Until we're ready

Preface

My summers were nice, but not as nice as my winters, nor as nice as they used to be.

When my mom was young she had a best friend, Linda. For everyone it was Linda and Laura, they went to school together and only were separated in college when my mom went to Columbia and Linda to Harvard, but even then they stayed best friend. They both found a husband and stayed best friend, their husbands became friends too, they would go on Holliday together all the time, summer, winter, spring, autumn didn't matter.

When my family moved 200 km away, Linda's family almost did too, but it wouldn't have been easy for work, so now we live 2 hours away from them, it's really not that far.

My mom is a teacher, Linda a doctor and the fathers, well Linda's husband, my godfather, Tim, is a teacher too, it's actually how Linda and Tim met, my mom and him worked together, she introduced him to Linda knowing they would match and she was right. My dad is the CEO of a commercial company.

As teachers, Tim and my mom had the same Hollidays as the kids, as a generalist doctor, Linda would do part time in Seasuntown, a nice town near the beach and part time in their home town. This way the summer we would all live in Seasuntown, the two families even bought a house together there.

As besties, they even had children kind of at the same time even thought my parents struggled a bit. Therefore, Linda and Tim started earlier with James, their first child, the first baby of this big family. Today James is 23, turning 24 this summer already. But Linda and Tim did not stop there, eleven months later they had Alma, second born of the Turner family.

I came after that, it took my parents 3 years to finally manage to have a child, it's not that long but it was still a first challenge for my parents. I'm gonna turn 22 this winter. I am about 14 months older than Nina, the second daughter of the Turners. In terms of age I am just in the middle of Alma ad Nina if not closer to Alma still, the same way James and Alma have a connexion, Nina and I have one too, she's my best friend.

After Nina, it took both families 3 more years before having another child. Cynthia and Trevor arrived at the same time with, Trevor, my brother born 7 days after Cynthia, the last girl to be born in both families.

Two years later came Alex, the last child of the Turner family. And 6 years after that, after many missed attempts, finally came Josh, Joshy is our little angel, my little angel, my little brother. He's the last baby. He came at a time we all needed hope and happiness, Trevor was sick then, he had cancer, we were all deeply affected, he was only 8 years old, for two years he fought it with all he had and thankfully he managed to beat it. Since then he had a small relapse but since he has to go check himself every six months we always manage to threat it early on. It's probably why family time is so important to us, why we see each other so much during the holidays, we all realize anyone can be gone like that.

In the summer we spent all 3 months together as kids: James, Alma, Nina and me at first, then Cynthia, Trevor and Alex came along and it was always so fun.

And in the winter, we would go skying all together for two weeks and these were my favorite holidays. The 2 intense weeks of skying are the holiday I still can't wait to live now that I am older and have jobs, because it became hard to take all summer when we got into college and had to get summer jobs, the summer holidays just weren't the same, lost their magic lost that full summer in a book kind of feeling. So now, the parents, Trevor, Cynthia, Alex and Josh are the only ones that still spend the whole summer there, together. Us 4, older ones, we only take a week, sometimes two which is completely different. Still, the two full weeks in the winter are tradition, it's Christmas and the New Year after all, and it's also my birthday. In the summer it's Alma's and in the winter it's mine.

Now that we're older, we've decided that the week at Seasuntown would be during Alma's birthday, it's the last week of July, which means mid-summer so a great time to take a break. But this year things might be really different, I mean not like every summer since I turned 18 were similar, but this time something big is different, something has happen that cannot be changed. Because of that something, I will have to behave a certain way, act like there is nothing, lie. But we aren't there already, we have so many lunches and dinners before even getting to the summer. By so many I meant 3 or 4 but still it is enough, it is already too many, it is already a challenge because something has happened with James and I have no idea how to deal with it.

I always had a crush on James, since we were little, but he was James, unreadable and mysterious, my best friend's big brother, my mom was his godmother and it was never something that anybody talked about: two of the kids falling in love. I mean, Cynthia and Trevor are like twins, I and Nina, besties, Josh was everybody's baby, Alex felt left out a lot and James and Alma, well, they were James and Alma, they had that brother and sister bond that nobody could explain, I do believe they thought of each other as best friends too. They even had the same group of friends in high school and now too. They were so close that I even wondered if James told her what happened between us. And because of how close we were with one person nobody ever thought of two other person getting close and I don't know falling in love.

But I won't even start to think about it now, Sunseatown is still 5 months away, I have time and before worrying about spending a week in the same house as him I have to worry about spending a family day with him which should be the only reason I will see him ever again, family time. Because I mean it was a mistake right ? This could not happen, what would everybody think ?

I had to focus on something else, something good about that family day, the fact that I was going to be able to see Nina again and everybody really, I missed them, last time I saw them was almost 2 months ago, which was kind of a lot even though times flew by really fast these days. Nina works literally day and night when she isn't in college and me too, we are both grown woman trying to figure shit out.

I feel like I am a completely different person these days and I mean, I am, a lot has happened since last summer. I moved out of my parents house, some months after my boyfriend with who I had spent all my time in the last 2 years had broken up with me. That was a dark period, happened just before the summer, just graduated in journalism, couldn't find a job doing what I loved, writing, couldn't even find a summer job, fortunately, my dad was nice enough to give me a spot in his company for the summer, I felt ashamed to have to ask him, but he ended up wanting to promote me at the end of the summer because of how well I worked. So that made me proud and helped me get back up on my feet. But he knew I couldn't take a job that wasn't the one I had always wanted.

So when the summer ended, I looked for jobs in journalism, well, continued to look for, but I could only find an internship, non paid internship obviously. I ended up taking one and found myself a job at a restaurant/bar/club to work the nights. So since October I am a barmaid as well as an intern in journalism. I could have had a place in the newspaper I did all of my internships at for the last 5 years, if it hadn't been for the unfortunate event with my boss.

Authors Note:

This is the first time fully committing to publishing a story I wrote. I hope you guys enjoys it and don't hesitate to give me notes and feedback if you feel like it.

I'll try to post regularly in the mean time enjoy !