She was the most beautiful girl in the world. She had shoulder-length dark brown, curly hair with a few strips of blonde, tan skin, brown eyes, and a skinny figure. She dressed somewhat boy-like, but that was the way I liked for my girls to be. She wore a green beanie with a band t-shirt, leather jacket, skinny jeans, and vans. She was a skateboarder and a tattoo artist. On the outside, she was a tough motherfucker, but on the inside she was just like everyone else... she just wanted somewhere to belong, and someone to fall in love with.
We spent weeks and weeks texting. I had stumbled across her on social media and flirted with her on a messaging app before she gave me her number. We talked about things like music and parties and school, the future. Not that we would ever have a future together. She lived far away in Illinois and I was just a Georgia girl, but one day the text I had been waiting for finally came.
"Peyton, my friends and I are going on a road trip to Tennessee and I was thinking about coming to see you for the last few days that we're there. Do you think that would work out?"
I was eighteen, but I still lived with my parents. However, my house was set up so that the upstairs was kind of like my own apartment. We also had a guest room on the main floor of the house next to the kitchen which had a comfier bed, but I thought if my parents had no idea what was going on (if anything was going to go on) that she could just stay upstairs with me.
"Yes! When are you planning on coming? I can pick you up and take you back. Tennessee is only about four hours from me".
"That would be awesome! I'm thinking July eighteenth through twenty-first. Is that cool"?
"Yes! I'm so excited"!
"Me too"!
It was July eleventh. The week was going to go by so slowly and I already knew it. At least I had loads of time to clean.
On the twelfth, I cleaned the carpets. On the thirteenth, I polished the furniture. On the fourteenth, I did laundry and scrubbed every square inch of the bathroom. On the fifteenth, I put the laundry away and reorganized my bookshelves. On the sixteenth, I dusted and washed my sheets and comforter. On the seventeenth, I went to the store to get food and drinks and other essential items. And on the eighteenth, I got in the shower, shaved, washed and scrubbed my body, and washed my hair before getting dressed to go get Carly. The whole way there I thought about how much fun we would have. We'd build fires outside, cover some rap songs just for the hell of it, maybe go to a few parties, go to the movies, and eat out a couple of times. We would dance in the rain and cuddle during nightly TV and cook amazing food. This was going to be a great next few days. When I pulled up to her hotel, she was standing outside saying "goodbye" to all her friends. I got out to greet them and assure them that she was going to be safe with me and helped carry her things to my car.
It rained the entire way back to Atlanta. Not just rained, it poured. I did not mind, however, because Carly smiled the whole four hours. She was so much more beautiful in person and her voice sang songs that made my heart dance and my stomach flutter. We told jokes and laughed about how crazy each of our friends were, talked about the differences in where we lived, and played silly road trip games until we pulled into my driveway at last.
I pulled into the garage as she commented on how huge my house was. We got out, grabbed her bags, and tried not to slip on the water that had dripped off my car onto the garage floor. I introduced her to everyone when we got inside and commented that we would be doing our own thing most of the time that she was there. Up the stairs and down the hall was my room and when we entered, she let out a whispered "wow". My room was really girly and I had been a little nervous about it, but she seemed to adore it. My turquoise candelabra, comforter, and picture frames, my hot pink canvases above the bed and sheets, my Christmas lights hanging along the top edge of the wall on the left side of the room, she loved it all. She sat her bags down on the floor in front of my closet door out of the walking path and body slammed herself onto my bed.
"It's so comfortable," she said bright-eyed and smiling.
"You want to stay with me in here?"
"Yes! This is perfect." She gave me a big, cheesy grin that I adored whole-heartedly.
I didn't know how she felt about me so the plan was to not make any moves. I could flirt, but that was it. If she said something that gave me a sense of approval, then I could make the move and it happened rather quickly.
"Peyton, I love the way you look at me".
"Really? Why"?
