Chapter 26
Chapter 26 — State College
Alex asks Jessica to accompany him to visit State College, where they take a campus tour with an overly polished student guide and meet with a financial aid representative who pressures Alex toward enrollment. They sit in on a structural engineering lecture where the professor doesn't recognize his own students. On the drive back, Jessica suggests Alex look at Gillespie Community College, which is closer to the commune and offers trade-aligned programs. Alex calls Gene to confirm the apprenticeship and begins to see how the pieces fit together — the apprenticeship, the community college, the life he's building at the commune — as a practical path forward rather than the shiny but hollow one State College presented.
Alex found Jessica in the nurse's station on Tuesday morning. She was organizing gauze rolls into a wooden box she'd probably built herself. She built everything herself. Everyone at the commune did. That was the point.
He stood in the doorway. She didn't look up.
"I need a favor," he said.
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