Not Without Hope by Nick Schuyler and Jeré Longman Page B
Authors: Nick Schuyler and Jeré Longman
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you’ll do well. You are smart, if you’d just apply yourself.” I didn’t like school. I applied myself to sports and having a good time. I didn’t like school at all. I hated school. I got a communications degree from USF in 2008, but I thought it was just one step above “undecided.” I just went because my mom wanted me to and I knew it was expected. I had a diploma, but I didn’t have a plan to use my degree. At the same time, being a personal trainer was something I worked hard at and loved and made a decent living at.
My sister used to tell me I got the looks, she got the brains—not that she’s bad-looking. Kristen was twenty-seven, three years older than me. We’ve always been pretty close. She was an athlete. She is tall, 5 feet 9 inches, with light brown hair and a strong, athletic build. She played shortstop and the outfield in fast-pitch softball in high school. Once, she played in a tournament in Lyon, France. She had scholarship offers to places like Ohio State, but she wanted to go to school in Florida, at USF. When I was younger, I wanted to be like her. She was my idol. She was cool and popular and hung out with the jocks. She could always kick my ass. She’d hold me down and threaten to spit in my face. My parents spoiledher in ways different from me. She had a car and big parties, a hundred-plus people. When she went to school at USF, they had a house built for her in Tampa.
We differed in a big way as far as schooling went. She looked forward to school and liked it. It came natural to her. She was always studying. In high school, she was already taking courses at community college. She graduated from college at twenty. She went back to Ohio and finished her undergraduate degree at Kent State. She always had a job, even when she didn’t necessarily need one. Then she got her MBA at Cleveland State when she was twenty-three.
Now she worked as a rep for a company that distributed dental supplies. She and my mom were living together in Fort Myers. Kristen is so driven. That’s what I love about her. I always used to say, “It sucks, here I am, twenty-three and I just finished college, and my sister had her master’s when she was twenty-three.”
The other important woman in my life, Paula Oliveira, was nonstop in the back of my head all night. I knew she would be worried. When I left in the morning, I popped my head in the bedroom and said, “Babe, I gotta go. Love you.” She said, “No, I need a kiss,” so I walked in and kissed her.
Paula was five years older, a dance teacher at a performing arts middle school and at a studio in Tampa. She is a brunette, in as good a shape as I was in. Strong as hell. Her family was from Sao Paulo, Brazil. When I moved to Tampa in 2005, I only knew a few people in town. Paula was already out of school, in her first year of teaching, and I met her about six months after I got to town. She went to USF—she and my sister actually lived for a brief time in the same dorm; and while they weren’t friends, they had mutual friends. I met her while a group of us were out for drinks. After that night, I kept calling Paula and texting, but she gave me the run-around. I was twenty, she was twenty-four or twenty-five. I couldn’teven drink in a bar yet. Not legally. Her friends would tell me, “She thinks you’re too young.”
About a month later—this would have been November 2005—we started hanging out. One night we went out and she said she realized that she liked me. She likes to say that it was the happiest night of my life. When we first started dating, I was working out to try to make the USF football team. I had all these motivational quotes in my bedroom, all around my computer: Push yourself to the limit. Shut up and train. Squat ’til you puke. On my twenty-first birthday, she bought me an ice-cream cake. Most people turn twenty-one, they go out and drink twenty-one shots. I was training hard, on a strict diet. I had dedicated myself to the
My sister used to tell me I got the looks, she got the brains—not that she’s bad-looking. Kristen was twenty-seven, three years older than me. We’ve always been pretty close. She was an athlete. She is tall, 5 feet 9 inches, with light brown hair and a strong, athletic build. She played shortstop and the outfield in fast-pitch softball in high school. Once, she played in a tournament in Lyon, France. She had scholarship offers to places like Ohio State, but she wanted to go to school in Florida, at USF. When I was younger, I wanted to be like her. She was my idol. She was cool and popular and hung out with the jocks. She could always kick my ass. She’d hold me down and threaten to spit in my face. My parents spoiledher in ways different from me. She had a car and big parties, a hundred-plus people. When she went to school at USF, they had a house built for her in Tampa.
We differed in a big way as far as schooling went. She looked forward to school and liked it. It came natural to her. She was always studying. In high school, she was already taking courses at community college. She graduated from college at twenty. She went back to Ohio and finished her undergraduate degree at Kent State. She always had a job, even when she didn’t necessarily need one. Then she got her MBA at Cleveland State when she was twenty-three.
Now she worked as a rep for a company that distributed dental supplies. She and my mom were living together in Fort Myers. Kristen is so driven. That’s what I love about her. I always used to say, “It sucks, here I am, twenty-three and I just finished college, and my sister had her master’s when she was twenty-three.”
The other important woman in my life, Paula Oliveira, was nonstop in the back of my head all night. I knew she would be worried. When I left in the morning, I popped my head in the bedroom and said, “Babe, I gotta go. Love you.” She said, “No, I need a kiss,” so I walked in and kissed her.
Paula was five years older, a dance teacher at a performing arts middle school and at a studio in Tampa. She is a brunette, in as good a shape as I was in. Strong as hell. Her family was from Sao Paulo, Brazil. When I moved to Tampa in 2005, I only knew a few people in town. Paula was already out of school, in her first year of teaching, and I met her about six months after I got to town. She went to USF—she and my sister actually lived for a brief time in the same dorm; and while they weren’t friends, they had mutual friends. I met her while a group of us were out for drinks. After that night, I kept calling Paula and texting, but she gave me the run-around. I was twenty, she was twenty-four or twenty-five. I couldn’teven drink in a bar yet. Not legally. Her friends would tell me, “She thinks you’re too young.”
About a month later—this would have been November 2005—we started hanging out. One night we went out and she said she realized that she liked me. She likes to say that it was the happiest night of my life. When we first started dating, I was working out to try to make the USF football team. I had all these motivational quotes in my bedroom, all around my computer: Push yourself to the limit. Shut up and train. Squat ’til you puke. On my twenty-first birthday, she bought me an ice-cream cake. Most people turn twenty-one, they go out and drink twenty-one shots. I was training hard, on a strict diet. I had dedicated myself to the
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