britches

The girl sat there, wracked with emotion. Summer usually meant spending nights on the beach, days by the pool, and the occasional afternoon working at the Baskin Robbins a few blocks north of her home. This summer was different. This summer, the girl sat on her antique twin bed, adorned with its mismatching sheets that were in desperate need of a wash, her stringy chesnut brown hair hung just below her shoulders, and in her hand she held a photo. This photo was the girls only present reminder of the previous summer,... Pictured was the girl herself, standing beside an woman, probably about seven years older than the girl. This woman had the prefect milky skintone that resembled porcelin, her deep brown eyes sparkled, and her shiny auburn hair was piled atop her head in a complex up do. The two had their arms wrapped around each other in a joyful embrace. But now things were different. The girl gazed at this photo almost scornfully. She longed for the acceptance and love she had felt the moment it was taken, and tossed it onto the floor of her bedroom.
"Meow." A cat entered the room with its whiny greeting and sat right on top of the photo.
"Tasha! No!" The girl leapt off her bed and the cat scurried away. The girl picked the photo up off the ground and noticed the pair of black denim pants lying there as well. She picked them up and read the tag- "100% cotton." They had shrunk since the previous summer, and now those pants that once belonged to the woman in the photo no longer fit the girl. Her inability to wear the pants reminded her of the exit of the woman in the photo from her life. "So close and yet so far" was a completely accurate description of their relationship.
Just then the girl's small pink cell phone exploded with noise and rapid vibration. She leaned over to pick it up. "Hey."
"Hey Addi what's up?" a boy's voice permeated through the phone and could have been heard four feet away.
"Not much... How're you?"
"I'm chill. Just wondering if you wanna come jam with me and some guys tonight."
"Oh.. well, I..."
"Its gonna be awesome- seriously, you should come."
"Okay. Fine. I'll come."
"Sweet see you later."
"Bye."
Addison's relationship with this boy, Jason, had begun the day after the photo, now lying on the floor of her room, had been taken. They met as Addison lugged box after box up and down the stairs of her dorm on move-in day, and Jason was immediately intrigued with her ability to wear silver dangly earrings and a dress while lifting heavy objects and trudging up and down four flights of stairs all day.