Rainy Days ~Prologue~

My name was something I had always hated, ever since I was old enough to understand that other people had normal ones. It was something that defined you, like the title on the binding of a book. Before you can judge a book by it’s cover, you need to judge the cover by its title on the side of it, like a first glance. My mother called my name “artistic” while all my father could ever do was stand by, arms crossed, and wish his wife had given birth to a son.
    Now my sister, she had a normal name. Pretty, even. Alice Caitlin Winslow was a name that would make you pause for a second and think That’s a pretty name. I guess, in a way, that I’m jealous that my sister got both the pretty name and the pretty face of us two. She had long silk-like black hair that always hung in a lose pony tail that reached the small of her back. She also had the better figure as well as bright green eyes and good posture. Everything about Alice was perfectly sound, and there wasn’t a word to describe her that would include every amazing quality.
    My dad says that him and my mother had different ideas for naming me, since Alice was named after my grandmother. No surprise there; almost every decision held different ideas for my parents. My father says he had wanted to name me Lila, and like most discussions,  I couldn’t help but think he was right. I would have made a very nice Lila, I think, and I can remember times when I’d look into the mirror and think, That face is a Lila.
    My mother, on the other hand, wanted to name me Claud after Claud Monet, being the artist she was. This was a name I continued to hate for the rest of my life. Claud sounded like... something that somebody threw up, to me. Alice always said I was only against the name because my mom was all for it. I guess she was probably right. Alice was always right.
    So my father offered a compromise to my mom, that if I was a boy Dad could name me and if I was a girl then Mom could go with whatever artistic name she wanted. I am eternally grateful to Alice for pointing out that no girl would like the name Claud, which she was also right about. So my mother reconsidered and completely abandoned the idea of making my name artistic, relating back to the place she was born. Thus I became Nova Louise Winslow.
    My parents were very different people, and it had always surprised at least myself, if not others, that they had gotten married. My father was Kurt Winslow, a carpenter who had grown up in Ottawa. I always thought of my father as handsome whilst growing up, and I’m sure it was only because I liked him so much. He was tall, and had broad shoulders as well as short, slick black hair. Alice and myself got our black hair from him. As it was traditional in our family, she sided with my mother and said that black hair was too dark. She had wanted blonde hair, like my mother’s.
    Pauline Mason was raised in a family full of award-winning, house-making, bright-smiling people. The family in numerous pictures slipped into various photo albums looked perfect and smiley, with the fake expressions of a happy household plastered on their faces. Grandma Alice Mason was a musician, and had played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra when she was younger. Grandfather Calvin Mason was a world renowned author and journalist, who ended up writing for the New York Times for the four years he lived there.
    Pauline Mason and Kurt Winslow’s story began when they both traveled to go to Boston College, where Grandma Alice had met Grandfather Calvin and the only college my father had gotten in to. How they met was simple; my father asked my mother to an upcoming school dance. Being the independent woman she was, she declined. But they met up again after college when she needed someone to work on her new apartment, a carpenter that just happened to be the man she said goodbye to in college.
    I really didn’t know the rest of the story, but I think Alice did. My father never really liked story telling or that sort of thing. My mother was an author, and whenever anyone would listen to something she could truly describe, she became Miss Storyteller.   
    I was always a daddy’s girl, I guess you could call me. Although I hated the term, it said that I was dependent on my father, which I was. I’m sure I seemed like the son of the family, always hanging out with my dad and learning at a young age how to be tough. Alice became the pretty girl, the older sister. I was so masculine my father used to call me Noah on forgetful days. No matter how much I wished that it was my real name, like other things, it was just a dream.

Author's Note

Very random