Georgia Blues

I forgot how much this sucked.

I run my thumb over a worn wooden picture frame. Behind the glass, there's a picture of me with my two friends sitting together on a couch, laughing. Probably about something absolutely asinine. I look at the photo a moment longer before wrapping it in a spare shirt I plucked from the various clothing items scattered across my floor and shoving it unceremoniously into a nearby box. 

The first time this happened I didn't care much. Then again I was ten and every friend I had made was superficial and didn’t bear much weight in my life. Still, I was strongly against it. 

 I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave the people I had come to know or this stupid town I had become so comfortable existing in. Six years. Wasted. 

I didn’t want to fall in love with small-town life. As a matter of fact, until four years ago I reviled the stupid side roads and cornfields that lined the exits of this town. Yet, I know as soon as we pass those cornfields into our new life there will be a hollow pain in my chest. 

I threw my head back in frustration into the side of the mattress, leaning back completely against the bed frame. The hardwood floor was starting to cause aching in my tailbone and my back was beginning to hurt from all the packing. I had been awake almost two days straight helping to pack up things in the kitchen and basement. 

I attempted to sit for a moment of peace in the room that had become everything I had ever known. Coming to peace with leaving behind everything I’ve ever known was becoming a grueling process on my psyche. 

The sun was starting to set and sunbeams were painting my white walls, making the whole room a pretty golden yellow in its light. My walls, which were once covered in pictures, art, and a random clutter of things I had collected over time, were now bare and empty. Most of those things were either packed away or stacked in the corner of my bedroom. Just waiting their turn to be assigned to one of the many boxes that scattered the space. Random pieces of tape were still stuck to the wall's surface and there were still nails poking out of the drywall. 

I closed my eyes and breathed in so slowly and so deeply that pain started to set into my chest once it was physically impossible to take in any more air. Then, I released all the air I had gathered in my lungs loudly through my nose. It did not have the calming effect I had hoped for. It made me dizzy. 

I slowly opened my eyes to re-acclimate to the light in the room. As they adjusted, the texture of the popcorn ceiling above me came into focus. Such an ugly ceiling.

God, I hope there are no popcorn ceilings in the new house. 

“I hope you’re almost finished in there!”

I rolled my eyes and let out another sigh, making it much more dramatic than the last, before responding. “Of course I’m not finished. I'm too busy lamenting my losses.”

“Lamenting your-'' My mom started incredulously, cutting her thought short. Her voice was muffled due to her being about a room over. I could hear her moving around in the other area of the house where she was packing. The growing sound of things shuffling and boxes being pushed and kicked around let me know she was on her way over. There was a string of hushed curses as she made her way through the clutter of the hallway. Her head peeked around my door frame. 

“I was really blessed with quite the dramatic child, wasn’t I?” She said with a joking smile. She looked like she hadn’t been to sleep in days.

I shrugged in response and settled back into leaning against the bed and staring at the offensive nature of the popcorn ceiling above me. “Never asked to be born,” I said in response. 

Her smile dropped as she realized I was not in a joking mood. “It just keeps getting better and better,” Mom mumbled. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was supposed to hear that, but I didn’t respond either way. 

My mom glanced around the room. Most likely scanning the amount of packing I had done.

“Baby, you’ve barely made any progress since the last time I checked up on you two hours ago,” She sighed and rubbed the side of her temple, squeezing her eyes shut as if she had a headache. “We don’t have time to drag our feet. This needs to get done and I still see five piles of clothes you told me you were working on two days ago.”

“I’m using them as packing peanuts,” I muttered. 

“I don’t think you need five piles of clothes out on your floor for that.” 

“Here’s a fun idea,” I sat up and I could tell by the look my mom was giving me she knew what I was going to say. I was still gonna say it though. “How about we don’t sell the house and I can stay here while you’re with Dad in Georgia. It’ll be perfect. I can finish off the next year and a half of school here and then maybe go to college in the town over.”

“Hah!” My mom stood smack dab in the middle of my doorway with her arms crossed against her chest. “No way in hell are you going to that community college! There is absolutely nothing there for you,” I tensed up angrily and she hesitated before continuing when she saw my mouth set into a tight line. “You said you didn’t want to go to the community college,” She said softly.

I stared at the box next to me that held the picture frame. I could still see bits of the photo peeking through the folds of the shirt. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, threatening to expose just how sad I was. “Maybe I changed my mind,” I said tightly. 

