When I woke up, it was dark outside. Though the windows in my room were bare and uncovered, there were no streetlights outside to help me try and decipher how late or early it was. It was hard to believe that I had slept through the entire day, but the darkness outside was enough proof that I did.
A fluffy blanket had been thrown over me that wasn't there before I laid down. Auntie Vera must've come in to check on me throughout the night. That was nice. She seemed to really want me to like her. I never had somebody try so hard for me, It felt odd.
I yawned softly as I began to stretch the stiffness out of my limbs. My bones popped and cracked into place like the old lady I was inside.
"What time is it?" I asked aloud to no one in particular, searching for my phone.
The small amount of moonlight shining in my room, helped me see my way to one of the light switches for the hanging light in the middle of the room. My phone had gottenlost between the mountain of pillows piled at the head of my bed.
3:52 AM
I groaned internally. My phone was already adjusted to the new timezone, letting me know that I'd slept the entire day and night away. It was later than I thought.
My dad left me a slew of text messages and voicemails, demanding that I check in with him. Though I was sure that by now, he had the chance to hear from my Auntie Vera. She would let him know that I'd made it here safely.
With the lights on, I could see the full interior of the room. The first thing I noticed was how big it was. It made the room I had back at home look more like a shoe box in comparison. I had no clue what I would do with all the space. Auntie Vera had it decorated heavily in pastel colors. It was very girly, and light, and so unlike me.
There was a faint smell of sage that permeated the room. I remembered it being stronger before I fell asleep. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all the way pleasant either.
I decided to get out of bed and open my balcony doors to both air out the smell and take in the warmth outside. It was surprisingly warm out, even in the middle of the night. I was still wearing my camisole, sweat pant combo from the plane ride here, but I was comfortable in the weather.
The houses in Seaside Hills were all large and lavish. Only the extremely wealthy could live in these types of homes. I took in the views around me, awed by how close we actually were to the water. Aunty Vera wasn't lying about that part.
I could hear the waves crashing against the shore all the way up in my room. It was so quiet where we were that I was sure if I concentrated, I would be able hear much more.
This view, the area, this place I was set to live in would definitely take some getting used to. I hadn't seen or done much much beyond the trip here from the airport, yet a part of me felt unfit to even be here.
I was surrounded by mansions, the kind you only ever saw in magazines or fake reality shows. The one closest to us had to be the biggest in the entire neighborhood. They took up a good fifteen acres with their palace of a home. Only one light was on inside, making it almost easy to see the life roaming around within the room.
I didn't pay too much attention to the inside of the room so much as I did the whole house itself. My view only extended to the side of the home, where a large pool lit up the ground below. It looked deep enough to get lost amongst the water.
My gaze lingered on the glowing water as small waves trembled across the top from the sudden breeze. I never had a pool growing up, but I was always equally fascinated, yet terrified of them at the same time.
Because my dad was in the Navy, he used to joke that it would be unpatriotic of him not to teach me how to swim. I was far from being an all star swimmer, but I could hold my own in the deep end.
"Are you okay?" A voice called from above the pool.
Surprised, I looked up to find a boy staring at me with a wary expression. He was standing in the only room with the light still on as he waived his hands out in front of him to get my attention. I could only stare. I knew that there was no possible way he could be talking to someone else, but it still caught me off guard.
Again, the boy stared back pointedly, trying again, "Are you okay?"
He said it slower this time, enunciating each word like I had trouble understanding him the first time. Instantly, my neck snapped up to attention.
"I'm good." I bit out.
Both embarrassed and annoyed at being caught, I turned to head back into my room. I was caught staring at his pool like a creep, which was right below his bedroom window.
"Hey, wait!" He whisper shouted across the small field between us.
Reluctantly, I turned back around. The boy laughed nervously to ease the tension, scratching at the back of his head.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm Nathan. You must be Vera's Niece."
"You know my Auntie Vera?"
"Of course I know Vera. She's family."
I was taken aback. I wasn't up to date with my family lineage or anything, but I was pretty sure that none of my immediate family was white. The blonde haired boy with (most likely) blue eyes must've meant that she was like family to him.
"She was married to my late Uncle Martin." Nathan explained.
"Oh." was all I could say.
We lived next door to her dead husbands family? There was no way I could hide my shock. Like it wasn't awkward enough to be staying in a dead man's house as if I owned the place, but it was weird that his family was right next door.
"Uh, do you you want to come over?" Nathan suddenly asked to break the silence I left dangling in the air.
I gave him a look that clearly asked what he thought he was doing.
"Oh, no, I-I just saw you staring at the pool, and I..."
He rambled on nervously, trying hard to clear up my misconception. I couldn't really tell from all the way over here, but I knew his face was turning read. Apart of me wanted to spare him and throw him a bone, but a pettier side of me almost liked watching him fumble around.
