Not Your Average Nerd

Chapter Three

3

I always hated planes, no matter the size, shape, or the flyer. If it had two wings, a long body, and left the ground with me strapped in, I wasn’t a fan. I was still bummed at the fact that I had really no say in my trip to Oregon because, well, I didn’t even want to go. My parents surprised me by purchasing and mailing my tickets to me. It really was a sweet thing of them to do, but why couldn’t they have been to anywhere else in the world? Why couldn’t they have decided to have some sort of family get-together somewhere pleasant like Florida, California, New York, or even Canada? I wouldn’t have minded going to Canada. I’ve always wanted authentic Canadian maple syrup. But no, I was stuck going back to Oregon. Ew.

It was like my body knew where it was because the minute I stepped out of the plane in Portland and looked around. My stomach felt like it was trying to crawl up my esophagus. I hoped that my family wouldn’t have to see the breakfast tacos that I ate earlier. That would have been a great way to say ‘howdy family, I sure have missed y’all!’ Puking on their carpet after spending six years away; what a lovely gesture, right?

My father was the one to greet me. Nothing about him seemed to change except for the hints of white hairs scattered among the brown. We shared the same hair color. I didn’t realize exactly how much I missed my family until I found myself literally running into my father’s arms. My bags? I didn’t even know where I tossed them. The only thing that mattered was that I had to get my hug as quick as possible because I missed that man terribly. He still smelled of men’s cologne with the faint hint of cabbage.

“It’s been too long.” He said, sitting down in the car and buckling up. All of my stuff (which consisted of my carry on backpack and my medium sized luggage case) was loaded into the trunk of my father’s silver Sonata. The last time I rode in my father’s car he was driving some sort of navy blue station wagon that had a stick shift. I guessed this was his midlife crisis car.

“Yeah, I agree. The last time I saw you, you were Alin Stoica. No one told me John Stamos was coming to pick me up.” I cracked the window a little bit just to get a whiff of the air. Even though I loathed this place with every inch of my body I had to admit, the air was so much nicer. Don’t get me wrong, I was a fan of the San Antonio air that smelled like Mexican food and river water but it wasn’t the same as Oregon air. The smell of the rich earth filled my nose and gave me some sort of mild earthy high that I didn’t think was possible.

“I see your humor is still the same.”

“What humor?”

“Like I said. Exactly the same.”

The trip to Astoria wasn’t nearly as long as I thought it was going to be. In my head I imagined the drive being awkward; sitting there with one headphone in my ear, shuffling through songs that I wasn’t even going to play while my father attempts to strike up a conversation about things that should be left alone. Thank god that it was nothing like that. The whole time my father and I did talk, but it wasn’t nearly as weird as I imagined it to be. He asked me about my apartment, my crappy job, the people I’ve met, the guys I never had the guts to talk to, school, and other things like that. Not once did he bring anything up that had to do with high school or any of those other awkward moments up.

“Did you get new glasses?” He asked, meeting me at the trunk of the car. We finally made it back to the house I grew up in. Like my father, nothing about it had really changed. The only thing that I could really see different was the new paint job, but it wasn’t anything special. It had been white before, but a dirty off-white color. With a new thing of paint the house actually looked white like how we bought it.

“Yeah,” I replied quickly while sticking my arms through the straps of my backpack. “The doctor said the other lenses were too weak.” I still didn’t understand why my optometrist had to change the frames, though. I liked my grey frames with the swirly designs on the side. The new frames reminded me of some sort of ash colored rip-off Buddy Holly glasses, just not nearly as big. It was like my doctor was trying to keep me looking like a dork.