Baby Angel | a poly romance

‣ one

"Aurelia!" She hears her mother say her name loudly.

"Momma!" She says back, pulling her headphones off once again. "Can we please not do this? You knew I was leaving today, why are you crying like this?"

"My only child is leaving me and you want me to be happy?" Her mother sniffles. "That's cruel."

"Yes," Aurelia sighs. "I want you to be happy for me."

"Honey," her father backs her up. "College is an exciting milestone! We should be glad she wanted to go to college. Imagine if she decided to work a random nine to five for the rest of her life and not do what she loves to do? That would be more heartbreaking than her moving into a dorm room."

Aurelia holds her father's hand, gracing him with one of very few toothy smiles that she does. Looking back at her momma one last time, she holds her hand out. As her mother squeezes her hand, she smiles warmly. "Please stop crying. Let's make this a very happy moment. Okay?"

Her mother fans her eyes before nodding her head. Aurelia laughs quietly as she turns around, pulling her headphones back over her ears.

She never expected her mother to cry so much. Her mother, Lauren, spent most of her time at the hospital. Even then, Aurelia understood that her mother was important, being the head doctor. Although her job is important, Aurelia saw her less than she saw her father. Her father, DeSean, worked as a tenth grade biology teacher, and he was home more. Therefore, they spent more time together. Now that she thinks about it, that's probably why her mother's so emotional.

To her, it must seem like time flew so fast. Her baby, Aurelia, is no longer her baby but a new adult. A new adult that's off to college.

Aurelia dreams of having her art work displayed in her very own art gallery. Her passion for creating unique works and understanding the history behind all works of art in the world grew over the years. When she was nine, she remembered seeing The Son of Man by René Magritte in a cartoon she was watching. Of course the cartoon was one of those educational ones, where every episode focused on something different. It was all she had to watch since her parents never really showed her anything else, but the picture looked so peculiar to her, and she just couldn't take her eyes off. Her father used to tell her that's when she really started loving art, but it was a bit later that she really became serious about it.

Aurelia was about eleven when she started drawing with her number two pencil and notebook paper. Starting with lines and circles, seeing how she could make them look different each time. She kept doing that for hours a day, after homework and chores. When her art teacher, at school, gave her class paint and a blank canvas, Aurelia just fell in love.

Her emotions would just travel through the wooden handle, and pours out through the bristle of the paint brush. When she finally realized she was down, her art teacher's face looked so shocked and surprised.

"This is honestly so beautiful," her art teacher uttered to her. "I'm so shocked by your details. It's like I can feel what you feel. Excited. Passionate."

Aurelia remembered being so surprised that her art teacher knew how she felt. She understood her art piece. Her words sent waves through her heart. It gave her enough confirmation that she wanted to do art for a living. She alway envisioned herself as another Picasso, but of course, that's just her dreaming unrealistically. Again. It's not a crime to fantasize about it though. The dream isn't impossible.

Aurelia looks down at her phone and smiles when she sees a message from the group chat that she and some of her closest friends set up before they all went their separate ways to different colleges. Sabrina, the oldest—oldest by five months—got into Harvard, and her journey to be a neurosurgeon. Aurelia and the rest of the friend group wasn't surprised since she always had the best grades and studied a lot more. Cameron decided to go to a university out of state as well. He decided to go down the language branch, study different languages. He was never good in the math classes, but he excelled everywhere else.