"It's cool." I gave in, "sure, I'll come over."
Instantly, he stopped talking, surprised by my answer. I was kind of surprised too. Normally, I wasn't the adventurous type. I left that to Rochelle in most cases. It was easier playing the background because then you didn't have to try so hard.
But with Nathan, he was trying hard enough for the both of us. Plus, despite his bad framing of words, he seemed like a nice guy. I read people very well, and my reading powers never let me down. Nathan gave me sheltered rich kid vibes. The type that wasn't always aware of their sheltered nature.
I went back into my room and closed the doors behind me. The last thing I thought to pack was a swimsuit. I didn't even attempt to open my luggage to look for one. Instead, I found a pair of shorts and switched them out with my sweat pants.
For a split second, I wondered if Aunty Vera would care about me leaving the house without asking. It wasn't like she was up, and it was only next door. Nathan said that she was like family to him, so I guessed it was cool.
I picked my shoes up from the door and made my way out into the hall. The house was was way too quiet for comfort. Each footstep felt like it left an echo effect too loud against the marble floors.
When I got through the maze of stairs, I snuck out through the back door. Nathan met me halfway, appearing out of nowhere by the long patio deck.
"Hey," Nathan waved.
"Hey."
The light turned on from our movement, allowing me to see him up close and personal. Nathan was taller than he seemed from his balcony. He had a sort of lanky build, with a surprisingly coordinated stride to his walk.
Nathan stared at me like he was thinking the same thing; that I looked different than he expected.
"Nice to meet you...uh, I never actually got your name."
I smiled as a thought occurred to me. Since I was sent here to discover myself, why not do it my own way? Tay (or Tay-tay as my dad liked to call me) had to be left in New York. If I was really going to reinvent myself—here in this strikingly different place—it made no sense to do it as Tay, an antisocial chick with a with a chip on her shoulder.
"Jade." I replied. It wasn't technically a lie. Jade really was one of my names.
Jade was adventurous, Jade was...nice apparently.
"Pretty name," he smiled back, leading the way to his pool, "was that your mom's favorite gem stone?"
The real story to my name was that my parents couldn't agree on which name fit me best, so they gave me both. I thought it was lazy compromise, but there was nothing I could do to change it.
"No, um, my dad named me."
I never talked about my mom, ever, and I wouldn't start tonight.
"Oh, well he picked a good name. I thought you looked like a Jade, but I didn't want to assume." He chuckled.
It was a lame joke, but I found myself smiling at it nonetheless. Nathan seemed proud of himself to have broken the ice so quickly.
"My dad named me too," he continued, "I'm sort of a junior, so he wasn't that original."
"Sort of?"
"Nathan Edward Walters III."
The full government...
His full name sounded exactly how his place looked: rich and pristine. I knew lots of Jr.s back at home, but I couldn't for the life of me think of a time I'd ever run into a third of his name. My cousin Deon was a Jr. He used to joke all the time about naming his future kid after him, but I highly doubted there would ever be a 'Deon Everett Evans the third' anywhere in his lineage.
"Well you definitely look like a Nathan. I was assuming something way worse." I joked.
Nathan gave me a look, "If you say Thor, I'll throw you into the pool."
I stopped mid-step. We were just about to his wooded fence and I refused to take another step.
"If you throw me in that pool, you'll have to fight me." I was only half playing. Nathan however, took me seriously.
"Woah," he stepped back, "I'm just kidding."
I continued walking, letting myself in through his gate. Nathan took a minute, but he eventually followed after me. His pool was bigger than it looked from my balcony. The water was so clear, I could see the golden design molded into the bottom of it.
"Nice." I said my thoughts aloud.
Nathan snorted, "I'm almost scared to ask you to swim now."
Without another word, I went over to the deep end and slipped off my shoes. The tiled pavement around the pool was ice cold and moist from the contrasting warmth in the air. One at a time, I dipped my feet into the seemingly bottomless end to the pool.
Nathan came to sit beside me, swaying his feet back and forth in the water too. I couldn't help staring at him under the moonlight. With his long, blonde hair hanging down to his shoulders, he could definitely be mistaken for a Thor copycat. There were many similarities between the two, but not enough to form a valid comparison.
"What?" He asked, noticing my starting.
Instead of saying what I was really thinking and risk being thrown into the pool, I reached down to pull my camisole up over my head. I wasn't bold enough to strip in front of him completely, so I kept my shorts in place.
Nathan stared opened-mouthed at me in my bra-short combo, openly liking what he saw. Before I let his gaze linger for too long, I slid down from the tiled surface and allowed the water to swallow me whole.
