Wonderwall

01

"You're not from around her?" The man's voice is rough but I could tell he meant no harm in the question, just plain conversation he would usually make in a taxi ride from the airport. I nodded; hoping he caught it in the rear view mirror. I felt both relieved and guilty at the halt in the conversation that followed.

The silence dragged on for another half hour before we reached the 'Welcome to Point Winter' sign. Nothing had changed since I had left. The Jack's Ice Cream bar, it was way too cold for it but some how the place was still in business. The Hungry Diner was still there, the place to get a day's worth of calories in one meal. Next to The Nook, the only fine dining place and it wasn't even three stars, was the old theatre I recalled from having performed ballet recitals at when I was five or six but since had been converted into a movie cinema. Good Food Produce, Mudpie Café, The General Store and a few local owned boutiques all overlooked the shoreline on High Street but that was it.

Point Winter was never a tourist hot spot, the waves were harsh and the water too cold for swimming but sometimes you could still find the occasional surfer. If you went further out on the boardwalk where the waves were calm, fishing was a good option as well but rarely had I gone out there to see if people actually fished. There wasn't much in the form of entertainment in Point Winter but I had lived here for thirteen years of my life, one more year wouldn't be so bad.

I could read. Books were always my escape even back when I didn't need much of an escape. Hopefully my grandparent's house had Wi-Fi and I could probably watch Anne of Green Gables again at some point.

"It's further up the road, right?" The taxi driver asked breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Umm... yeah." I managed, "Just a little past town." My grandparent's house was a little further inland; a ten-minute drive from the edge of town. We past the Marin house on the way, a large colonial house, so big you could play hide and seek and not get found for hours. Technically they were the neighbours but their estate was large, a good five-minute walk to the edge of theirs and the start of ours, two if I ran.

"This is it." I said quietly, grabbing my backpack off the floor of the taxi. The car pulled into my grandma's driveway; the house was big but not nearly as large as the house beside it. Grandma Susan came out to greet me. I quickly paid the driver and he got out insisting he help with the luggage. Gran helped him, thanking him before paying him an extra five when they were done. I should have done that. When the taxi had pulled out of the drive way she turned to face me. She looked at me with a look on her face I could only place once she started talking.

"Oh darling..."

"I'm fine, really." I smiled. It wasn't a surprise she knew, my grandparents would want to know why my parents decided to ship me off to Point Winter when I should be in classes at my first year of University. Of course they knew.

"You've changed so much Emily." All I could do was smile. The last time she had seen me was when I was thirteen and the thirteen-year-old Emily wouldn't be scared of anything; she took risks, she made friends with strangers, she laughed without covering her mouth, she had an awful haircut, wore denim with denim and looked like an absolute wreck most of the time. She did what she wanted and didn't care if anyone else was watching. Other than some of my obvious fashion missteps I kind of missed thirteen-year old Emily.

Gran showed me to my old room I shared with two of my other cousins. Our code names still carved into the bottom of the baseboard with a pair of sawing scissors my older cousin Lacey had stolen from her mother. Amethyst for me, Ruby for Lacey and simply Christmas for our youngest cousin Katie, mostly because none of us could place the birth stone for December. We had thought it was so cool and mysterious back then, it was kind of moving in a sentimental sort of way to find it still there. I almost had the urge to call up Lacey and tell her that her Jonas Brothers posters was still hung up but then I would have to actually call her. We were once close but other than awkward happy birthday wishes on Facebook we didn't talk much anymore. I knew my brother Thomas still spoke to Alfie and Davy, Lacey's younger brothers but then again Thomas was always much better at maintaining relationships. It was never out of anger that we stopped talking, when you don't see people for so long it just gets hard to begin again and I was the sort of person who shied away from hard things.