That was freshman year in high school. Four years ago. Damn, I felt old. I couldn’t imagine how old I’d feel once I turned thirty, or forty, or any of the decades after that. But, to answer her question…yes, I remembered.
Since my lips were sealed shut, my mom went on, “You laughed in his face, right after he offered you the roses. I was horrified for him.”
Tom Bradley. I had no idea what gave the nerd the push to ask me to the dance—I always went solo, because it was more fun that way. There was no way in hell I’d go with him or any boy to a dance.
“You aren’t nice to boys who like you,” Mom said. “You can be a bitch.”
“Mom!”
“It’s true. You can be. I don’t know where you get it from.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, trust me, Levi is a dick.”
“Levi, hmm?” Mom raised her eyebrows, suddenly so intrigued at his name. “What else do you know about Levi? He seemed handsome.”
I knew this was Mom’s way of trying to see why I’d written Levi off, but I so didn’t want to talk about him. I spoke over her, “So how’s the divorce coming along?” Okay, yes, I was a bitch. Call me…well, call me a bitch, I guess.
A bitch being bitchy, go figure. Shit like that never happened around here.
Mom quieted, and that was that. No more talk about Levi. I’d sufficiently pissed her off enough to shut her up the entire ride home. A job well done to me. Let me just pat myself on the back here.
Of course, since I brought it up, I thought about it a bit too much. What would happen once Mom and Dad separated? Would they live in separate places? Obviously. Who would get to keep the house—or would they sell it? Where would my stuff go? Would I have two holidays, or would I have to pick one and then alternate every other year? So many unknowns, so many questions. I didn’t like thinking about it.
After roughly thirty minutes, Mom pulled us into the driveway. As I was getting out my backpack, throwing it over my shoulders, she said, “Your dad will home in a little over an hour. Are you going to stay to see him?”
Considering the drive to Hillcrest was kind of long, no. No, I wasn’t going to waste any more time here than I had to. Just get the keys to the rust bucket, grab the shit from my mom that she took from the office, and be gone. Throw everything from my mind. Stop worrying.
“No. I’m just grabbing the rust bucket’s keys,” I told her, stepping into the house. It smelled familiar still, but soon enough it wouldn’t. This place felt weird now; I couldn’t even imagine how strange it would be once only one of my parents lived here…if that’s what happened. “Did you bring home what I asked you to get?”
Mom held in a sigh as she dug in her purse, pulling out a blank sheet of sticky nametags. Her office used them when they had visitors. Just plain white, with the lettering done in red: Hello, my Name is… Nothing too special, but it would suffice. I grabbed them from her, thanked her, and stuffed them into my backpack.
“I’m out,” I said, heading toward the door. “See you Sunday.”
Mom gave me a strained smile. “Have fun, and tell Ash I said hi.”
Oh, if there was one thing I wouldn’t do, it was talk about my parents. Ash surely had enough drama to drown myself in for the weekend; I didn’t need to add onto the pile.
Once I got in my car, my old, faithful rust bucket, I texted Ash to let her know I was on my way. I figured we’d get a late dinner once I got there. I even offered to pay, not that I had much in my bank account. Ash had even less, but I figured we could eat on campus after that and she’d take care of that, meal card and all.
Behind the wheel, I was able to crank up some rock music and lose myself to the familiar beats. I hadn’t listened to much music while at SCC; for some reason, Mel didn’t strike me as the type to enjoy the kind of music I liked. You know, the kind you head-banged to, the kind that you could only understand half of the lyrics to.
Though it was chilly outside, I rolled down the window. At least it wasn’t downpouring like it was a few days ago. I could handle this air, this chill. I stuck an arm out of the window, not caring that my long hair would get knots from being blown around. This weekend, I needed to not care about a single thing, be as carefree as humanly possible.
It wasn’t impossible. It was very possible, and I would do my damnedest to hold myself to it. None of my drama, although I did promise Ash I’d tell her once I saw her. Stupid, stupid. Ah, well. I’d tell her a bit, but not everything.
For some stupid reason, I figured she’d look at me differently if she knew everything that was going on.
She wouldn’t. Ash wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t judge you based on what you did or your family situation. She was a good person, deep down, when she really let herself go.
The drive was over both too soon and not soon enough. I rocked out to as many tunes as I could, and I found her dorm building, pulling into its turnaround and waiting for her to come down.
I tugged on my hoodie’s sleeves. This place was…the exact kind of place you pictured when you imagined a
