On The Brink Of Love

one

It is raining. I sit slumped in the backseat of my parents' car, rain pouring from the sky. The windshield wipers squeak on the glass as I stare moodily out of the window. Rain obscures my vision, and I scowl, turning the volume up on my music. The heartfelt story of a broken heart pours through my headphones, and as I listen, a match of fear is struck inside me. Love, according to all depressed songs on the topic, is fleeting. It doesn't last, and it certainly isn't forever.

"You excited?"

At first I think my mother is talking to me, though she hasn't said a word to me since we got in the car three hours ago. I hit pause on my music, pulling my headphones off. But she's talking to my father, not to me. Of course she isn't.

"Oh, you bet I am," my father says, grinning.

I jam my headphones back on my head, pressing play on the music, drowning out their conversation. Through the rain I catch a glimpse of an endless sea of trees, all shades of brown and green. The sky is gray and black, heavy with clouds spilling tears onto the earth.

The car drives through a puddle as the song changes. Jets of water spray upwards, hitting the windows and doors. I trace the path of a single raindrop down the glass with my finger. On its way, it meets another raindrop, and the two converge, continuing their path as a single, larger raindrop. But when they hit the bottom, they splatter, falling apart into tiny, tiny drops.

Love is fleeting.

The new song is about straying off the path, breaking the mould. I devour each word, each note that seems to hang in the air long after it's faded. The song is beautiful.

I lean back in my seat as the car turns a corner. The tires crunch on gravel - the roads stopped being tarmac a long time ago. I can see a sign looming at the end of the road, thankfully close. I can't wait to be away from my parents, and they can't wait to get away from me. Normally, I get dumped at my grandma's every summer. I love my grandma, and so I'm okay with that. But this year, Grandma took her savings and sailed away on a cruise ship - leaving me to be at a summer camp.

"We're almost there!" my mother chirps. Her tone is bright - too bright, too eager. She can barely contain her excitement at the fact that I will be gone.

I put my phone and headphones into my backpack and zip it up, sitting upright, as tense as a coiled whip. When the car pulls up outside an oldish-looking building, my parents twist in their seats to look at me.

"Be good," my father says.

"Yeah," I reply, nodding limply. My voice is as flat as the floor of my bedroom back home.

"Not one call from the camp," my mother adds sternly.

I nod again. "Okay. Bye."

Neither one responds as I get out of the car and lug my suitcase from the trunk. Rain drenches me as my father toots the horn - a final warning - and the car peels away in a cloud of dust, exhaust, and raindrops.