I woke up the next morning with a pounding in my head from the amount of alcohol I consumed last night. I quickly processed last night’s events and remembering the events that happened when I left the club I opened one of my eyes and saw Abby sleeping peacefully, I took a peak at myself underneath the duvet and confirmed that we really did sleep together. I sat there reminiscing about last night not regretting a thing that happened when I heard a loud groan come from beside me. I look over at Abby and she’s turning over to face me while shielding her eyes.
“Good morning,” I said to her as I turned to face her better.
“Morning,” she whispered in her morning voice, which sounded very similar to the voice of a three year old.
“Does your head hurt?” I said as I pulled her into me and she nodded her head against my chest. We sat there for a few minutes when I pulled away and stood up. Slipping on my briefs I walked to her bedroom door.
“Where are you going?” She asked from her spot on the bed.
“Going to get some Advil from the kitchen,” I said not looking back at her as I continued on my journey to the kitchen. It took me a while to find the Advil but when I did I grabbed it along with a bottle of water then walked back into her room where I saw her pulling on a pair of jeans and jumping around her room.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked her and she whipped around to face me in just her jeans and a bra.
“Putting my jeans on, they’re a little tight,” she said with a sheepish smile on her face. When she continued to squeeze into her jeans I noticed the rather large tattoo on her side.
“Nice tattoo,” I said to her as I approached her to get a better look at it. It was a feather that was twisting and as it got to the top it turned into birds flying off and in cursive along the side it said ‘Be Free & Live Free’. I dragged my finger across it mesmerized by the detail.
“Thanks! I got it when I moved here,” She exclaimed as she walked back into her closet and came out two seconds later with a shirt in her hand.
“Is it special to you?” I asked her as she slipped her shirt on.
“Very.”
“What does it mean?” I asked her as I sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her down next to me.
“I didn’t like living in America, it didn’t feel like home it felt like a prison to me. At first I thought it was my hometown of San Diego that felt like prison but once I went to Stanford that felt like prison as well and when I moved in with my grandparents in Cincinnati, Ohio I was at peace but only for a few months. When I moved here I felt free as soon as my feet landed on the ground. The words had always been my motto when I was growing up, be free means don’t let things hold you down and live free means live carelessly,” Abby said while nodding her head.
“Why did it feel like prison?”
“Well my parents were big on succeeding like failure wasn’t an option in my family. I went to the top private school in my area, and I worked my tail off every day to get all A’s and graduate a year early. I got accepted into Pre-Law at Stanford which just made my parents ecstatic, but they never noticed how unhappy I was the entire time. I was living the life they wanted me to live not the one I wanted to live. So when I dropped out of Stanford after attending for three weeks they were beyond pissed and actually disowned me.”
“So that’s why you moved in with your grandparents?” I asked, all of a sudden intrigued by her life story.
“Yep. I told them I wanted to drop out and they packed their bags and drove all the way out there and brought me back to Ohio because they knew my parents would disown me. The best thing about my grandparents is they didn’t care what I did as long as I was happy. They have always been my backbone.”