“No. You didn’t,” She said after a moment. A tinge of pity was laced in her voice. Too much for my liking. She watched me tuck my legs against my chest. I probably looked as small and pathetic as I felt. 

However, she was right. I didn’t. 

I stared at the ground as we existed in that silence together for a while. There was nothing I wanted to say. Nothing that would change the inevitable. We were going to leave no matter what. 

My mom rubbed her hands against the back of her pants. She looked side to side as if looking for someone to help her figure out how to comfort her teenage daughter. She always kind of struggled when it came to that sort of thing.

“I could take care of myself,” I muttered. 

“I know you could,” She said, not sincerely meaning it. We both knew there was no way I was ready to do that. I literally burned water the other day. 

My mom sighed again and set about maneuvering her way around my pigsty of a room. She sat down on the bed next to me after moving some books aside. I was still mad, but I leaned against her leg anyways. Luckily, I couldn’t see the sorry look she had on her face for me.

“We’ve been over this, love bug. There is so much more opportunity for us in Georgia with your Dad. So much more opportunity for you. Don’t you want to go live with your Dad?”

Of course I did. I loved my dad. “Not at the expense of my social life. No one wants to be friends with the new girl that shows up in the middle of junior year.”

“Ok, but you have apps that allow you to keep in touch with your friends here. Phones that don’t run out of minutes! I had AOL and couldn’t even use it half the time because the internet was so damn expensive and dial-up was stupid slow-”

“I’m gonna be honest with you, most of the things you’re saying mean absolutely nothing to me,” I interrupted. 

“We had email,” She said, deadpan.

“Ahhh, email. Sounds ancient.”

“My point,” She started again, clearly ignoring the jab. “Is that you won’t really lose anyone if you put in the work. It’s fairly minimal compared to the things people my age had to do. Also, social circles change and that’s okay.”

I scoffed as I sat up to look back at her. “Is it actually a change? Feels more like it’s being ripped from under me.”

“Change is change. Doesn’t matter the cause,” She said with a shrug.

I frowned. “You are doing a horrible job of comforting me.” 

My mom stood up, doing a couple of small stretches to loosen her muscles. “There’s no perfect guidebook to parenting, baby. I’m doing the best I can.”

“You’re doing something…” I mumbled under my breath.

It was darker now. The sky outside my window was a deep orange and the darker blue outline of the night was starting to creep up on it. My mom reached over to turn on the bedroom lamp to add a bit of light back into the room. 

I surveyed my progress. I had entirely too much left to do. Looks like another all-nighter. 

My mom grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet for a hug. I would’ve fought her on it, but secretly I wanted the comfort. I limply accepted the hug, but I couldn’t bring myself to return it at that moment.

“I love you so much,” She said. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you have to go through this and I can stand you hating me for a while you process.”

I chuckled dryly. “I don’t hate you, Mom. I’m just… frustrated. And I’m tired.”

“I know. How about we take a break and head to the kitchen, hmm? We can dig through some of the boxes for snacks.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll meet you down there in a bit.” 

She left me alone in my room. As soon as I heard her footsteps start to descend the stairs, I turned and fell over onto my bed, face first. As sad as I was, I wasn’t lying to my mom when I said that I didn’t hate her. There had always been an underlying consensus that this place was never meant to be permanent. It was never outwardly spoken, but it was understood. I just thought given the amount of time we stayed, I could at least make it to graduation before it became an issue.

After five minutes of silent groveling, I made my way down the stairs. My mom was being awfully quiet. Maybe she had been waiting for me before going through the food boxes. I stepped over and around the stacks of boxes that were becoming taller with every passing day.

We really shouldn’t stack them so high. Probably shouldn’t leave them on the stairs either.

As I made it to the base of the stairs I noticed none of the lights downstairs were on. The lack of light coming from outside was not helping either.

“Mom?” Wherever she was, she wasn’t responding. I tried again, “Mama?”

This time she answered, “I’m in the kitchen, baby.”

I could see from where I was standing the kitchen lights weren’t on either. I headed towards the kitchen anyways. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to find anything in the dark.”

“Surprise!” My mom yelled as I turned into the kitchen. She set off a party popper and made an excited whooping sound as the confetti showered the room. I jumped back in surprise, feeling very confused and slightly concerned. She looked at me expectantly. 

“Umm. Thank you?” I said as I looked at the floating rainbow-colored bits of confetti. “You know you just added another thing to our to-do list before we leave, right?”

She seemed a little disappointed at my response. “Um hello? This was supposed to be a surprise. Maybe act a little birthday surprise-y?”

