This was the first time in a long while he felt truly, utterly lost.

  It was after css one evening when Professor Conway, his chemistry professor, stopped him before he could slip out. The man was older, with wire-rimmed gsses and a quiet, perceptive gaze—one that always seemed to see right through him.

  "You’re struggling, aren’t you?" Conway asked, not unkindly.

  Ezra huffed, shoving his textbook into his bag. "Is it that obvious?"

  Conway chuckled. "It’s my job to notice. You work hard, but you look frustrated. Like you’re spinning your wheels but not getting anywhere."

  Ezra exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, well. This stuff’s not exactly easy."

  "No, it’s not," Conway agreed. "But I think you might be going about it the wrong way." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a scrap of paper, and handed it over. "Take a look at this when you get the chance. It might help."

  Ezra unfolded it, eyes scanning the link written across the page. It was for a video on metacognition.

  "The hell is metacognition?"

  Conway smiled. "Go find out."

  That night, bleary-eyed and exhausted, Ezra clicked the link.

  The video was simple, just a guy expining how people learn. It didn’t start with chemistry, or formus, or anything academic. It started with a question:

  "Do you know how you think?"

  Metacognition, as it turned out, was the ability to think about thinking. It wasn’t just about memorizing facts—it was about understanding how you learn best. It meant noticing when you didn’t know something, figuring out what was missing, and actively working to fill the gaps.

  Ezra had never thought about it that way before.

  The guy in the video said that most students don’t actually learn—they just memorize enough to pass a test, then forget everything a week ter. But real learning? That meant engaging with the material, breaking it down, figuring out where the gaps were, and actively searching for connections.

  Connections.

  That was something Ezra did know. Because construction was nothing but connections—pipes, wires, circuits, supports, everything working together in a system.

  He paused the video, staring at his open chemistry textbook. Was there a pattern here that he was missing?

  It was te when it clicked.

  He had been staring at a diagram about chemical bonding, eyes blurred from exhaustion, when suddenly something familiar stood out.

  Electrons.

  Chemistry was all about the electrons—where they moved, how they interacted, which atoms stole them, which ones shared.

  And electricity?

  Tweak had taught him that electricity was just electrons in motion. A wire wasn’t just a wire—it was a highway for electrons, a controlled path for energy transfer. In circuits, electrons moved from high potential to low potential, always seeking bance.

  And atoms?

  They did the same damn thing.

  Ions gained or lost electrons to stabilize, to reach equilibrium. Covalent bonds? Atoms sharing electrons like two neighbors pooling resources. Ionic bonds? One atom ripping electrons away from another, just like a voltage surge pulling electricity where it didn’t belong.

  Tweak had taught him so much more than just how to wire a building. He had taught him electrical theory. And that?

  That meant Ezra already understood half of what chemistry was trying to teach him—he just hadn’t realized it.

  Armed with that knowledge, everything started making sense.

  Ezra still struggled through the rest of the semester, but something had changed.

  He wasn’t just reading and memorizing anymore—he was looking for connections, actively breaking things down, asking questions about what he didn’t know instead of just getting frustrated.

  And it worked.

  By the time finals rolled around, he had pulled his D up to a B-minus.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it was one hell of an improvement.

  More than that?

  He had developed an interest in learning unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He started watching videos in his free time, soaking up knowledge like a sponge. During slow shifts at the hardware store, he pulled out his phone, looking up more chemistry, more physics, more engineering topics that actually made sense to him.

  By the time he had caught up with his schoolwork, he didn’t stop.

  He started watching videos for fun.

  Graviton physics.Quantum mechanics.Deeper dives into electrical theory.

  He didn’t have to force himself to learn anymore.

  Now? He actually wanted to.

  Mr. Livingston had been watching.

  Not in a prying way, but in a way that meant he noticed things that others didn’t.

  One afternoon, just before winter break, Ezra stopped by the administration office to drop off some paperwork. As he handed it over, Livingston gnced at him over his gsses, eyes sharp.

  "You’re different than when we first met."

  Ezra shrugged. "Guess so."

  Livingston leaned back in his chair, studying him. "Your grades are up. You’re working hard. Learning harder." He steepled his fingers. "Tell me, Ezra—did you end up liking college after all?"

  Ezra paused, thinking about it.

  Then, with a small smirk, he shook his head.

  "Not really. But I like learning."

  Livingston chuckled, nodding as if that was exactly the answer he expected.

  "Good," he said, eyes gleaming with something unreadable. "Because I think you’ve got potential. And I have a feeling you’re not done surprising me yet."