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Parties.
The whole shebang.
Regular things normal teenagers did.
I was an interloper trying to step into their already planned lives. A square peg in their round hole society. Someone who was stepping in at the last possible moment without a chance of becoming one of them. That was nothing new to me. I had never been part of any group.
My anxiety rushed back in, scratching at the inside of my chest like a feral, black cat, filling my lungs with the dead weight of a panic attack.
I reached up and started to twirl a piece of hair. It was my show. Every time I was close to having an attack, I twisted my hair. When I was younger, I had done it so much I had a bald spot just above my ear.
Thanks to the new medications I had been on for the last two years, my attacks weren’t as bad as they used to be. They were kept at bay unless I was under a sizeable amount of stress. My entire life getting uprooted was the perfect reason to be stressed.
Starting a new school was the pits. Moving from private school on the west coast to public school on the east coast was like stepping into another world. The smells were different. The trees were large and overbearing, pressing down on me and suffocating me with their foliage. And the sun, which I used to bath in, in Seattle, brought with it a wet heat that made everything on my body sticky.
Humidity.
It was the devil.
Life wasn’t fair. I wanted to spend my last year of high school with the few people who knew my name. I had grown up with the same people, starting in elementary school, and sticking with them all the way to high school. Even though I wasn’t one of their crowd, I had still earned my place there.
The smart girl.
The guaranteed valedictorian.
Erik’s little sister, even though I was two minutes older than him.
But my mother insisted it was for a better life. That remained to be seen, although things weren’t looking too bright in that department.
My life had been almost perfect, and within a year, everything changed. First, my mother decided she no longer wanted my father and would instead sample the young men of Seattle.
That resulted in a bitter divorce that left me running to be with my father, and my brother, Erik, staying with Mom. He said it was to protect her, but we both knew it was because Mom let him do whatever he wanted.
If my father was the wallet, then my mother was the fun; at least that was how Erik treated them.
Me?
I worshipped the ground my father walked on, and in return, he showered me with all the love and affection my mother refused me. It wasn’t about the money. I had never let him spend money on me the way Erik insisted he blow it on him.
He enjoyed coming from a wealthy family, begging Dad to buy him a new car, wearing only the best clothes, and spending tons of money on things that, quite honestly, were stupid.
I bought books and reading paraphernalia. I asked that instead of cars, any money Dad wanted to give me or spend on lavish things be spent on my education.
College.
Housing.
Dad assured me the money was there, and I knew it was, but still, there wasn’t anything I wanted or needed, so I didn’t see the point in blowing money on pointless things. Erik and I might have had the same DNA, but we were total opposites.
After the divorce, our lives were different, but after some time, I got adjusted to and even enjoyed living alone with my father. He understood my anxiety and believed it was real. He nurtured that broken part of me and gave me someone to lean on when I felt the panic scratching at my brain.
He was my lifeline.
We took trips to historical places, Erik turning up his nose in boredom and leaving Dad and me to enjoy the outdoors. We went fishing on a small rental boat, even though Dad owned a Yacht. We hiked, turning off our phones and breathing in the fresh air.
We were similar that way.
Simple.
