Aim High, Never Rest

“Sorry about all that,” Logan apologized as we reclaimed our seat by the pool. “My friends can get a little crazy sometimes.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” I laughed. “But crazy people are the most fun.”

“I guess,” he replied, his eyes stayed focused on his lap. “Sometimes it gets a little frustrating being in a ‘group.’”

“Yeah…but, I mean, it can’t be that bad. At least you have your three best friends here with you. All of my friends are back in South Carolina….” My voice trailed off. “Oh well, at least it’s a fresh start.”

He nodded in response.

As I lifted the dark green cover of my textbook, I was immediately overcome by laziness. “So where did you say you wanted to go, ya know, before Carlos’s cannonball?” I said, a hint of laughter in my voice. “I highly doubt we’re gonna get anything done out here.”

Logan glanced around the pool area, taking stock of all the groups of people around us. “Yeah, you’re right.”

I raised my eyebrows expectantly, waiting for him to answer my question.

As soon as he realized, he immediately became flustered, and the words almost seemed to tumble from his mouth. “Um, yeah, there’s this Jupiter exhibit at the museum down the street. I went to the Venus one, and it was pretty cool. If you aren’t interested, that’s okay. I can go by myself.”

Though the prospect of spending an afternoon in a museum staring at random facts and models of Jupiter wasn’t the most tempting, it wasn’t like I had throngs of people knocking down my door desperate to spend time with me.

“I’m down… as long as I get to drive,” I smirked.

He hesitated before responding. “As long as you don’t get us killed or anything.”

I pumped my fist in victory. “Alright, so I need to head back up to my apartment for some things. Meet you in the lobby around” I took a moment to glance at my phone, “Three-thirty?”

“Sounds good.” He flashed me a lopsided grin as he got up and began to walk towards the lobby.

I sighed as I sank back into the soft blue cushion of the lounge chair, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. My mom was definitely not going to be thrilled that I was choosing to go out with a boy instead of working on my new monologue, which sat stapled together on the table beside me.

I just wasn’t feeling the whole acting thing at the moment. Sure, I’d entertained the idea of being the leading lady of some summer blockbuster, but it just took so much work to get to that point. So far, I’d only been in one commercial and a couple teen pregnancy PSAs. Though I didn’t want to be known as the teen pregnancy girl, I just didn’t have the devotion that it took to get any further in the business. I enjoyed the art of acting, but I didn’t love it enough to spend every second of my day on it.

I was still waiting for that click, the moment when it would just come to me, and I would know exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

Reluctantly, I grabbed my bottle of water and monologue off of the table before lugging it and my textbook up to my apartment on the third floor.

As usual, my mom was lying on the couch, absorbed in her favorite soap opera. She tried to perk up when she saw me.

“Hey honey, how did the studying go?”

“Pretty good,” I said, offering her a faint smile. I knew full and well what the next words out of her mouth were going to be.

“Did you practice your monologue?”

“Yeah,” I lied as I drifted towards my bedroom.

She smiled in approval. “Good because you know you have a ton of auditions lined up for this week.”

“Yeah, I know, Mom.”

I ducked into my room and quickly shut the door behind me, thrusting my heavy book onto the bed. I placed the water and my monologue on my dresser as I moved towards my closet.

What are you even supposed to wear to a museum? I hadn’t been to one since like, the third grade. Are you supposed to dress classy and sophisticated like people do when they go to art shows? Does taking in the wonders of the planet Jupiter with your lab partner really qualify as trying to gain culture?

Nah.

I grabbed a blazer from my closet and quickly pulled it on over my oversized cream tank top and denim shorts. I looked myself over in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of my door; to be honest, with my blazer hanging slightly lower than my shorts, I looked a little skanky. Eh, I’d never been big on fashion.

After trying to tug my shorts down some, I loosened my hair from its braid. With my wavy hair, I’ve taken to living by the philosophy of “scrunch and go,” which was just what I did. I touched up my makeup in the mirror before standing back to take a look at myself.

Sometimes I have those days where I just think that I’m the shit; it was one of those days.

As I tried to sneak through the living room without calling any attention to myself, I heard my mom’s voice calling from the kitchen.

“Kandi, are you going out?”

“Uh, yeah. This guy I know from school asked me to go to this museum thing with him. I figured it was cool.”

She sighed, not really liking the idea of me being “alone” with a guy. In her mind, all guys are after one thing, and they’re all just out there waiting to corrupt my poor little virgin mind. Cue dramatic eye roll here.

“I guess that’s fine, just try to be home at a decent time, okay?”

“I will,” I replied with a smile before I walked out the door.

Glancing at my phone, I noticed that it was only ten after three, which meant I had to kill time somehow. It was no biggie; I’m generally early to everything, so in my sixteen, almost seventeen, years of life, I’ve become quite the master of killing time.

Instead of taking the elevator, I decided to take the stairs. As I walked out into the barely lit stairwell, I noticed that I’d never actually been there. The emptiness and the way each of my footsteps seemed to echo made it feel a little eerie. I was relieved when I reached the open lobby.

I glanced at my phone once more: three-thirteen. Just great, seventeen more minutes of utter boredom.

Or at least, that’s what I had thought.