𝐔𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 | J. Fisher

𝟬𝟭, when i'm back in chicago

❁...... chapter one ......❁
| UG: when i'm back in chicago |

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   SERENA had tried. She tried really hard but for whatever reason, boys didn't seem to like her when it was cold outside. Whether it was some cosmic imbalance or it was just her, finding a boyfriend was near impossible. At least eleven times now, Serena had been rejected, ghosted, or blatantly ignored, and unfortunately, summer was back.

"What's wrong with you?" Haley interrogated, locking her eyes on Serena's face.

Pensively, Serena packed her bag and shoved aggressively at anything that refused to fit. She wished very badly to take on the twenty-foot drop that was her third-floor apartment but it wouldn't have done much. Curse the brownstones of the world.

"Nothing. I'm excited." She grumbled.

"Are you sure?" Haley pushed, looking back to the blood-orange toenails she'd been painting. She didn't catch the frustrated look her best friend shot her at the end of her question. "Oh, is this about you-know-who?"

Again, Serena sighed. "Who else would it be about?"

"God! I remember when you called me after that party," Haley shouted, trying not to smudge her polish while she laughed. "You're so stupid."

"Shut up. You walked into a glass door yesterday."

"It was a very clean door." She shrugged, finishing off her pinky toe. "Oh! We didn't do an outfit checklist."

Serena, kicking herself for not remembering, paused her hands that were mid-punch. Staring down at the bag in contempt, she tried to recall all that she had packed. "Uh... can we do important pieces only?"

Haley shrugged, giving her the 'okay'. "I packed the pink, yellow, purple, and brown sweater Tippy made me, my flower tank, um, the really big overalls, that white— what is it —halter top thingy, and all of my tube tops, and I think that's it. And my Mamma Mia skirt."

Haley nodded approvingly. "That's a good lineup."

"So," Serena began again, plopping next to Haley's dried toes. "I'm not going to see you for two months and—"

Possibly real sobs beat into Serena's neck as Haley clung to her tightly with a surprise hug. She patted the short girl's back soothingly while whispering kind things.

"I'll call every night and every morning before you leave...maybe. And I'll bring you back three turtle souvenirs."

Haley lifted her head, her comically large eyes glistening with tears. "You have a kind soul."

Within the next two hours, Serena, her mother, and Tippy, her younger sister, were stuffed into the woman's car and on their way to the airport. The flight would be about four hours so Serena made sure she grabbed a book, she was currently reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, and wearing comfortable clothes to doze off in.

"Ma, this book is too depressing. I can't." Serena sat up quickly, brushing away the tears that settled on her waterline. She pushed her reading glasses up into her head and turned to her mother as she handed the hook to her. "Why would you willingly read that?"