Route 28

1

Homecoming.

That one word is the most dreaded word to my ears. For the past three years of high school my mother has been countlessly pushing me to get a boyfriend. She has explained numerous times to me how love is more important than an education. She is the only mother in the world who thinks like that.

Mother was the cheerleading captain in her high school and married the man she has been dating since she was 16, and they are still very in love now. My mother didn't go to college and my father continued the rest of his life as a football player. He is now 36 and retired, and my mother still does nothing, but stays at home and drinks wine with her high school friends. Her friends brag about how popular and beautiful their daughters are, and my mother always makes up stories about how I am just as perfect. It's irritating. A mother should be proud of who her daughter is, but mine isn't. We have the same fight every morning, and it always ends the same way where I promise I'll talk to more guys and I am the first student walking into AP Literature, and sit alone banging my head against the desk.

"Mom," I would groan, "I am trying to focus more on getting good grades, so I can get into the colleges I want to get into, not boys!"

"You know, when I was in high school, many boys would line up to date me. I didn't worry about college and look at me now," my mother would force a smile, "You should try to be more confident, Autumn."

"Who names their kid Autumn?" I would grumble asking the same question everyday.

"For the last time, it is a beautiful name," my mother would scold, "It's football and cheerleading season; the season your father and I fell in love."

"Disgusting," I would grab the toast from the toaster and open the door to walk to my car.

"Why can't you be like Halsey, Daisy and Iris's daughters," my mother would be close to tears, "They've had homecoming dates and are dating and partying."

"I bet they do drugs and have sex too," I would roll my eyes and walk away from my mother.

"When is homecoming again?" my mother would sigh.

"October 17th, I've told you a thousand times," I would yell at this point.

"Don't yell at me!" my mother would scream back.

"You are ridiculous!" I would throw my hands in the air, "Why can't you be a normal mother and encourage me to focus on grades and school?"

"I bet you haven't even kissed a boy," my mother yelled, "You've never been on dates or even been asked out. Why can't you be a normal daughter?"

"I hate you!"

"That is it, young lady," my mother would wave her finger at me, "Either you get a homecoming date this year or I take away your car," she says the same threat every morning.

"Not Steve!" I would protest, but my mother would slam the door.

The warning bell rang and the classroom began to fill up with the 28 students. Homecoming was in a month, and I really did not want to go. I went freshman and sophomore year, and lied to my mother telling her I went junior year, but went to a movie, instead. I was going to lie again this year, but my mother expects to see a boy dressed in a tux on our doorsteps, October 17th.

One of my classmates, Raji, with flowers and a sign that said "Aria, will you go to homecoming with me?" walked into the classroom. Aria over dramatically gasped and acted like the boy asked for her hand in marriage. Then they took about a hundred pictures, hugged, and Aria took the flowers and the poster, and that's it. They didn't speak after that. What was the point of an overboard proposal?