‘Birthday surprise-y?' What day is it? I guess my birthday was supposed to be coming up.

“You didn’t remember it was your birthday,” She concluded.

“Would you feel better if I say I was surprised?” I shook my head to get any rainbow bits of paper out of my hair.

“Teenagers,” My mom huffed. She looked more sad than annoyed. I didn’t have the time to plan anything for my birthday because of the move. I had kind of resolved to do nothing and forget about it. I did appreciate that she thought of it though. That was sweet.

I tried to hide my smile. “Okay… Still ignoring the ‘birthday surprise-y’ comment, are we really doing this?” 

“If you have to point out that you’re ignoring it, then you aren’t actually ignoring it.” She stated matter of factly. “And yes. We are doing this. Happy seventeenth.” 

She pushed a small cake towards me. It was a chocolate cake with a small square of decorative chocolate in the middle. Placed off-center of the little round cake was the number one and seven in candle form. It clearly was not meant to be a part of the cake design, but there it was. In addition to the candles that were clearly not meant to be there, little pieces of rainbow confetti littered various parts of the cake and were also probably not meant to be there.

“You got confetti on the cake,” I pointed out. 

My mom reached into her pocket and pulled out a little lighter. “Yeah. I didn’t think about adding the plastic covering back on the cake after I put the candles on. It probably wouldn’t have fit anyways. We can eat around it.”

She lit the candles on the cake one after the other. It served as the only glow of light in the kitchen. It was a nice, charming little cake and a warm moment between the two of us. 

“I think this is the moment where I’m supposed to embarrass you by singing the happy birthday song really badly,” My mom whispered.

“Don’t ruin the moment, Mom.”

She laughed. “Okay, Okay. Make a wish then.”

What would my wish be? If I wish to stay here, then it would be a wish wasted. Not that I even believed in birthday wishes anymore. So then, what should it be? I guess I could make a wish about the future. Maybe I’ll wish the new school wouldn't suck? That I can make friends there, maybe? Maybe, I’ll wish for no popcorn ceilings in the new house. That would be nice. 

I pondered it a bit more before blowing out the candles.

“So? What’d you wish?” My mom asked.

I picked a piece of confetti off the side of the cake. “If I tell you then it won’t come true,” I said as I licked the chocolate icing off of my fingers.

My mom nodded. “I raised a smart girl.”

“Yes. Yes you did,” My stomach started to growl. The passing of time with no food was getting to me. “Can we eat the cake now?” 

“How about we go outside first,” My mom suggested.

I stared at the confetti-covered chocolate cake that sat on the counter longingly. A bit of wax had dripped onto the top of it from the candles. We could eat around that too. “For what?” I asked.

“Just to grab a couple more boxes before it gets pitch black outside.” 

“I’m not even finished with the ones upstairs in my room.”

“Just go.” She said.

I dragged myself to the front door thinking of the cake waiting in the kitchen. It would only take a second to get boxes. It was fine. 

I opened the door and at the front steps sat two people looking bored and anxious. 

“Hello?” 

My two best friends of five years turned quickly at the sound of my voice and started screaming a muddled chorus of ‘happy birthdays’ and ‘I’ll miss you’ as they tackled me in a mess of hugs.  

“We brought Olive Garden!” Dylan exclaimed, proudly presenting a greasy paper bag for me to see.

“I’m not done packing yet.” I laughed as I pulled away from their hug. 

“We can help you! The more the merrier, right?” Camila declared. 

“I don’t know guys. My mom is pretty stressed out right now with the move,” I said, “I really don’t want to stress her out anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Dylan asked. “Your mom is the one who invited us.”

Camila giggled. “She said there was cake.”

I looked at them both confused before I turned to look back into the house. My mom stood there with a big smile on her face. “You girls can set a fire in the backyard and eat out there one last time.”

“But Mom-” I started.

She put a hand up. “It’s your birthday. Go spend some time with your friends. When you’re done eating come inside for cake and more packing. We have a deadline to meet.”

The girls walked into the house and properly greeted my mother before walking into the kitchen. I stood in the doorway watching as my throat tightened. My eyes were watering and I turned my head to try and compose myself.

“Lucia?” My mom called. 

I closed the front door and rushed to hug my mom. She was a bit startled but hugged me back a moment later.

“What was that you were saying about my parenting again?”

“Needs work,” I joked. “But this is the best thing you could’ve done for me right now. Thank you.”

“Of course baby,” She said as she kissed my forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too mom.”