I drifted slowly down, completely submerged in the deepest part of the pool. With my nose plugged tightly between my fingers, I stayed there for a while. The water was just as cold as the tiles surrounding it, but it felt good against my skin.
A part of me was tempted to sink all the way to the bottom as my instincts fought to bring me back up to the surface. I liked the weightlessness of being underwater. It was freeing in a way that the surface just wasn't. My problems couldn't reach me down here, they weren't heavy enough to weigh me down.
Because I didn't want Nathan to think I was drowning (but mostly be my lungs were about to burst), I came back up to the surface to breathe. Nathan was already in the pool. He was backstroking to me from side. When he got to me, he turned himself upright and stared at me quizzically.
"Your hair's curly?"
"Huh?" I asked at the same time realizing what had happened.
I reached up to touch my now curly hair that was previously a low hanging ponytail of straight hair. Rochelle's mom had straightened my hair right before my going away party. If she saw this, she would be pissed.
"Oh, yeah. Wasn't it obvious?"
I thought that by now the world would know that black women had revolutionized. Our natural curls were everywhere.
"No, it wasn't. You go down with straight hair, and come back up with these curls."
He waived his hand around my head in fascination. "It's like you did some kind of magic trick!"
"Boy, don't you know?" I started to swim away, "black girls are magic."
Nathan struggled to keep up with me. He splashed behind me loud enough to wake someone up, but I didn't think he cared. When I made it to the edge, I lifted up to perch my elbows on the tiles.
The moon shined brightly against the lights in the pool. There was a peaceful kind of quiet that spread throughout the night. Nathan finally joined me, sliding over so he could be close to me.
"So, do you live here now, or are you just visiting?"
"I'm just here for the summer." I didn't plan to stay here for longer than necessary.
"Hmm," he shrugged.
"What?"
"A lot can happen in three months."
"Like what?" I raised a brow.
"Like...we could become friends. And, you might actually discover that you like me."
I couldn't help it, I laughed. I wasn't sure if he was being serious or not.
"Okay, best friends." He bargained, which only made me laugh a little harder.
"Sure Nathan, we can be best friends."
"Don't play with my emotions Jade."
"Well, I'm kinda short on options. You're the only friend I have here, so you can be the best for now."
Nathan rolled his eyes. "You'll see. I'll be the best friend you've got. They'll call us Nade."
"Nade?"
"Yeah, or Jathan. It's our tagline."
I stared at him. He was being playful, but from the surety in his voice, I questioned if he was really serious. Nathan didn't exactly strike me as the best friend type, but seeing as he was the only option I had to chose from, I would roll with the punches.
"Okay best friend," I decided to challenge him, "if you had to chose between me, and a sack of puppies, what would you choose?"
He took a moment to think over my question, as if what I asked him was too complicated.
"Why are the puppies in a sack? Why can't they be in a crate or something, with holes?"
Great, he was one of them, a super duper animal lover. Even a joke made him question the imaginary animals' well being.
"That wasn't the question, Nate. If I'm really your best friend, and you only had two options. What would you chose?"
"Well, I'm more of a cat lover anyway, so I'd definitely choose you."
I smiled with a shake of my head. Nathan would definitely choose the puppies over me, but I didn't argue it. I leaned back in the water and allowed myself to float backwards. I could do this all day and never get tired.
"Hey, what are you doing tomorrow Jade?"
"Mostly unpacking, and getting to know my Aunt. Why?"
"My sister's having a thing over here tomorrow, and all of our friends from school will be here. You should come!"
It was sweet of him to invite me, but I wasn't ready to be thrown into a crowd of people I didn't know just yet. I barely allowed this type of activity back at home. Who would I be if I actually started mingling with people on purpose? Jade was different from Tay in many ways, but one thing would always remain the same. I wasn't a people person.
I didn't need to be surrounded by a group of so-called friends to have a good time. It wasn't a requirement to be around people for me to discover myself. That wasn't a part of the deal.
"I don't do parties." I declined.
"That just means that you've never been to a good one."
"I've been to plenty Nathan, and they're all the same. Not interested, but thanks."
Nathan went silent for a while as he flipped onto his back to float too.
"If you had to choose between staying at home to unpack, or coming to a party that your best friend just invited you to, what would you choose?"
"That's not fair, my question was hypothetical."
"That wasn't the question Jade," he imitated me, " if you only had two options, which would you choose?"
Nathan seemed confident that he could convince me. The smug smile he bore as he floated back over to me was enough to make me want to drown it out with a splash of water. I didn't want to go to a party, and no amount of word twisting could get Nate to make me go.
Since it was all just hypothetical anyway, I agreed.
What were best friends for?
.•.•.•.•.
Childish Gambino-Summertime Magic