life of the party

I.

Like any other kids my age who live in this town, all my life, all I every wanted was to leave and go to college. Weirdly, not to "improve" my life, but just simply to escape, you know? Because frankly, I have a pretty okay life here! My parents put food on our table, a roof on our head, and they clothe me. Any other things past those are already considered luxuries.

"Are you sure you're not gonna go to Piper's later?"

I am so excited to have more locker space when I get into college. I'm so tired of this sad excuse of a locker with dull gray paint almost completely peeled off. Like, come on! They could at least repaint these yearly. I closed the door as I put my literature book inside my janky old JanSport.

"Dude, I told you I'm not gonna go. I've got three large boxes I need to fill with the entirety of my room," I can almost hear Maisie pout.

"Okay.. guess I'll just go to that awesome party, with chocolate AND cheese fountain alone. By myself. You know, like alone alone," I rolled my eyes behind my big grandma glasses because I was too lazy to put on my contacts this morning.

"Seriously, Maisie? Are you really guilt tripping me right now? On our last day of seniors?"

I helped her carry her ginormous tote bag filled with books, food, and whatever else she left in her locker throughout senior year.

"Come on, Daph! This is the very last high school party we'll ever be in!" I looked at her with a big question mark on my face.

"Okay, first and last. But, still! We should go, it will be a good reminder of how terrible school life here is. Making your new college journey extra awesome?"

I am not gonna lie, that made me stop. In my defense, Maisie has been bugging me for us to go to this quote, unquote party of the year. And I kind of agreed like two weeks ago, I think she just forgot? But when she does remember, I don't want her to hold this against me.

Plus, I guess it wouldn't hurt to get free food whilst imagining how so much cooler college parties would be compared to this.

"Fine. Meet me at my house at six"

"Yes!"

"Did you say there was gonna be fondue?"

"Earth to Daph? Of course! It's Piper's"

"Mom, I'm home! Lord have mercy, what happened here?" I struggled to even get through our front door. There are boxes everywhere! 

"Mom? Did we start a garage sale inside the house?" I managed to enter by pushing probably one of the heaviest boxes I've ever seen, ever.

I was going to ignore all of the mess here downstairs because I know my room upstairs is not exactly prim and proper at the moment, when my Mom called for me.

"Daphne? A little help here please" I dropped my bag on the floor and followed the voice of my mother who happens to have her head inside the oven.

"Mom! What are you doing?" I proceed to help her get her head unstuck. 

I don't even know how it's possible to get your head stuck in there. But most importantly, I don't understand why would you put your head inside that in the first place?

"Why do you have your head inside the oven, mom?" She gave me a 'you-know-why' face as if this is a common occurrence in our household.

"I was just doing a general cleaning, that's all," well, that explains the mess all over the house, "and then I realized, I never really got to clean the insides of our oven. So, you know what I did? I get in there and cleaned"