by Dr. Noh
(mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/325105.html)
Owen spent the first night of the Christmas holidays chain smoking in a pub on the outskirts of Oxford. The cigarettes and the beer and the general fug of the place felt like his first taste of reality since the start of the term.
He had thought Harrow would prepare him for university — that was its job, after all — but the shock of his acceptance had only metamorphosed into the sense that he was swimming just ahead of the tide, waiting for the surf to break over his head and pull him under.