Abby Normal

Only a week. Only a week. Only a week. I repeated in my head, it was the only thing that kept me from jumping out of the open top of my mother's canary yellow convertible; well, that and Harry Styles whispering in my ears about how much he loves my little things. The momentary happiness at the thought of One Direction neigh Harry was savagely ripped from my mind; As soon as my eyes made contact with the bright bus; the distinctive dove of Fly High Reform School emblazoned on the yellow exterior.  

There seemed to be a thing about yellow moving things and I; because I know for a fact that as soon as I got into that godforsaken bus, I would want to jump out the window. I heaved a sigh and sunk lower into the burning leather seat, sliding my gaze away from the bus in the distance, and instead to my mother.

Her Malibu style glasses and dead straight platinum hair had once fooled me into believing she was perfect, because she resembled my Barbie dolls. Boy was I wrong. I snorted at my own naivety, my mother wasn't evil but she wasn't a saint either. the only time we ever communicated was when she was complaining about something I did or didn't do, we didn't talk too each other, we talked at each other. Which apparently makes a difference to relationships according to our therapists.  

The only reason my mother had volunteered to drop me off was because I was "off". I turned up Harry's voice hoping it would drown out my own pathetic thoughts...it didn't. I'm not smart. Which in my mom's books means I need to be pretty; a gift that I was apparently not graced with either. She couldn't just settle for ordinary oh no, ordinary might as well be ugly-as-fuck in her books because she looks at me , like I'm a slug on the heel of her red-soled shoes. So instead of aiming for pretty, I go for quirky, which had the added bonus of pissing her off.  

"We're here!" chirpy with a cute southern twang, trademark of my mother. What I was wondering was why the hell could I hear her when I was listening to music. I soon saw my answer: one purple ear bud was held at her arm's length between French-manicured talons. She snatched the other and then proceeded to reel in my baby; also known as an I-pod to the lay people.

"Rule one: no electronics." she recited whipping up the rules letter  from god-knows where and waving it around in my face. I ground my teeth together, she could be so childish.

"Now be a team player this will be fun!" she added emphasises on the last word which only got under my skin, which is what she wants, I thought. "Phone" she said adding sharpness to the one word. Mumbling under my breath I passed her the some-what retro mobile phone, and turned away to avoid seeing her smirk of satisfaction.  

 I looked at the bus. Up close I could see wide eyed faces openly staring. Some dreamy gazes locked on the flashy sports car, a majority at my mother but all of them eventually ended with me and it was written plainly on their faces:  how the fuck are these two people related? I sighed out of my nose and threw the door open with a grunt, while she continued to chirp on about the benefits of this stupid trip.

Zoning her out, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and proceeded in trying to pull it out of the backseat.

"Want any help?" she offered, popping her "p". Pah! when did she ever offer help?

"I'm fine" I ground out, tugging my luggage with such force I almost landed on my ass. I heard the slam of her door and had to mentally and physically stop myself from rolling my eyes.

I've never seen her so excited in my life. She practically skipped to Holden, professionally known as Mr Carson, who was engrossed in checking the names off of the register. He was taken aback when he saw my mom. No-one ever saw my mother and me at the same time let alone the same place, the open-shock on his face would have been comical if it hadn't been shortly followed by what he must of thought was a flirty smile; but looked more like he was about to sneeze. Rolling my eyes (for the umpteenth time), I dragged my suitcase behind me.