Day 5 CONTINUED

DAY 5 CONTINUED

 

When I get home, my mother is sitting in the backyard. The sun is only covered slightly, so that's obviously reason enough to sit outside in tiny shorts and a barely-there top. Sometimes, my mother is a bit embarrassing. Most of the time, like now, she's completely humiliating. I walk toward the back doors, dropping my summer coat on the couch along the way. I haven't completely figured out what to say to her yet, but I decided in the parking lot that I should tell her before I do anything. I'm not heartless enough to completely steal her daughter away from her without even a fair warning.

“Mom?” I ask when I reach her. She looks up through her humongous sunglasses, already smiling.

“Hi, sweetheart! How did your session with Jacqueline go?”

She always asks this. I never answer.

“Well, I actually wanted to talk to you about that.” I sit down on the edge of my mother's lawn chair, slightly afraid of startling her. She takes off her sunglasses and stares at me with her dark mahogany eyes. My mother is the reason why I look nothing like my dad. My grandmother says that my mouth is the same shape, but I'm pretty sure there is nothing of him in me. My mother has every dominant gene imaginable: dark hair, dark eyes, always tanned skin. I'm like her in that way, but blurry. Where she has curves, I have fat. Where she is slim, I'm a stick. Where her hair is long and flowing, mine is short and choppy from when I cut it with my pocket knife during my last bout of actual rebellion. And while her eyes make people think of chocolate and all good things, I've been told mine look dead. But anyway, my mother is staring at me, waiting for me to speak, for the first time ever, about my therapy session.

“I talked a lot to Jacqueline today, and we decided that I'm not really getting any better, and that I need to change my life.”

The fact that I'm actually talking about this must be quite shocking to my mother, because she just sits silently for a moment before speaking. When she does, her face is scrunched and pulled, as if she's thinking very hard.

“So, what did Jacqueline say you should do?”

“She said I have to experience new things and find something that makes me happy.” I think I see a flash of hurt on my mother's face, but I ignore it. It'd be of no use for me to start feeling bad about this. Then I'll never manage to leave.

“What are you going to do, honey?”

This is the tricky part.

“Mom, I think I need to leave. No, I know I need to leave. I don't have any friends here-”

“Well, it's not like you tried very hard,” my mother mutters. I go on as if I didn't hear her.

“And I have nothing to look forward to at all this summer, and this place is making me miserable. So, I'm leaving.” I'm breathing a bit harder than usual, scared of her reaction. My mother is happy-go-lucky, but she isn't used to me being spontaneous. I watch her expression go from confused, to frustrated, to something I don't recognize, and eventually, to sad.

“Is there nothing else you could possibly do, Alex? I don't want to lose you,” she pleads, her eyes wide and soft. I resist the urge to roll mine. My mother is more of a child than I am.

“No, mom. This is what I want to do. It's what I need to do.”

There's another moment of silence, but I can tell she's giving in. This is it. I let a minuscule part of me be almost hopeful. Maybe this will be some kind of new beginning. At some point, I realize my mother is nodding, slowly.

“Alright, I understand your need for space. And if Jacqueline is on board with this, I'm okay with it. Have you planned it out yet?”

I shake my head. “I've decided to just go with what comes. I'm going to pack up some stuff tonight, and I'll leave tomorrow, I think. I'll see what happens.”

“Okay, sweetie. Come here, let me give you a hug.”

 

 

At night, after dinner, I stand before my closet, contemplating what I should bring on this trip. I live in Boston, and I have to get all the way to Monterey, so I need a decent amount of clothing. But I'm also going to need food, and money, though not too much. I talked to my mom during dinner tonight, and I decided I'll take buses as often as possible, but I'll probably have to hitchhike sometimes. I'm okay with that, I think. Meeting new people, and all that. I wonder if people are actually as kind as described in books. Maybe everyone is just an a*****e, like me. That would at least make me feel a bit better about my attitude. I grab my mother's old hiking backpack, and just start stuffing clothes into it. A pair of pants, a couple of shirts, a sweater. Then I throw that on my bed, and head to my book shelves. My books are really the only thing I care about, besides my music. But even that has become less important since I stopped singing. I'm not writing anymore, either, but the stories still let me disappear, which is all I ask of life. I quickly grab some of my favorites. 1Q84, Pride and Prejudice, the first Harry Potter. A couple of books I've been putting off make the cut too. I'll have lots of time on the bus, so I'll need something to keep me from thinking. I also pack my solar phone charger, my regular charger, my headphones, earbuds, and my old camera. My dad gave it to me when I was kid. It doesn't work, but maybe I'll get the chance to fix it on the way. I think I might want to take pictures at some point. A couple of bottles of water join the rest of my stuff in the backpack, and then I feel like I'm sort of prepared. Tomorrow I'll pack some food and all my bathroom essentials before I head out.

I drop myself next to the bag on my bed. How am I actually going to do this? I've been so caught up in the feeling of it all, that I have no idea what I'm going to do first. Should I make a plan? That feels like too much though. I want to do things unexpectedly, mostly so I can't back out. I decide that I'll do exactly what I told my mom: I'll just see what happens. There's not much else to do.