Summer High

Chapter 3: A Dream Within A Dream

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

~ Edgar Allan Poe, a dream within a dream

THEN

The sweet scent of mom's red velvet cupcakes sweeps through the air and under the crack of my bedroom door as I flipped through the last few pages of Looking For Alaska by John Green. Mom was always a good baker, she even had a little cake shop on St. Ives called Sweet Caroline, after my baby sister. My feet were perched just below a boring painting of the beach as I lay upside down, I was hungry and I really wanted a cupcake. I closed the book shut and raced downstairs to find mom dancing between giving Caroline her juice box and making sure the cupcakes don't burn. Sometimes my dad referred to my mom as his very own superhero because she always knows how to handle everything perfectly and never ever complains.

"Allison I'm so sorry your dad couldn't make it down this weekend, I wanted to see the smile on your face when I made your favourite cupcakes." She grinned from ear to ear taking them out of the oven.

Now you see this may seem like a genuine gesture from a mother to her teenage daughter but i knew exactly what was going through my mother's mind. She thinks that baking for me will make up for the fact that she put Nana's house up for sale, she thinks that cream cheese filling will fill the void she left in my heart.

"Thanks mom, but everyone knows that my favourite is salted caramel," I say dipping my index finger into the bowl of frosting, just then Caroline threw her sippy cup across the room and burst into tears.

"Oh Allie I-" She begins but I cut her off.

"Well everyone except you, mom." Interrupt and the look on her face alone is enough.

I wanted to make her hurt and the same way she made me hurt a week ago, I wanted to be the bad replaceable daughter she always put me out to be. She looked down and turned away from me.

"Would you mind putting your sister to bed while I wash the dishes, Allison?" Mom asked, her voice hurt and monotonous.

I sweep Caroline out of her cot and into my arms and she cries smacking her rattle on my back as i make my way up the stairs to my room. Sometimes I let Caroline nap on my bed so I don't feel so lonely, but at this moment she's crying so much I feel like she hates me. Just then I hear something hit my window,

"Callie!" I gasp assuming that it's her but she's still holding her rattle, I shrug it off and keep walking around trying to soothe her.

Just then I hear something hit the window again, and that's when I realise that its a pebble and someone is trying to get my attention. I slide the window open and look down, I can hear the sea crashing in on itself in the distance as the island breeze swoops in. That's when I saw him sitting on my roof, his blonde hair swept by the wind, he turned around and smiled at me.

"What're you doing here?" I asked frustrated,

"I came to see you, Blue," he told me with a slight smirk,

"Oh, now isn't a good time as you can see my sister a little bit of a handful." I said turning him down, Callie wouldn't stop wailing.

"Don't worry I'm good with babies." He winked getting closer to my window,

"Yeah right, Caroline hates everybody." I assure him, "You can come in."

He crawls through the large bay window and sits onto the yellow softa, I take a seat next to him and he takes Caroline into his arms. She looks up at him like he's the most fascinating thing she's ever seen, kind of like the way I looked at him down at the beach. Sky takes the rattle from her little pink hands and plays with it, she smiles and the tears she'd cried begin to disappear. He taps it at her little button nose and she laughs, he laughs with her like its a joke that only they understand.