The Neverland Project ✎

━━ two

Aurelia's babysitter, Martina, arrived just in time. Seven-twenty-five. No sooner, no later. I quickly ushered her inside, leading her through the front hall and into the kitchen. She smelled of cherry blossoms, and she was wearing an unnecessary amount of makeup for what her job required. Red lipstick, a smoky eye, and an excessive amount of blush all decorated her face. She'd obviously spent a ridiculous amount of time curling her hair, considering Aurelia would likely want to redo it for her.

As she pulled me into a hug, I pressed my face into the shoulder of her sweatshirt, breathing in the scent of her cherry perfume. As silly as I thought it all was, the hair and the makeup, I knew she did it all for my sister, who loved to smear Martina's collection of coloured powders across her own pale lids.

Martina's long purple nails dug into my shoulders as held me out at arm's length, examining me like one would an onion skin under a microscope. I could almost hear the thoughts forming in her mind. Something about the way she looked at me made me want to run to a mirror and wipe off all of my makeup that I had messily slathered across my face earlier in the morning, sure that I did something wrong.

But Martina said nothing. She just gave me a wide, white smile and directed me to the front hall, where I donned my denim jacket and sneakers before grabbing my keys from the hook and stepping out the door. She closed it quickly after me as I lumbered towards my car, which was sitting next to Martina's Corolla in the driveway.

Mine was an older car. Bought for only a couple thousand dollars from the kind neighbour, Marcel, who lived down the street. It had been a gift for my sixteenth birthday. I nicknamed the car Tiffany after its bright blue colour, which resembled the boxes from the famous jewellery store. She wasn't fancy, but she had become the vessel in which my friends and I lived out our summer dreams. They all chipped in gas money and we'd driven her all the way to Toronto, Grand Bend, and Sauble Beach. Any Ontarian summer destination that we could think of, we raced off to. I still hadn't gotten all the sand out of the floor mats from all of our beach days.

The engine gently roared to life when I turned the key and I fished my phone out of the pocket of my jacket, plugging it into the USB port. Music came pouring through the speakers as I pulled out of the driveway. The roads were slick with fall rain and I had to take extra caution as I turned onto Amelia's street. I navigated the car to the side of the road and honked the horn once, announcing my arrival.

Just like clockwork, the door of her house opened, and she came hurrying out. She yanked the back door to my car open and tossed her black denim messenger bag in before slamming the door and clambering into the passenger side, ears red from the chill in the October air. As I drove us away from our house, her hand reached out, fingers decorated in rings turning up the heat in the car as we made our way towards the school.

Most of the time we rode in silence, Amelia resting her head on the cool glass of the window, glaring at the kids walking to the nearby middle school. But today she seemed eager for conversation. We'd barely made it off her street before she began talking.

"I'm so annoyed." She said, hands moving angrily as she spoke. It was relatively funny watching her talk when she was angry. It was almost as if I was friends with a cartoon character how animated she became. "Actually, scratch that, I'm fucking pissed."

I turned off the music and looked over at her, slouching in the seat. "What happened?" I asked tentatively, though I was almost a hundred percent sure of the answer.

She let out a defeated sigh. "My mom," she began. Those two words summed up almost all of her problems. They all could be traced back to her mother, who could never be satisfied with her daughter, no matter how much she accomplished.