Read Wildalone for Free Online Page B

it can work.”
    I felt short of breath just listening to her list. “Professor Donnelly, I thought I had more time.”
    â€œMore time for what?”
    â€œTo decide on my major at Princeton.”
    The window was exactly two years, I was sure of it. In American colleges, you could try majors and switch them even halfway through the ride. Whereas in Bulgaria the decision had to be made by the end of high school. There was no such thing as applying to a college or university in general, only to a specific department. And if the department said yes, that was it.
    â€œYou aren’t serious, are you?” The twist in our conversation had drained the smile off her cheeks. “Or are you actually telling me that you might major in something else?”
    â€œI’ve thought about it.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œI need to take classes outside of music before I can make up my mind.”
    She looked at me as if my face had become a snapshot of the apocalypse. “Fine, then, we will revisit this once the semester is over. But in the meantime I wouldn’t put it on Nate’s radar, if I were you.”
    I promised her not to. She handed me the chart, French 101 and Greek Art still intact on it. Yet this was only the first of eight semesters at Princeton, and the fight was far from over. It was possible, of course, that I might major in music. But I was done sacrificing my entire world for it. I was eighteen years old. I wanted to live. And if this meant no longer being Wylie’s protégée or having to endure Donnelly’s grim silence, then so be it.
    FINALLY, MONDAY CAME. MY LONG-AWAITED , much imagined first day of school in America. Like my great-grandfather, who had worked so hard on resurrecting his piano that in the end he probably found those to be the most stunning sounds ever produced by a musical instrument, I had played the day up in my mind beyond proportion. Walking into a Princeton classroom had to be a rite of passage, an entry into something wonderfully new—or so I thought when I left Forbes in the morning.
    Shame, then, that the moment was ruined almost instantly. My first class happened to be Greek Art, and within minutes of entering the lecture hall I was already mortified. Other students seemed to have read dozens of pages that I didn’t even know had been assigned. They answered questions, recognized images on slides, and kept laughing at the professor’s jokes about the origins of Greek mythology. Meanwhile, I was sinking in my seat. How was it possible to be so behind already?
    The answer was simple: orientation week. I had been obsessing over preludes and nocturnes while everybody else had tracked down the syllabus foreach class and started reading. I could hear Donnelly’s voice in my head: Everyone except you and the athletes, dear . . .
    When the lecture ended, I hurried to leave, grateful not to have been called on to join the discussion.
    â€œMiss Slavin, could you stay a minute, please?”
    Professor Giles threw the words across the auditorium like a casual afterthought, without registering the question mark or even glancing in my direction. Austere in his tweed jacket, he had an unexpectedly deep, nuanced voice for a lean man in his sixties. It was because of this voice that, as I would soon find out, most girls in the class found him irresistibly charming.
    â€œGlad to see you in Greek Art.” His eyes scanned the room, making sure the last student had left. “My family attended your concert last week. Everyone thought it was quite the triumph.”
    I thanked him, relieved that the reason he wanted to talk to me had nothing to do with class participation. But the relief didn’t last long.
    â€œMay I ask what made you decide to take my class? First-years typically start with Art 101.”
    â€œI love art history. And Greek Art was the closest it got to home.”
    â€œHome?”
    â€œI meant my country,