Dreams of 18(29)

But then, they told me that kids from Cherryville High usually end up at Yale or Columbia or something similar, and I knew Brian wanted that.

Unlike me, he’s always been a straight-A student. He’s always been excellent at everything according to his teachers. Not only that but he’s one of those rare kids who are good at sports too.

Sometimes I can’t believe he’s my kid. My son.

I raised him. Me. An aimless, angry kid from a small town who never thought he’d get anywhere. Whose only goal at eighteen was to get out of this shitty place and maybe use that scholarship they accidentally gave him for playing some ball to go to college.

How the hell did my son get so talented?

So smart that my chest hurts with pride for him.

If only I hadn’t moved cross-country.

I should’ve known that Brian would end up at an Ivy League school anyway. All I wanted to do was make it easier for him. All I wanted was for him to have his best shot, to be able to give him all the help I could so he could go wherever he wanted.

Isn’t that what parents do?

They try to make it easy for their kids. They try to give them all the opportunities that they can so their kids can be whoever they want to be.

I’ve never been very confident in my parenting abilities. I never had a very good example from which to learn – my dad was a drunk and my mother left when I was five or so – but goddamn it, I thought I was doing the right thing.

I should’ve stayed put, however. I should’ve refused their offer.

We were happy in Denver.

In Denver, I could sleep.

In Denver, there were no brown-eyed girls with long, thick hair that doesn’t stop for miles and milky-white skin that shines under the moonlight.

The first time I saw her, she was climbing out of a window at night.

I was in my bedroom, trying to fall asleep in the new bed, in a new house that I didn’t like very much. I noticed a movement from the corner of my eye: someone jumping onto a tree branch, outside of a window next door.

By the time I’d sprung out of the bed, thinking there was an intruder, the climber had scaled that branch so fast that all I could do was stand there.

All I could do was stare.

At her long, thick hair, wondering how I missed seeing it in the first place.

Because that hair appeared alive. The strands were blowing and winding and fluttering in the breeze and I wasn’t even sure that the wind was so strong that night.

Then, the ‘intruder’ looked up at the sky and opened her arms wide.

I was too far away to notice anything minuscule about her but I could’ve sworn, the way she was staring up at the sky, she had just sighed. And smiled.

A second later, she sat down on the slanting roof and reached behind her to get at something. That’s when I noticed she had a small backpack slung across her back. One by one, she fished out a notebook, a flashlight, and a giant pair of headphones, along with a lollipop.

Popping that lollipop in her mouth and putting those headphones on, she lit up the flashlight and began writing.

It was clear by then that it wasn’t a break-in. She wasn’t an intruder.

She was the girl next door who was probably a little crazy and in some serious need of parental guidance.

The following day I saw her again.

After coming back from a late run, I was in the kitchen, trying to find our coffee machine in one of the unopened boxes.

And there she was.

Out in her backyard, sitting at the edge of the pool, her arms behind her propping her up and her feet dangling in the water. Again, she had those headphones on and a lollipop in her mouth and her eyes were closed.

Her hair appeared dark but had streaks of gold in it or something similar. Something I’d never seen before.

Just then a blonde came rushing out the door and started shouting at her, gesturing wildly with her hands. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I could hear her high-pitched, whiny voice. The golden-haired girl opened her eyes, squinted at her and in the midst of all the obnoxious wild gesturing, she pointed at something behind the blonde’s shoulder.

The blonde looked and I knew what a mistake it was as soon as she’d done it. Because now, the blonde was going to end up being thrown in the water.

In a flash, I was proven correct.

The girl from last night grabbed hold of the blonde’s ankle and pushed her in. I would’ve done the same thing just to make her shut up.

Only the blonde’s shouts turned into shrieks and the other girl began laughing. Loud and fresh, and I wondered if there was something wrong with their parents that they weren’t immediately out there, putting out the fight.

The golden-haired girl tugged on her ears, probably saying sorry to the blonde, before she jumped into the pool too.

It was a shock to me, her antics. I’d never seen anyone act so… brazenly and crazily. But then, in the coming days, I saw her dancing in her backyard, singing by the pool, running out of the house, sticking her tongue out just to feel the snow.

So I realized that this was the norm for her: doing her own thing when no one was watching or at least, she thought no one was watching. When people were around, she’d keep her head down and cover her face by those brown/blonde hair of hers.

Maybe because those people back in Connecticut looked at her like there was something wrong with her.

Stupid fuckers.

There was something wrong with them. They were all dead and dull and boring and she was a burst of life in their world.