A Summer Fling Turned Upside Down..

What’s to be expected when you enter senior year in high school? Well, the stereotypical notion everyone sees in teen movies right? Breeze through all of your classes until finals, have a heavy social life, and find the love of your life. That’s the cookie-cutter way of looking at all four years of high school, let’s be honest.

I’ve molded myself into believing the complete opposite. Day after day, it’s constant hardship to keep my grades pristine and over-achieved, so that I can be top of my class by the end of the year and receive that nice little scholarship that will get me into Yale. What about a social life, you ask? I have friends; plenty of friends… Okay, I’ve had the same friends since middle school, and they aren’t so well-liked either. No one said anything about needing popular friends to get into Yale, did they?

And love?

Love is a myth. There’s adoration, there’s care, there’s affection, and there’s infatuation, but there isn’t love. Love is too strong of a word. Love is a meaning that can’t be known. It doesn’t exist.

~*~

Two months into my last year of high school. We’ve reached the point where we’re finally beginning to learn something of importance. Well, something we weren’t already taught the previous years. It’s like our teachers believe the more they explain something, the more we’ll remember it. When will they finally learn that If we don’t care for something, we won’t ever.

It was on this particular day that I realized that something was off. The weather in California has never been as splendid at it was, nor were the students at West Coast so tolerable. Something was terribly off-balance, and it wasn't until I was walking home that it began to dawn me.

The tote bag I dragged along with me from my commute home to school, and back again, felt so strangely light upon my shoulder. Usually, it's filled with textbooks and reading material about unfamiliar authors that date back a hundred years. Yet, today there was nothing at all that I could complain about. To make matters far more odd, it was the middle of the week.

There was always a sense of normality after taking the wide path leading to my Aunt's quaint abode. She had lived in the same home for the past seventeen years of my existence. It was the same beach house with the bright red window shields, the same house that went through a series of broken windows thanks to ultimate Frisbee, the same house that was the center of bake sales due to Aunt Rhonda's obsession with baking, and it was the same house that I had lived in for the last six years.

You may wonder how I came about this, and I'll tell you. My mother is what you call a nomad. She can't stay in the same area for too long. It's not that she physically can't. I think it's a mental thing. My mother is a restless creature. She enjoys adventure, even if that means losing her daughter.

Once finally approaching the front steps, I took note that there was a taxi waiting on the curb in front of the house. The driver wasn't irritated like most who have to sit and wait. In fact, the man looked smug and content, like he'd wait hours if he had to. So with satisfaction, he read his newspaper.

Scampering forward, I cast one final glance at the taxi before shuffling through the unlocked front door, immediately being met with the sound of boastful laughter and the clanking of porcelain. I easily recognized my Aunt's soft tone as I closed the door behind me.

"Isabel?" she said, cutting whatever conversation like a knife, "Is that you?"

Who else would it be? I thought to myself irritably. Aunt Rhonda didn't have any children, and she wasn't married. She was so afraid of commitment, that she didn't even have a pet to call her own. She was some-what like my mother in the sense. "Yes," I called out.

Before I could take the steps leading to my bedroom upstairs, I was interrupted. "Will you come into the living room, please?" my Aunt asked. With a sigh, I dropped my tote on the last step and made my way into the living room.

Aunt Rhonda's guest had her back facing me, but with the large grin on my Aunt's face, I assumed it was someone very dear to her. The woman sat with a sophisticated air about her. She seemed at ease and at home, considering how out of place she looked in the cluttered and mismatched living area. I cleared my throat politely from beneath the threshold. With excitement, the woman stood and turned to me, a sweet grin plastered to her face.

I stared at her curiously, while she stared at me with adoration. I was taken-aback, and slightly frightened. I took in her perfectly pinned back hair, and strikingly beautiful features, all presented in a wrinkle-free pencil skirt and blouse, paired with shoes the height of a pencil. What was a woman like that, doing in a place like this? I thought to myself.

Then I began to look beneath the surface, and carefully pinpointed every aspect of this woman that sparked a flame within me. I knew her. Granted when I knew her, she wore jeans and t-shirts. She wore no make-up. Her hair was always pulled back. She hardly ever wore open shoes. This woman wasn't who she used to be. This woman was hardly ever present. This woman was unexpected. This woman was oblivious.

"Hello, mother."