Common Sense • drivers license

8 ~ Difficult Dating

Don't forget that suggestions are always welcome!

Started: March 24, 2021
Finished: January 20, 2022, at 2 am

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Nina Salazar-Roberts: straight-A student, loves music, kind to everyone, straight-A student, has a small group of close friends, greets everyone with a smile, straight-A student, happy home life. Was it mentioned that she's a straight-A student?

Those A's are mainly because of her overbearing mothers. Yes, they mean well, but wanting control in everything their daughter did was suffocating at times. They always pushed her to focus on her studies, keep track of her grades, and make sure there were no distractions. (Being raised by a nurse and lawyer was... wearing.)

No distractions lead to some of their ridiculous rules. For instance, curfew. Nina, or Nini, understood she had a curfew; she never had a problem with it and didn't see a reason to argue with that. The problem was with the topic of dating.

The rule was very quite simple: no.

They believed dating took too much attention away from her studies; all dates at her age were a pointless distraction. Even if she were to be in a relationship, they'd much prefer if she was with a woman. This was no secret to Nini; while the words were never said explicitly, her moms were always a little happier when she hung out with girls compared to boys, even if they told Nini that they wouldn't care who she was attracted to when the time came to give dates a try. Nini never confronted them for this but guessed it had something to do with her mom's ex-husband, aka the father who left them when she was two.

She never asked about him and never had a reason to. She had loving mothers and friends and just never thought about him. Once high school rolled around, Nini got the courage to ask about him simply because she was curious, and it wasn't the most pleasant of stories. But that's a tale for another time.

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As she became older, the overprotectiveness didn't go away. Apparently, college was just far too important to add a relationship into the mix, and she of course believed them.

As somewhat of a compromise, her moms got her an apartment only one town away from Salt Lake City while she was in college, which allowed Nini some independence while her moms could check in whenever they wanted. Nini knew they secretly were making sure she didn't have any boys over, and she never disobeyed them, mostly because she was way too shy due to growing up with all of their restraints.

Well... until Ricky came into the mix. Meeting each other was simple: a party.

Gina being Gina begged and bugged the daylights out of Nini to come with her. After many desperate attempts, she finally caved. They both went, and from the outside, Nini could already tell it was way out of her comfort zone; music was blasting and alcohol breath was within a hundred-mile radius. Not being a big drinker, or ever drinking, Nini ended up in the backyard of the house, also losing Gina in the first ten minutes.

She was leaning against the fence surrounding the property, enjoying the tranquility and staring at the stars away from the house until someone else joined her. "No drink?" they said.

"I don't drink," she said simply without facing the intruder of her peacefulness. She didn't want to have small talk with someone who was probably drunk out of their mind and couldn't remember who or where they were.

"You're at a college party sober?"

Nini laughs lightly, turning around to properly face them. He had wildly curly hair that looked like he just rolled out of bed, and she could see his chocolate brown eyes even in the darkness. "Two things: one, my friend forced me here; and two, you don't have to be wasted to have a good time."