Only A Wish

Chapter One

"Mom wants you," Lily, my sister, yells to me, coming into my room without warning.

I groan and sit up, the sleep still making my mind foggy. It is way too early to deal with this, there's no way of knowing what my mother wants now but I'm not looking forward to it. I make my way downstairs to find my mother. I find her in the kitchen making breakfast, I clear my throat to make my presences known. She turns from the stove to look at me, she smiles, "Good morning sleepy head, It's summer shouldn't you be getting up early to go explore the town?" She says to me. I scoff, "You're funny, me getting up early? Only time I want to leave this house is to hang out with Allie." She shakes her head and chuckles, "And this is why I got you a summer job." My eyes widen, "What? No." I can't believe she did this, how could she possibly think it's okay to do things like this without my permission first. She puts mine and my sister's plate on the table and gives me a sympathetic smile, "Anna, you will like it I promise." I roll my eyes, "What even is it?" She smiles, "Lily! Breakfast is ready," I raise my eyebrows at her and she continues, "The city pool, a lifeguard position." I sigh, well that's a relief to make things a little better, my best friend, well only friend, since I moved here, works there. "Oh, well I guess it's not that bad then." I respond, pushing the eggs around on my plate with my fork. My little sister runs into the kitchen, "Anna works at the pool!?" She says ecstatic. I nod at her, "Yep, Mom had the splendid idea of getting me the job." Lily's smile grows, "Does this mean I can get into the pool for free?" My mother and I laugh, "No darling, but it does mean you will be able to go to the pool more often," My mother says.

After breakfast, my mother and Lily come into my room, "Change into your swimsuit we are gonna go to the pool," My mother says to me. I roll my eyes, "I really have to go? I'm gonna be there all the time, two days from now." My mother smiles at me, "Yeah, so might as well get used to it now. Get changed and meet us in the car." I sigh, "Okay, whatever." They leave the room and I change into my olive colored bikini, grabbing my phone off the charger, throwing my hair into a messy bun, slipping my flip flops on, and running down starts to grab a towel then get to the car. My mother looks over my swimsuit and raises an eyebrow, "When did you get that?" I look at her confused, "What do you mean?" She shakes her head, "Nothing, just not wanting my little girl to grow up and you look like a grown woman wearing that." I laugh, "Mom, I'm 16 of course I'm gonna start looking like a grown woman, it's a part of life. Everyone grows up." My mother sighs, "Yes, I know Anna." I laugh, and Lily whines, "Come on! I wanna go swimming!" My mother and I laugh, "Okay. Okay. We are going," My mother says.

We get to the pool and suddenly my anxiety comes over me, I let out a loud sigh and Lily grabs my hand, I look down at her to see her smiling up at me. I know there are tons of people everywhere and I'm almost naked in front of them, but with Lily holding my hand and being beside me it's a little less scary. We sign in and find a spot in the grass to set out our towels and our bag of dry clothes to change into. "Will you swim with me?" Lily asks. I smile at her, "Of course." I slowly get into the pool, it's cold and gives me goosebumps. Lily looks at me and smiles before jumping into the pool causing the water to splash everywhere including on me. She comes up out of the water laughing, hysterically. "You little brat!" I say laughing, before splashing water in her face. She lets out a screech before splashing me back. "Okay. Okay. I forfeit! Stop splashing, you win," I say. She laughs and jumps up and down in the water, "I win! I win!" I smile at her, then swim to the edge of the pool to sit. Someone runs up to me and hugs me from behind, I look to see that it's my best friend, Allie. "Hey, I didn't know you were gonna be here today!" She says. I scoff, "I didn't realize I was going to be here either but my mom thought it would be a good idea for all of us to get out of the house." Allie rolls her eyes, "You need to stop complaining so much about being outside, I mean come on it's summer. It's nice out everyone is outside." I roll my eyes back at her dramatically, basically mocking her, "I know, my mom thinks so to and that's why she got me a job here." Allie's eyes widen and her smile grows wide, "Oh my gosh. Really? That's amazing, you will get to see me and hang out almost everyday then," I nod and she continues, "Well come on you gotta meet everyone!" She grabs my hand, and stands me up. "Hang on, I can't just leave Lily, let me tell my mom what I'm doing first." Lily sighs loudly,getting out of the pool, "It's fine, I'll go tell mom what you are doing." I give her a wide smile, "Thanks Lily bug." She nods before running off and Allie drags me around to meet all my new co-workers. Our first stop is the front gate, where people pay to get in, rent floaties for their children and what not. "Anna, this is Esther and William." Allie says introducing us. Will gives me a wide smile and offers his hand, "You can call me Will." I shake his hand and nod, "It's nice to meet you two." Allie grabs my hand again, "Well come on time to go meet the people you'll actually be working with, the life guards." We walk to the pool side to post one, "Reese!" Allie yells at the guy sitting there, he looks down at her and climbs down from his post, "I didn't realize it was time for rotation yet." The blue eyed and blonde haired boy says. Allie shakes her head, "It's not time for rotation yet, but this is Anna. She's gonna start working here on Friday." The boy looks me up and down and scoffs, "They hiring anyone nowadays." My eyes widen and I take a step back, a bit offended. "What do you mean by that." I snap, then cover my mouth for letting those words slip out, I can't lose this job from making enemies already, I haven't even started my first day of work here. "He didn't mean anything by that. Come on we will go introduce you to everyone else," Allie says glaring at Reese. We start walking toward post two, "What did he mean by that? Honestly," I ask Allie. She sighs, "Nothing, he's just a really big asshole." I shrug, "Whatever, I guess not everyone is gonna like me." We get to post two, where a guy with an amazing tan, dark brown hair and sunglasses sat. "Logan, this is our newest addition to the pool." Allie says, pointing to me. He looks at her, then pulls his sunglasses a little further down on his nose so I can see his chocolate brown eyes, then cracks a little smile at me. I can't help but blush a little, and look over at Allie to see her having her eyebrows raised and a little smirk on her face. "Her name is Anna, she starts Friday. Since I'm not gonna be here, I was thinking maybe you could help her out a bit if she needs anything." He nods, "Sure thing, not a problem." Allie nods at him then we are off to the third post, only two more to go. Before we get to third post Allie stares me down, "What?" I ask. Her smile gets wider, "I seen what just happened between you and Logan. I think he may have a crush." I roll my eyes and scoff, "Whatever, impossible. I just met him." She shrugs as we reach the third post, "This is Hunter. Hunter this is Anna." He waves then the whistle blows, "Well, I gotta get back to work now my break is over," Allie says. She gives me a hug before taking Hunter's seat and Hunter goes to the next post. I decided it'd be best to meet everyone else on Friday, so I didn't look like a total weirdo walking around the pool by myself introducing myself to everyone.

After a couple more hours at the pool, we went home. "So what do you think about the pool so far?" My mother questions. I shrug, "It's decent, I guess. Just surrounded by a bunch of people that I don't know." My mother laughs, "I'm sure you'll start to like it after a while." I sigh and shrug again, "If you say so mom." I go up to my room and turn on my music, and pull out my journal. I write about my day and the people I met, and about how I'm so not looking forward to this new job around all these new people that I don't know, and how I wish we could just move back to Idaho. But I don't see that happening, at least anytime soon. After my mom and dad split up she figured it'd be best for us to move to Florida, in my opinion I didn't think it was a good idea. But since I'm only 16 I don't have very much of a say in the decision making. It's life I guess and it's the only one I got, so I might as well make the most of it because I only get one shot at this thing.