The Beach House

Seven hours. Seven hours of pour hell in a cramped car with a ten year old. Seven hours of pour torture vanished as the white wooden house came into view. And if like in slow motion everything I fathomed was gone.

“Jamie hun wake up your brother,” my mother said fixing her brown curly main. I nodded and nudged the slobber king making him huff, “We’re here!” I huffed pushing him once more and looking out through the window.

The beach house. The only thing that keeps me sane, it was like my own personal get away, away from school, away from enemies, away from life. My father pulled into the drive way opening the garage, I was already gone.

Quickly hopping out of the old Buick I ran up the old creaky steps I loved so much and into the house, it was dark but it smelled the exact same. I smiled and ran my fingers down the deserted coffee table.

I shoved off my shoes and walked around re-acquainting myself with the old furniture. Ah the house that held many generations,

This house was built by my great-great grandfather. He emigrated here from Italy hoping for a new life with my great-great grandmother. Dirt poor he built the house out of wood and anything else he could find.

And years and decades later he passed down the house to my great grandfather, and so on and so forth. And now it was my fathers, Sure we had a real house, all the way up in San Francisco.

But every year after the school season ends we drive down here, to the beach house, and rekindle our past. “Jamie, help your father with the suit cases!” my mother scolded.

Ah my mother, she was forty-four with a ten year old son and an eight-teen year old daughter though her face showed no sign of aging. She had a weird thing for bohemian things, and was often making jewelry out of turquoise and wooden beads.

My father on the other hand was fifty and was already graying. He was tall with chiseled face features. He loved to take long runs and thought of Dylan, my brother, as the holy gift.

And then there was Dylan. The boy was ten years old and already a soccer star. He loved running around with is flopping brown hair matching his brown eyes.

Then there was me. Simple Jamie Anne Jade. Brown haired blue eyed me. I was nothing to important. I got good grades, recently graduated, and planed on going into acting, well more like musical theatre at NYU.

I grumbled and jogged down to help my father unload. “Jamie” my out of breath father said setting the last bag down, “Yea dad?” I asked a hint of concern in my voice. “This summer is going to be different.” He said leaning on the old car,

“What do you mean?” I asked “I mean, you’re going off to college and well I offered my old friend to come down and visit for a while with his family,” my father explained.

“Alright” I said tying my hair up “who and how long?”

“The whole summer and the Jonas’s.”