I'll Be Seeing You

Crinkled Eyes

Waking up on Tuesday morning felt different. Lydia had a spring in her step that hadn't been there the day before. It was almost as if she was excited. No that couldn't be it. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her large eyes stared back at her. One green and one blue. Moving from her eyes to her hair, she immediately grabbed a brush. She had never quite learned how to tame her brunette mane. Sometimes it was straight, sometimes curly. Just like her mood, it fluctuated easily and spontaneously.

She put the brush down. Combing her hair had only made it more unruly. She should have known it wouldn't behave on a day when she needed it to. Murphy's law.

She thoughtfully picked out a navy-blue pencil skirt and with matching sweater. She was just about to go closet diving for a belt when she heard her phone ring in the bathroom.

"Ow" she rubbed her head after thwacking it on the closet railing as she tried to extricate herself from her overflowing collection of jeans.

"Hello?" She rubbed her head more. Wow that had hurt.

"Lydia! Where have you been?" Lydia rolled her eyes. She had literally only moved out of her parents' house a week ago but her mom called to check in on her daily. Each morning she made it sound like they hadn't spoken in weeks.

"Hi Mom."

"Oh, don't sound so depressed. You're lucky I even call you! You could sound more excited. Some kids parents' never even bother picking up the phone."

Lydia was only half listening. She heard some version of this speech regularly so she knew her mom was being overly dramatic but nowhere near serious.

"Hi Mom!" Lydia put more effort into her greeting. "Is that better?"

"Much! Now, how was work? You never called me yesterday to say how to went."

Lydia thought back to yesterday. The whirlwind of anxiety had dovetailed into a crush. She was supposed to be making a name for herself. She couldn't disclose to her mom that she was only excited to go to work to see a man.

"It went fine. You know, first day, lots of information."

"Did you meet anyone nice?"

Lydia hesitated, swallowing her own guilt. She hated withholding information but sometimes it was necessary.

"Yea definitely. Everyone seems normal but I don't know them that well so you never know."

"Lydia," her mom's tone suddenly turned serious, "I hope you understand how proud we are of you and I hope you use this opportunity well. It means a lot to your father and I that you're settled."

Lydia felt the familiar sensation of her chest constricting. "I know, I know. Listen I've got to go or I'm going to be late. Love you"

"Love you too. Speak to you later. Have a good day!"

Lydia didn't exhale until she heard the phone go blank on the other end. "Settled". Even repeating the word in her head made her skin crawl. What did settled even really mean? If her mom wanted her to be settled she should have let Lydia have more time. She would have figured out how to get a job in design. She knew she didn't have a game plan. But corporate had never even been on her radar.

She shook her head involuntarily and caught the time on her phone.

"Oh shit!" She groaned. She was going to be late.

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"You alright there Lydia?" Lydia was too busy focusing on regulating her breathing to answer Tim in any vocal form. She offered him a weak thumbs up.