A Summer at Brocks Creek (Harry Styles)

Chapter 1: Groans and Moans

With a mouthful of cereal I wined about having to pick up my brother Derek and Harry from the airport, "Mom, I can't pick them up. I promised Alicia and everyone that I'd pick them up and we would go to the beach. I can't. You can't let me have one last day with my friends!" 

Tomorrow, my mother and my stepfather Brian would be whisking me away for the entire summer to the bowls of hell. School had only been out three days. I wanted to spend my last day of freedom with my friends and get some taste of  summer. I promised my three best friends we would spend my last day here before I left at the beach. My best friend Alicia was bringing her boyfriend and his friend Ashton. I had only loved and crushed on Ashton since sixth grade. He had transferred to a private school the summer after freshman year and only came back to Newport during the summer. Alicia said she could probably hook us up this summer. I had only prayed and dreamed of that moment for the past four years of my life. 

My mother had decided to take my whole summer from me and she couldn't even just give me this one day. She snapped back, "You are picking up Derek and Harry from the airport in two hours. You are not going to the beach today. You've barely even started packing. We leave tomorrow!"

I slammed my cereal bowl into the sink and sprinted to my room. On my way I screamed, "I hate you. You're ruining my life!" 

I hated her for what she was doing to me. She didn't have any clue what I had been put through these past three years. I still hadn't gotten over my mother and father's messy divorce from three years ago. I still hadn't gotten over my dad leaving for Florida. I had only seen seen my father a handful of times since then.

The divorce had shattered the family. Derek had took my mother's side, I had taken my mother's side. My parents had never gotten along and I can't remember a time when they weren't fighting. I feel they only tried to make it work all those years for mine and Derek's sake. My father was always a great dad to me and Derek through it all. Through the divorce, my father decided to move to Florida and wanted to take me and Derek with him. But my mother won sole custody of us. 

I was at angry at her for not letting me move to Florida. I was angry because I constantly missed my dad. Just two years after the divorce, my mother married Brian and we all moved in together. Brian could be the nicest guy in the world, I still wouldn't like him. I didn't want anyone to think they could take the role of my father. I had dealt with living with him and his preteen daughters for the past year. His son Josh was away at college, thankfully and so was my brother. I despised the whole household. Even though my parents bickered often, I still missed just the four of us. The only things I was looking forward to was this summer to spend with my friends and have fun. But that was being taken away too.

I hadn't seen my brother Derek and Harry since last November. My brother Derek and I used to be best friends which was very ironic. But through the divorce, we took sides and became very distant. On holidays, I visit my father and Derek visits my mother. Since Derek started college nobody would have known he even knew I existed. In the past two years, I've only seen my brother twice or three times at the most. Another reason why I didn't want to spend the summer at Brocks Creek.

The last time I saw Derek and Harry was at Harry's mothers funeral. Diana, Harry's mother, had been battling with breast cancer for the third time. She had been in remission for years and it was a shock to all of us the third time around. My mother and Diana met in college and became practically sisters. They both got pregnant at the same time with Derek and Harry. They bought houses across the street from the other. They had always remained so close. It hit us all when she died. 

Harry's father was a cold and distant man. All he cared was about work, the opposite of Diana. Diana and Harry and my family would all spend the summer together. Harry's father never spent the summer with us. We would all rent a summer house by the beach. I think during those summers it was the only time my father and mother liked each other. We had carried out the tradition of spending the summers together since Harry and Derek were toddlers. 

Everything started to crumple when my parents got divorced. We spent the next summer at the beach house without my dad. It wasn't the same. The next summer I was fed up with my mother and took off to Florida and spent the whole summer with my dad. They spent the summer at the beach house without me. Also that summer my mother got married to Brian and later in the summer Diana was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We had all been through a lot. This summer my mother was trying to make everything seem like it was back to normal. It would never be the same again. My dad and Diana were gone, Derek and I were strangers. We weren't going to be at the beach house. We were all going to Brian's huge lake house which should be considered a mansion. Nothing was right anymore. Brian and his family weren't part of the tradition and neither was his lake house. 

I didn't want to go this summer, but I was being forced to. I had relied on my friends so much these past couple of years to help get through it all. I would have much rather spent my summer with them then with my "new family". I just knew this summer was going to be filled with pain and I didn't know if I was ready to deal with it all yet. 

My mind was going in a million different directions as I drove to the airport to pick up Derek and Harry. I just felt so hurt and enraged about the whole situation.