Half A Day Away

Chapter 2 ▪ Western Beginnings

Summer was late. It had been forced to wait as the Western North Carolina Mountains endured more than their usual share of winter weather. Weather that was at times laced with double-digit inch snow accumulation - during January and February - but also cold snaps that endured all the way into May. But at last, with a very compressed Spring, Summer had kicked into high gear. Temperatures and humidity soared. Now it would boil down to only a few frenetic weeks before Summer Vacation was over, and a new school year was ushered in. To most of the kids, it seemed as if it started earlier every year.

Having lived in the Asheville, North Carolina area all of her short life, Emily was used to the drill. She viewed the seasons as a reminder of the beauty, but unpredictability of life.

Emily was perhaps a typical American teenager. But then again - in some ways - perhaps not. She was the highly-doted-on only child of a hospital administrator [her father Noel] and stay-at-home Mom [Angela] who met in high school, fell in love, and never parted. She drove a 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier [with manual transmission ~ she liked the idea of being in control of the gear shifter], which she washed and pampered regularly. A car which, by the way, Emily paid for herself, having saved as much of her earnings over the past three years from her job of serving customers at the Dairy Hut. Who cares if the car is over ten years old and has 113,000 miles on its odometer? It was hers. She even paid regularly for gas from her bank account.

At seventeen, she would enter her senior year of high school in the Fall. She attended a local Church of God where she worshiped with her family, attended youth group, and worked in the nursery with the babies and toddlers. She hoped to attend a nearby university and major in sports medicine. After all, Emily excelled in basketball, volleyball, and track and field. Well, "excelled" might be a stretch, since she was not the prototypical physically gifted athlete. But Emily overcame this by sheer hard work and determination. She would not be denied.

As to the opposite sex, Emily had experienced her share of crushes, minor affections, short-term relationships, and the like... But she was currently single in every sense of the word. Her friends spent no little time picking out future boyfriends, but Emily rebuffed all of these efforts. Emily had been "that short girl" through much of her adolescence, only to grow four inches after her sixteenth birthday. Now she surpassed most of her peers at five feet, seven inches tall. She was, in her own opinion, a little "pudgy around the middle," but was nevertheless highly sought after by several high school would-be Romeos. Her hair, silky smooth and auburn brown, was typically worn in a ponytail.

Interestingly, Emily had not paid much attention to the weather this past winter. After enduring her share of chores ["wait a minute ~ since I am an only child ~ who is there to share them with?!?"], and dutifully completing her homework assignments, Emily retreated into her inner sanctum and grabbed her tablet or smartphone [usually the tablet] and was soon transported...