One of the Boys ✔️

I

I swear to God I'm going to murder my phone one of these days. It's been buzzing incessantly ever since I turned it back on at the airport. Every time I watch 'Gilmore Girls' and see the kinds of phones that they use, I always consider just waltzing into Target and buying a flip phone for the sake of it. I'd save money, definitely save time in my day because typing on that thing would be a bitch (meaning I wouldn't do it as often), and I must admit I've always wanted to recreate Channing Tatum's scene in 'She's the Man' when he dramatically flips open his phone. Yeah, my friends might get sick of seeing it happen all the time but it'd be gold the first few times. But then I look at the nice sheen of my iPhone, how aesthetically pleasing the rounded icons look, and I end up having the same thought every single time: Eh, I guess it's not so bad. I mean, there's a 'Do Not Disturb' option for a reason.

I sit up straighter in my chair, my skin pulling away from the leather where it had gotten stuck due to the humidity. I winced at the slight pinching feeling the movement caused. Whoever thought that it would be a good idea to put leather chairs in an airport had better reconsider their career options; you sit for a long time, therefore getting stuck, when it's warmer you stick more intensely, and when you live in Australia, it's like getting third degree burns when first sitting down – before inevitably getting stuck because you're waiting around at an airport for an hour while waiting for your bus to arrive. My phone buzzes again inside the pocket of my shorts, but it doesn't cease after the first vibration like a regular text. Sliding my phone out of my pocket, I see my mum's face taking up the entirety of my phone screen as she calls me for undoubtedly the fiftieth time.

"Hey, mum," I say, after finally picking up the phone.

"Blake! It's about time, I've called you that many times! I don't spend all this money on a fancy phone for you to just play games and whatever it is you young people do on technology these days. You have your phone so that I can call you when I need to, and now is one of those times!"

"Sorry, it's been in my pocket ever since I got off the flight. I just wanted to grab my bag before calling you back, you know I'm no good at multitasking."

My mum sighs at my response, but I can imagine her shaking her head with a small smile on her face. I wasn't lying, either. If I'd tried to be on the phone with my mum while simultaneously pulling my heavy-ass bag off of the baggage claim, it wouldn't have been a pretty sight. "Well, how was the flight? Did you get the window seat? Where are you now? What time is your bus coming? Do you have all of the papers that you need?"

I swear, it had become a skill of mine to remember all of the questions that my mum rapid-fires at me whenever I'm somewhere new by myself. "Everything's fine, mum. The flight was good, I was just reading the whole time. Yes, I got the window seat. Right now I'm just waiting in this little office near the Arrivals gate, there are a few people waiting here for a bus as well."

Mum cuts me off before I can answer the rest of her questions. "Alright, well you'll text me when you get on the bus? And when you get to uni? And let me know what you'll be doing later tonight just in case--"

"Mum!" I interrupt. "I'll let you know when I get to uni, but after that, I just want to have a bit of a look around. If I'm going to be here for the next few years, I'll at least need to figure out where the hell I'm going."

"Okay," she sighs, sounding resigned. "Just make sure that you don't wander too far from the university. It's only your first day, and you've got a week until classes start. Save the getting lost for when you've had too much to drink and you'll remember where you are in the morning."

I can't help but laugh at that. She's always bringing up places that I can go to have a few drinks with my friends, which leads to her reliving old memories of getting so drunk before managing to drive home, but not before getting out of the car a few times to make sure that the road was still there. "Oh, I shouldn't be telling you things like this, should I? Umm... don't get drunk, don't drink and drive, and if you ever are drunk, at least call before trying to find a way home?" She was the most responsible person I know, considering I haven't seen her touch a drink in all my eighteen years of life, but whenever she brings up stories from her past, I can't help but wonder if she was like me as a teenager.