Thou shall not fall (in love with a lost boy)

New beginnings

When my grandmother unexpectedly died, my newly divorced mother thought it would be a wonderful idea to move us to her hometown and take over the family business. “It was a chance to start over new and fresh” she had said as we drove away from our foreclosed house. My Father had been caught embezzling millions of the company's money and spending it on multiple mistresses; All of their assets were frozen and mom and I were lucky to get out with the little amount of things we did.  She immediately filed for divorce and we packed our things and left.  Grandma owned a small sweets shop on the boardwalk of a small seaside town called Santa Carla California, called Betty’s seaside sweets. Her shop sold cupcakes, brownies, cookies, pastries of every kind imaginable; they also sold every type of candy available and every flavor of ice cream.

The moving company my mother had hired was falling behind on delivering our stuff; so Mom and I spent our first week here cleaning out grandma’s seaside home so that we could move our things in. The house was a three story house right on the beach. I took the top floor which was a large open space with a walk-in closet on one side and a small bathroom on the other. I also had a large balcony. The main floor housed and grand entry way that lead into an open concept kitchen and living room, with  two small spare bedrooms to the right of the kitchen and bathroom and laundry room to the left of the kitchen; the living room was surrounded by a glass wall with a sliding door out onto a large deck that wrapped around both sides of the house.  All the windows and glass doors had storm shutters and the living room had ones that folded up and were stored away inside the walls on either side of the deck.

My mom took the bottom floor which was a large bedroom with a hot tub and full bathroom. She also had a small deck and beach access right from her bedroom. The property was surrounded by a waist high fence with a small gate that opened up onto the public beach.

I enjoyed the evenings here, it was still 75 Degrees even in the dead of night even though it was winter.  I wondered what the temperatures would be like once summer hit. you could see the bonfires down on the beach and hear the distant music blaring from boom boxes. 

I decided that until my bed showed up I slept out on the hammock on the balcony. Normally due to my weird sleep pattern, I slept from six am until one pm, but mom had me helping her all week so I had to change my sleep schedule to help her.  My first night out on the balcony I was started awake at four am by the sound of motorcycles cruising down the beach. The owners of said bikes were hooping, hollering and laughing as they flew by the house.  It was so dark out that all I could see of them were their headlights and sometimes one would stop for a few seconds just down the beach and rev their engine before speeding off again. By the end of the week I had gotten used to them flying by and slept right through it most nights.  The only nights I was awakened was when they’d stop and rev their engine again. 

Our things finally arrived, mom and I got to work placing the furniture and unpacking our things.  I placed my bed right across  from  the balcony doors, so that I could listen to the waves crashing on shore and look out over the beach; I loved my bed, it was a canopy bed with black sheer curtains and black and red sheets. I had a coffin shaped bookcase, full of books and comics and a gothic style makeup table and dressers, from the Victorian era, that mom and I painted black. And a nice comfy armchair that mom had reupholstered in a velvet black fabric with purple stitching.

It didn't take as long as I thought it would to get the rest of my things put away. My poor walk-in closet looked so empty with my lack of a wardrobe; all I owned were a ton of band t-shirts, a few crop tops and tank tops, skinny jeans in almost every color available and plaid shirts in all shades, I had one leather jacket and a ton of converse sneakers and combat boots; doc martens to be exact and a few sundresses that my mom forced me to buy,  that was about it. I helped mom unpack the household items and move furniture around before long everything was away and we were finally all settled into our new home.