College, Girl ? COMPLETE

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Postcard

It was after midnight, when Andrea made her way up the stairs to the apartment she shared with her mother. She could smell the stale beer smell from the tavern below their apartment. The drab peeling pale yellow wallpaper reflected her mood. She unlocked the door and called out, "Mom?" and of course there was no answer. Since Andrea was working two jobs leaving by seven and not returning until after midnight she rarely saw her mother. This arrangement worked out nicely for both of them.

She put down the plastic garment bag holding her suit. The suit she wore for day job, her public relations internship at a firm downtown. Her mother was nice enough to leave an ashtray full of cigarettes and a half empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table. Each cigarette was marked with her bright red lipstick. 

Andrea had a flashback to a time when she was playing with her mother's lipstick. She must have been about five or six and she had smeared lipstick all over her lips in an attempt to replicate her mother's red lips. When her mother found her under the kitchen table, she yanked her out by her arm and slapped her so hard she fell against the door frame. She had two large bruises one on her arm the other on the side of her face. She was so drunk, the next day she yelled at Andrea wanting know how she hurt herself again. Andrea lied and told her she tripped and hit the door frame. It was childhood memories like these that lurked in each corner of the apartment that made it so easy for her spend less and less time at home.

She grabbed a pile of mail that had accumulated on the television and walked into the kitchen. She noticed that most of the bills were in yellow envelopes. She would have to go through the mail to make sure that they would have hot water and a phone for the rest of the summer. Andrea really wanted to buy a cell phone, but she couldn't afford it. She needed to make sure that her mom's phone stayed on, so by the off chance Nick called. Her feet ached and she smelled like greasy food. All she wanted was a cup of warm milk and a turkey sandwich. 

Everyday felt like a marathon for her. She was just happy to make it to the finish line. Nick has been gone six weeks, but it felt like six years. Her heart didn't just ache, every time she thought of him she felt like she had been cut in two. He had her other half with him half away around the world. Her busy days kept her mind off of him. When she felt that longing in her heart, that bittersweet pain, she would then remind herself that she'd see him at the end of the summer. They were to meet in Paris before her semester started. Nick was spending a year backpacking around Europe before he started graduate school. He wanted her to come with him to take her senior year off and travel with him. It caused a huge fight between them. 

She was starting a semester long internship at Microsoft. Andrea was one of twenty students hand-picked and there was no way she could have turned it down. Before he left they spent two weeks at his family's summer home in Wisconsin. It was the best two weeks of her life. It was just the two of them. Those memories the days spent on the beach and the night's skinny dipping in his lake were the only things keeping her going. When she got home from work that was the time she missed him the most and it made it hard for her to fall asleep. She had her nightly ritual first she'd take a hot shower to wash the food smell off of her, then she'd heat up some milk and then drink it while looking at photos of Nick. Some nights she'd write a letter to him, but she held onto them because she had nowhere to mail them. He was traveling from one youth hostel to the next.

As she drank her milk she started going through the mail. Her heart leaped out of her chest when she saw a picture of the London Bridge on the front. That card when she held it in her hands was the best gift she could have received at that particular moment. It was like all the hard work and long days were somehow worth it because Nick was on the other side of the world thinking about her. She held it to her chest and smiled before she read it. She wanted to savor every moment before reading it. She was so greedy for him any part of him, even a silly post card.