Page 1 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

1

Aria

When my alarm began to fill the room with my ‘favorite songs’ playlist, I groaned. I thought I was more prepared to make the transition from my summer schedule to my school one, but the fact that I would rather step on Lego bricks than get out of bed proved otherwise. To make matters worse, my chocolate lab, Hazelnut, was curled up with her head over my legs and sleeping right through the music. Surely my mom would understand me skipping my first day of school. A sweet pup was snoozing in my lap.

“Aria! Wake up, sweetie. You don't wanna be late for your first day!”

Guess not.

“Yeah. I'm up!” I called back. Hazelnut let out a huff on my bed and I eyed her. “Easy for you to say. You get to stay here.”

I gave her head a few scratches, then started moving my legs so that she knew she had to move. She did move her head away from my legs, but stayed curled in bed as I climbed out and stared with disdain at the moving boxes still littering my bedroom. I probably should have forced myself to pull out everything I needed the night before so I wouldn’t have to do it while drowsy and dreading the day.

I was still in denial.

It wasn’t like I missed my old home. This one was much nicer, and I obviously wasn’t going to miss my old high school, but starting over just for my senior year felt a little like overkill. Did I love it there? No. Did I have a ton of friends I was leaving behind? Just the one. But I would have much rather finished things out in the realm of torture I was used to rather than a whole new one.

Putting the thoughts out of my mind, I dug through the boxes I’d yet to unpack two months into living in the new house. I found my shower set with all the advanced hair products I used to put myself together for school, my makeup bag, and a few other things, then headed towards the door. Almost as if she was trying to alert me, I heard Hazelnut’s collar shake. I turned to look at her and saw the door to my attached bathroom.

“Right,” I said out loud, turning around and heading for it instead.

After two months, I was still very unused to having my own bathroom. In our old house, my mom and I shared a bathroom. Now we each had our own, plus a spare for, I don’t know. What did people do in third bathrooms? Eat caviar?

Hazelnut hopped down off the bed and I heard her scratching at my front door. I set my stuff down, rolling my eyes. I walked back to my front door and opened it so Hazelnut could lazily tromp her way out to get to her breakfast. Normally, my door would be opened for her when I left to go to the bathroom. Having a nice, new house was still taking some getting used to.

After letting Hazelnut out, I returned to my bathroom and commenced showering and getting ready for the day. As I stood in the shower, I could admit I was happy I wasn’t going to be walking into my garden variety bullies today. Granted, they’d be feeling the high of satisfaction for running me out in a couple of hours when they discovered that I was gone, but I would take at least one day where I was the freak because I was new, and not because I was slightly overweight. Nothing was wrong with a girl with curves. Marilyn Monroe built her empire on it, but give me a size 14 pant size, and I’m public enemy number one.

“Aria!” My mom’s voice carried through the closed bathroom door. “Sweetheart, hurry up! Do you want me to make you breakfast?”

“No!” I screeched. “No, I’m coming. I’ll do it.”

I loved my mom, but god bless the woman, she was not a cook. My dad had done all of the cooking when I was a little girl, but once they split, my mom took up cooking to do her best job as a mom. But generally, if you make it all the way to your forties without cooking much more than a PB&J, it’s difficult to become a passable chef. I begged my dad to teach me how to cook so that I could do it at home, which he did until just before his passing when I was twelve. I did a majority of the cooking at our household, and we were firm believers in takeout.

Couldn’t imagine why I carried a little extra weight.

“My cooking wouldn’t kill you,” my mom grumbled back. “I’ll give you ten minutes, then I’m starting. You need to eat before your first day.”

My mom meant business whenever she used food to threaten me, so once I heard her retreat, I turned off the shower and climbed out. While my curling iron was heating up, I wiped a portion of the mirror off so that I could apply a thin coat of makeup. I didn’t require much. My skin was naturally bronze thanks to my father’s Native American roots, and my mom’s dark brown eyes tended to pop off my face on their own, but I did like to cover up a few of my blemishes with concealer and give my eyes a nice winged eyeliner. Nothing too extravagant.

Once my curling iron was heated all the way, I got to work giving my hair some loose waves. It was dark brown, though already cresting towards the near-black color it turned during the winter. It looked best, in my opinion, when it was able to hang down and thin my cheeks a little bit, but curl away from my dimpled smile—the feature I liked most about myself. With that behind me, I quickly slipped back into my bedroom, donned the simple designer-ripped jeans and baby-doll plaid blouse that I’d picked out, and made my way downstairs.

Hazelnut was chomping at her breakfast kibble and my mom was in the process of making good on her threat to cook. She had a pan over the stove heating up, and had dragged eggs, bacon, and potatoes out of the fridge. Fortunately, she hadn’t actually gotten started on anything yet, so I quickly took over, shooing her away to sit and enjoy her coffee in the kitchen nook.

“I love this little nook so much,” my mom squeaked. “Doesn’t it feel weird? Like we still aren’t used to this house after two months.”

“I was just thinking that earlier. I damn-near walked out of my room to get ready for school this morning.”

She snickered at that. “You forgot that you have your own bathroom? I’ve been walking into mine periodically just to stand there and stare at it.”

I could envision my mom just randomly walking into her bathroom and standing there. “I believe that.”

“So. Are you excited for your first day at the new school? This is what it’s all been building towards,” my mom said.

I stirred around the eggs I was cooking in a pan, unable to decide how best to answer that question. “Um…I mean. Change is always good, right?”

“What’s with that answer?” my mom replied. “You aren’t looking forward to it?”

“I don’t look forward to school in general, Mom. You know that.”

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