It’s dark and cold but I feel at ease. What is it? Where am I?

All I recall was the beginning of summer; it was hot, humid, and moist. My skin was so wet that it started to soak my clothes. I live in a small town with my dad and three older siblings. I have two older sisters Darlene (19)and Abigail (21) and one older brother Jesse (17). My sisters would always make fun of me because I always looked different from them. They had golden hair and hazel eyes with beautiful fair soft skin. They were so beautiful they looked like my mom, but my brother had green eyes just like my dad with dark brown shaggy hair. I guess you could say he was a spitting image of my dad. I looked nothing like my siblings; I had dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and freckles. I didn’t look as good as my siblings and didn’t have anybody to hang out with, my father always said “honey you are just as beautiful as the springtime bees. heck! With the amount of goodness in your heart I bet you could feed an entire village”. I was always flustered by the things he said but he did always know how to make me feel beautiful. As the summer went on Abigail and Darlene would be off in the city figuring out their lives and Jesse had enlisted in the military. My mom left us when I was 12, I’m now 16, guess she got tired of having to take care of my siblings and me since my dad worked overtime a lot. She was more of a city gal. She loved to party, get dolled up, and shopping. She had such beautiful light brown eyes and her golden wavy hair always smelled like sweet peas and daisies. I don’t hate my mom, she gave birth to me; although sometimes I do wonder why she brought us into this world if she was just going to leave us. My mom and dad always liked to sing songs and dance in the living room. Although that was rare since my dad was mostly out of the house my mom had a drinking addiction. She’s either be passed out on the kitchen table, or living room couch, or she’d just leave the hose till late. She started bringing men to the house and always threatened us to keep quiet or she’d do something really bad. It wasn’t long until one night everything changed when my dad caught her in bed with another man when he had unexpectedly arrived home early. They fought and fought to yell for what seemed like an eternity. He was devastated since he loved her so much and felt such betrayal but she said that this was never the life she wanted. By the next morning, she had left with all her belongings without even a single goodbye. I had always hoped to find someone as kind as my dad, He’s a hard-working man who would always find a way to keep us fed with a roof over our heads. He always knew how to make us laugh. This summer was the first time the house felt empty and quiet especially since it was just me and my dad but I was alone most of the time. My dad had just gone to work in the early morning and I was off to the ice cream shop since it was such a hot day. On my way, I would always pass by a beehive hanging from a tree. You would usually see them working very hard working on their beehive. I was walking down the road when I saw something shining in my eyes, my god I almost thought I was blind. I looked around to see what was making the shine and then I saw it was coming from behind some trees. I chased after the light and then I looked behind a small tree and I see him. A very beautiful boy, he looked so kind and gentle with soft brown hair and long eyelashes. He was asleep against the tree holding a shiny pocket watch in his hands. He looked very tired he had dark circles around his eyes. I went to get a closer look at his face and as soon as I approached his face he opened his eyes. I jumped!! And so did he. I saw someone get up so fast. He asked, “who are you? And what were you trying to do to me?”. I felt embarrassed and said, “I wasn’t going to do anything to you, I was just going to check if you were dead”. My, he looked so furious “ dead!! Why would you think I’m dead?!”. To which I said, “ have you seen yourself?!?, you look like a corpse!”. I think I made him madder, “ who looks like a corpse?!, definitely not me!”. I felt bad and said, “Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to offend you or anything I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt or anything”. I’m sure he’d calmed down. “ it’s fine, it’s fine, I didn’t mean to get so mad I was just caught off guard”. Then I sure felt bad and I offered to buy him some ice cream as an apology to which he hesitantly agreed. We walked to the ice cream shop and bought two popsicles.

We went to a small cliff side where I would always go to see the sun go down. We started to talk and I asked him for his name and he said it was Wilbert. He asked me for my name to which I replied Ivory. I thought to myself what a peculiar name he had. I asked about the pocket watch, at first He seemed hesitant to answer but he said it belonged to his father and mother. He looked mournful. I asked what he was doing in our small town and he said he was staying with his grandparents for a while. I was kinda glad it meant he was going to be here for a while. I must have lost track of time because it was already getting dark and I hadn’t made dinner for my father and me, I rushed up and told Wilbert that I had to go home quickly. I explained the situation quickly and offered to join us for dinner but he refused to say that he had to be back at his grandparent's home by seven. I asked him if we could hang out again and he agreed to the idea. I got home and I guess my father beat me to it because he was waiting for me on the front porch. I ran into his arms and he asked where I was all evening and why I looked so happy. I told him I had possibly made a new friend. He laughed and said, “well I hope to meet this new friend of yours, now go on inside I brought some food from a restaurant near my job”. We went on inside. Throughout dinner, we talked about my acquaintance with Wilbert and what we had talked about. My father looked too pleased to hear that I had made a new friend.

