By: Hunter M.
The summer I visited my cousin in Fort Worth- Ulyss, Texas home of the Trinity Trojans, district champs five years in a row- I didn't expect to fall in love.
Okay, let's be honest, love isn't exactly in my vocabulary or in my reality. Love is something I read about in books and daydream about, only wishing one day I can experience it but never truly believing I will. Something after so many tries, thinking yes, this is love only to have my heart ripped along the stitching a month, two months later so it's frayed and raw once again. Back to where we started. I've come to believe you can only find that unrequited, undying love you've prayed for since you were yae tall and adorned with plastic bejeweled crowns, your mother's high heels, and a princess dressed puffed around your little legs like a cupcake deep in the eyeliner smeared pages of a leather bound novel.
My cousin's house is nestled in a throng of bushes, their branches pressed against the flaking blue panels as if giving the house an encouraging hug. In front of the house, a large bush the size of a jeep and two trees who's canopy has grown together to form a type of leafy arc masked the house from the street's prying eyes. Five cars are parked around the house though only three belong to the owners of the home. The truck and beat up Toyota in the front are parked catywompus; one of the Toyota's wheels pulled up over the curb and into the grass bedded with acorns, leaves, and pine needles while the truck's whole right side has made its way up into the yard, its two left wheels just partly touching the stove stop cement street and the right wheels parked with smug satisfaction on the cracked, chunky sidewalk about five feet in front of the jeep bush. 'Neighborly Love' is definitely a prime concept in this neighborhood as I've never her my aunt or uncle complain about the cars or whoever they belonged to.
The scalding sun warms mine and my cousin, Emily's, blushing shoulders. We're walking down her block in the middle of the street, kicking loose grovel to the curb and eventually a little game of soccer picks up when she comes across a deflated ball, bleached from being stranded in a prickle bush for who knows how long. Rippling oases of trickery floated just out of reaching distance down the black asphalt desert. Our bathing suits are hitched under our arms, a brand new paperback book in my right hand slowly growing moist and slippery the longer we walk. Emily carried a bundle of things in her Pink duffle bag: her ipod, laptop, two changes of clothes, back-up bathing suit, make up bag swelling at the seams with her countless foundations and eye shadows, a brush and a wide toothed comb, a dented can of hairspray, a book- as if she'd actually read the thing- and an assortment of different tampon brands.
The sun jeers at me from above like a upperclassmen as if it knows how much I loath it's scalding waves pulsing over this little suburb. Over me. I'm not paying attention, just scanning the windows of the houses that line the street. Sometimes, I'll see a curtain twitch or a blind snap back into its uniform parallel lines. I can't help but think that the people in the homes are laughing at us with slight pity inking its way into their chest.
The book slips from my hand and slaps to the ground. I bend over and pick it up, shaking the gravel that managed to lodge itself inbetween the pages. Went I look up, Emily's staring at me looking more like a model than her usual. Her boney hands set on her jutting hips, her Hollister tank top pulled to show just part of her midrift. "Come on, Ellie. We don't have all day."
I wanted to tell her, Actually, we do have all day. It's summer. But I restrained myself. Emily wasn't Mrs.Queen Bee and she did pretend to be that way, but our clashing lifestyles flare up vexation between the two of us. She preferred to live her life always on the move, never taking breaks, and having people around her twenty-four seven. I, on the other hand, and content to stay at home, tucked away in a book with my mind in some other world full of vampires or mutant kids or future apocalyptic worlds.
I'm on her grounds, though, and I am forced to hangout with her overly peppy, obnoxiously loud friends. "I'm coming." I tell her after the awkward stare-down ensued.
Author's Note: Obviously, this isn't done. I'm not entirely sure if I should scrap this or not. Your thoughts or comments on it will help to aid me along to finishing it, but right now the words just aren't coming.
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