James wasn't extraordinary.
Not in the way that earned you scholarships, stood out in a classroom, or landed you in one of those cheesy university brochures with fake smiling students on green lawns.
He was extraordinary in the way a cockroach is relentlessly stubborn, highly adaptable, and somehow still alive despite every economic disaster of the last two decades.
And in this economy?
That was basically a superpower.
At 22, James was in his final year at a modest state university.
Not prestigious.
Not trash.
Just... there.
A school no one outside the region had ever heard of, with a football team that hadn't made playoffs since Bush-era foreign policy.
He majored in Humanities, which meant he spent most of his time writing about dead philosophers, modern chaos, and "the cultural significance of empty spaces in post-war literature."
In short, he was broke and poetic about it.
Physically, James looked exactly how you'd expect someone with four hours of sleep and a 2.89 GPA to look.
Perpetually tired, caffeine-dependent, and rocking an outfit that screamed.
"Laundry day came and went."
Two hoodies rotated like NBA starters.
His jeans had seen things.
And his shoes?
They had more mileage than most used cars, and the soles flapped like broken promises.
He wasn't ugly.
He wasn't hot.
He was… discount charming.
Like someone you'd swipe right on, but only because his bio made you laugh.
But if James had a true identity one that eclipsed GPA scores, fading hoodies, and microwave rice dinner it was this.
He read.
Not casually.
Not occasionally.
He read with a hunger usually reserved for people trapped in the self-help aisle of a bookstore during a midlife crisis.
Over 12,000 hours of novels, PDFs, light novels, manga, ancient forum threads, philosophical manifestos, cooking blogs, user manuals for devices he didn't own, and once… an entire 98-page comment war about the moral implications of time travel in anime.
Fantasy?
Devoured.
Sci-fi?
Memorized.
Philosophy?
Suffered through, but completed.
DIY guides for fixing a toaster?
Of course.
He didn't own one, but still.
He didn't read to show off.
He read to escape.
Reality was unpaid internships, job rejections, group projects with people who ghosted, and professors who graded like they were allergic to happiness.
Fiction?
Fiction made sense.
He lived off-campus in a one-bedroom apartment that generously called itself "furnished" because someone had once left a chair behind.
The walls were thinner than his patience, the Wi-Fi cut out if you sneezed too hard, and his roommate was a crypto-bro turned deodorant denier who believed air fryers caused brain rot.
Their fridge contained four eggs, one condiment bottle from 2019, and a burrito in a Tupperware container that had legally become its own organism.
And yet, James persisted.
He juggled part-time hours at a used bookstore downtown, a job that paid him in moral satisfaction and just enough cash to buy off-brand cereal.
The owner, a retired English professor, once told him, "You've got the kind of eyes that have seen too much Kafka."
James wasn't sure if that was an insult or a compliment.
He nodded anyway.
His daily routine followed the sacred rites of college struggle.
Wake up five minutes before class.
Mentally prepare for the crushing weight of academic underachievement.
Spend two hours listening to a lecture on postmodernism while wondering if he remembered to feed the plants (spoiler: he didn't).
Work, study, maybe eat.
Read.
Always read.
Now, if you wanted to talk about grit, you'd have to talk about his parents.
Because if James was broke, it was only because his parents were keeping him from being completely shattered.
His mother was a superhero in mortal disguise.
By day, she wrangled kids at a daycare tiny, sticky humans with volume levels banned in some countries.
By evening, she ran the front desk of a dental clinic, scheduling cleanings for people who treated flossing like a criminal conspiracy.
And on weekends?
She sold handmade candles on Etsy with names like "Finals Fuel" and "Crisis Comfort."
James burned one during every exam week.
Sometimes two.
His father was a forklift operator at a shipping warehouse.
Big hands.
Quiet voice.
Could fix anything with duct tape and a scowl.
He didn't understand what James studied "So… it's like English but more complaining?"
But never once questioned its value.
Not when they mailed checks.
Not when James failed a class.
Not when he called home and said, "I'm thinking of switching majors again."
They didn't have much.
But what they had, they gave.
Fifty bucks here.
Grocery money there.
Always with a note from Mom and a thumbs-up emoji from Dad.
It wasn't just financial support it was belief.
James knew the numbers.
He knew the odds.
Humanities degrees weren't exactly golden tickets.
Every semester, some smug business major asked, "So, what are you gonna do with that degree?"
And every semester, James thought.
"Hopefully, not strangle you with student debt."
He wasn't a genius.
He wasn't powerful.
He wasn't even that disciplined his most productive day last week involved alphabetizing his books instead of writing his midterm.
But he was trying.
Every single day.
Not to be special.
Just to survive.
To make it mean something.
To not become another statistic in a dropout infographic.
There were moments quiet, late-night moments when James stared at the ceiling and wondered if he was wasting his life.
If he was doomed to stay stuck.
If the dream of being "something more" was just... fiction.
But then he'd crack open another novel.
Something magical.
Something absurd.
Something with a main character who started from nothing and still changed the world.
And James would smile and think
"Maybe fiction is the only place where losers get second chances."
Of course, life wasn't fiction.
There were no swords falling from the sky..
No mysterious systems.
No cheat codes hidden in ramen packets.
There was just this.
An overworked, overread college kid with a sarcastic internal monologue, a chronic ramen addiction, and a dream held together by duct tape, midnight prayers, and mild delusion.
And if the world wasn't going to hand him a miracle?
Well…
He'd read until he found one himself.