Summer's Never Looked The Same

I stare down at the receipt with the Brooke's number on it. My heart is aching and telling me to call. My mind is telling me that I should just forget it because no one will listen.

The room suddenly gets darker when I hear a car pull into the driveway. The alarm clock on my bedside table claims it's 7:30pm. I put the receipt on my dresser and make my way to my bed. I kick my Vans off, remove my jeans, and curl up under my blankets.

I end up walking around my room after an hour of laying in bed. I tried to think about stuff, then it all led to the last thing I wanted, or needed, to be thinking about.

As I walk around this room, I feel as empty as the room feels. It's piled with shit, but it all still feels so vacant.

I look at everything that I've already looked at a million times before in my life. But each glance I take at them, it seems as though I'm seeing them for the first time.

I stop in front of my closet. Clothes hang on the doorknob and halfway off the shelves. I see the shoe boxes filled with my memories laying on the floor, dusty and neglected for many years. I lean down, pick up all five boxes, and move them to my bed. Sitting cross legged, I open them all and look through them one-by-one.

The first box holds pictures of me aging from a baby to a toddler. In most of them, I'm posing with friends like Erin, but I'm also posing with Dad's friends. They make me cry, laugh, and smile.

Dad would never, and still doesn't, let me do stunts. I still don't know why he took me to the sets and stuff when I couldn't even jump off a skate ramp without him flipping his lid. Probably because he wanted me to see the consequences when doing an idiotic stunt. Still has no effect on me as of today.

A knock on my door and the slideshow of my memories playing in my head fades away as I look up to see Bam standing in the doorway of my room awkwardly. He sees the photos scattered on my bed and the photos I hold in my hands and he looks confident within a second. He walks over in a way that makes me kind of laugh, as if he's on a model on a runway.

"What's up?" He asks after he does his little walk.

"Mm... Just looking at photos." I reply, looking down at the photo in my hand. I'm around six years old with a yellow t-shirt two sizes too big for my small body and a green towel pinned around my waist. I think I was trying to dress up like Jane Porter from Tarzan because I thought she was gorgeous and I liked the way she dressed.

Bam reaches down into one of the boxes and pulls out another photo. He smiles as he studies it, which peaks my curiosity as to what it's of. He sees my curious expression and hands it to me.

I'm standing in the hallway of our house. I'm wearing my "Live, Rock, Sleep" tank top that Ryan gave me for my birthday. I can't remember where I put it. It's obvious I had just woken up because my hair looks like Chewbacca wiped his ass on my head and my eyes are droopy. Behind me, Ryan's smiling huge. It was meant as a goofy smile because I was giving my dad the expression of "Don't you dare take that picture." I turn the photo over to see if there's a date. July 10th, 2009. A day before my fourteenth birthday. "Ava's raging hormones" is written under the date. I start laughing. I look up at Bam, who has a relieved look on his face.

"So, what are you doing?" I question, putting the photo in a pile of other photos that I plan to keep out of the boxes.

"I'm bored as hell. Let's go out or something."

I give him a "What the hell?" look and he quickly says, "Nooo, not that way, dumbass."

Laughing, I stand up from the bed, the pile of photos that had been sitting in front of me filling my now vacant spot. "Okay, whatever. What did you have in mind?" I ask as I put my shoes back on.

"The mall?"

"We can wreak havoc!" I exclaim sarcastically. Expecting to hear him laugh, I look up to see a smirk on his face instead.

"I'M IN!" He yells suddenly, running out of the room.

"I... I was kidding. Bam?" Quickly tying the rest of my last shoe, I run after Bam, forgetting my phone on my bed.