It was mid-summer when Wilbert suggested we go down to the creek to catch frogs or tadpoles. I loved the idea so I grabbed my mini boom box and we rode our bikes down to the creek. I loved the feeling of the wind gushing, through my hair; kissing my neck. Wilbert always teased me for being obsessed with the outdoors saying I was a weird girl. He just didn’t understand how free it made me feel. We arrived at the creek and we started our hunt for tadpoles when I tripped, face plant straight onto the dirt. I quickly turned back to see what I had tripped on and it was a boy lying down with a book covering his face. Wilbert burst out laughing at the dirt stains on my face and I felt as if at that moment I had turned bright tomato red in the face. I was so furious I marched up to the boy laying down and I demanded him to wake up. When I saw his face I felt embarrassed as it was bruised with a bandaid over one of his eyebrows. He had long eyelashes, narrow cheekbones, plump pink lips, dark eyebrows, and brown hair slick back. He looked at me closely with a curious and furious stare and said “ Yes my queen?” He was one cheeky boy. To which I responded, “What weirdo lays on a pathway where people walk?” To which he said, “ not many people come here so I assumed no one would pass”. While he spoke my eyes kept wandering to his lips, he had such lovely teeth. I realized I had not given him a response and with a smirk, he said “see anything you like?” I turned away so quickly and said that he’d be too full of himself to think that I had any sort of interest in him. He then introduced himself as Oliver. Wilbert and I introduced ourselves and he had asked why we were here, to begin with, and Wilbert had said that we were on a hunt for tadpoles. Oliver ended up joining us on our hunt but I decided to ignore his presence and I was still embarrassed by the entire incident. We had caught nine and placed them in a bucket we found laying around. It probably belonged to some kid collecting water or rocks for some odd reason. Its handle was broken but we didn’t care we just used it. We started to grab a tadpole each and placed it in the water to race them to see whose tadpoles were the fastest. I of course won all three rounds.

We laughed as we exchanged jokes and laughter that I had completely forgotten about my frustration and embarrassment. It was turning sundown so we decided to call it a day. As we were getting on our bikes we noticed that Oliver didn’t have anything to ride. I asked him how he was going to get home and he said the same way he arrived, by walking. I felt pity for him and asked if he wanted to ride on the back of my bike. He didn’t disagree with the idea and Wilbert asked where he lived, it was closer to my house than Wilbert's as Wilbert's house is a couple of minutes away from me. We rode together listening to music on my mini boom box and chatted about school and if we’d stick together. Wilbert left us as his house is through another path. We were alone. It was just me, Oliver, and that wind. Oliver was quieter than I expected him to be but we didn’t need to exchange words as the wind and music were already speaking for us. We all three had decided to go down to the lake for a swim since it had still been crazy hot weather. We rode our bikes down to the lake and Oliver paired with Wilbert and they zoomed off leaving me to chase after them. We arrived at the lake and climbed up to the cliff to jump off. When we reached the top we saw a girl crying and sitting alone. We were all confused about what to do so I step up and taped her shoulders. She jumped as she turned and saw the three of us and had gotten up so quickly. She had on a one-piece bathing suit with her blonde hair tied to the side in a braid. She had fair skin with rosy pink chubby cheeks and light green eyes. I asked her if everything was alright and she said that she had come with her friends but that they had set her up to steal her Clothes and leave off without her. I was so furious at the thought and told her that those weren’t true friends. I asked her if she was interested in hanging out with us. She had a big smile and wiped away her tears and asked if I was being serious. Just as I was about to answer Wilbert burst out yelling “of course we mean it!” I’ve never seen Wilbert too enthusiastic before. We laughed and started jumping into the water playing chicken fight and racing each other. I felt such liveliness and joy that I’d never thought I’d ever feel. I guess this summer I just got lucky.

I went home with Oliver again and I couldn’t get that Kool-Aid smile off of my face. “You seem happy,” Oliver said. “I am” I replied. Once again we didn’t exchange many words but I felt that I’d understood Oliver in a weird sense. The silence was broken when Oliver asked if I liked Wilbert. I didn’t know what to say. I think I do. No how could I? He’s my friend?Yeah but don’t tell him? All those thoughts were rushing through my head and I just said “yeah”. What in the world was I thinking?! How could I just admit to feelings I wasn’t even sure I had? He then asked if I liked him.