Waiting On Forever

Childhood

   

       Mom...what does forever mean?" I remember asking my mom.  I remember sitting on her lap in the rocking chair, the book "Cinderella" in her lap.

"Oh, it means exactly what it sounds like-for the rest of your life and maybe longer than that." she replies.

      I remember smiling, my heart fluttering as I looked at the pictures over and over again of Cinderella dancing with her prince charming.  I felt happy...but sad at the same time.  I wanted a prince charming...I want to be loved in the same way that she was.

Of course, you have your parents.  You have grandmas, aunts, uncles, grandpas, and siblings (yeah, right) and you can call it love.  But I am not talking about that kind of love.

    I am talking about true love.  The kind you see in a man's eyes when he looks at her.  The kind that you would see in Disney Movies.  The kind every girl and woman, dead of alive (yes, including the dead!), wish for.  I would wish that just as much, if not more, as any other girl would.

    But this story is not a typical love story of a damsel in distress and a strong prince.  I am not Bella Swan, nor do I want to be her.  And (ew) I do not want to be with Edward Cullen.  I can't even stand Sleeping Beauty's husband who she met in the woods one day and decided to marry him.  Believe me, that was a horror movie waiting to happen.

This story is about how after my freshman year of high-school, I went from a wallflower to a wallflower with another wallflower by her side.  This story is about how I found August, the not-so-shiny knight who had his own battles to fight other than mine.  And as much as I wish something else for him, he was a wallflower just like me. 

I am Juniper...Juniper Jones.  If I can count money for the amount of times someone accidentally called me "Junie B. Jones" for a fun joke, I would be a billionaire.  And I absolutely hate my name! Why couldn't I be named Rose or Angelina or even Sally? Juniper literally sounds like Jupider spelled by a drunk man.  And who wants to be a planet? Nobody, that's who.

     I am 17 years old, underweight, and apparently I couldn't take care of my hair so I cut it really short...and I guess all I can say about my personal life is that my mom is a pottery teacher and my dad is a math teacher.  Originally, my mom wanted to be a famous artist and my dad wanted to be a politician...but I guess they just decided to have sex and have a baby.

     I still wonder if my dad was drunk when he named me.  Maybe he just got done watching a documentary about space and was thinking of Jupider when my mom was lying there, practically dying from post-birth as she held me.

     I really don't mind my name as much as I used to...at least that is the only thing people remember me by.  Otherwise, I am usually ignored unless I am playing music on stage.  Otherwise, most people usually just don't talk to me.  Maybe I hunch a lot...does that repel people? Maybe that is why articles say that posture is everything.

    I don't have real friends.  The only friends I have are imaginary and talk way more than I ever could.  One of them is named Gunther and he is basically this stick-figure with a bow-tie.  Sometimes his face changes colors.  Sometimes his eyes have stripes in them.
    Another one of my imaginary friends is a rabbit with 3 hoop earrings in each year.  He always looks drunk and scruffy, carrying a beer with him everywhere.
    But two of my least favorite imaginary friends are the brain and the heart.  The brain is a perfect, curvy model woman with curly hair and cat eyes that can make you freeze in your tracks.  Starting at just above her eyebrows, her head is cut off and what shows is a glowing green brain complete with rings revolving around it like a halo.  She fights with my heart, who is my 7 year old self falling in love with more that 10 things at the same time...they both give me headaches like heck.

They were all I had...until I met August Davis and the people who came with him.  And this story is about him.