The List: One Year, One Adventure ✔️

Chapter 1: One Year, One Adventure

Ari

I looked out the bedroom window of my second story apartment, at the commotion happening down in the courtyard by the pool. Families had pulled their BBQ units to the front of their doors, while children ran around across the gated lawn area, on grass which had been partially burnt by the recent temperatures of this summer's harsh heat wave. Kids splashed in the clear blue water, throwing big beach balls and hanging onto ridiculous looking swan floaties. The summer in Los Angeles had started off semi-tame, but it had recently hit that ever famous California unforgiving summer harsh. The air was extremely thick today, but occasionally cruel Mother Nature decided to grace this forsakenly hot city with a sweet breath of air.

I desperately wanted to be a part of those families, those momentarily happy families sharing a summer bonding moment together. However, the truth was, half the time I couldn't bring myself to even be moderately happy. At this point in my life, I wasn't even sure if I knew what the meaning of that word was.

At about 2pm, I decided that it was about time to battle this wave of crippling depression, the kind which I had sunk into again a few months back, and finally at least shower.

After that glorious half hour with the lukewarm water cascading down around me and the smell of the expensive Ulta coconut shampoo that I actually splurged on for once, I took a long hard look at myself in the mirror, while I wrapped my long brown hair in a towel.

"Just make it through the day, Ari. You can at least do that," I begged myself to listen, while summoning the strength to manage the few feet back to my room.

At almost twenty-six, I never had the traditional life which many people got the pleasure of enjoying, even if that traditional life was somewhat boring. I had never been married, even though I came semi close once and never had children. The truth was that most family-minded men conveniently ran when it was revealed that I couldn't have children of my own; but that's a story for later, isn't it?

I never had a solid career of my own like some people my age, even though my design and painting work won competitions. I also spent a good chunk of my life battling an often-debilitating physical disease that sometimes left many people to wonder if I was indeed faking. Let's face it, if someone couldn't outwardly see that you were sick all the time, then you must just be spinning a story.

Right before my thirteenth birthday, I was diagnosed with leukemia and it about killed my dad when the doctor pulled back that emergency room curtain and asked to speak to him outside. I had been sick for months and doctors had done all kinds of tests for a long time, but no one could ever really tell us what the problem was.

My dad would sit and pace in the waiting room of doctor's offices, almost pulling out his black hair, because his hands could never sit still long enough for him to be comfortable. I watched his job suffer, because of the time he spent shuffling me around to different doctors for treatments and chemo.

"It's all going to be ok, Sugar Plum." Sugar Plum was his go to soothing nickname for me; a constant reminder of that horrible Christmas ballet I was forced in to when I was six.

His rugged good looks, slowly started to show the signs of stress and age. Lines appeared where they had never been and his hair as black as that horse, Black Beauty, which I read about when I was seven, began to show signs of silver. The final blow was when he was demoted from Deputy Chief of Police, a realization that he couldn't do all of it by himself anymore.

When I was seventeen, on that hot August day I'll never forget, I not only got the fantastic news that I was back in remission, but my world crumbled to ashes. It was the day my dad walked into the local Stop-N-Go to grab me my favorite celebration Slurpee. I've never looked at a Fanta orange Slurpee mixed with Hawaiian Punch since that day. It was on the news for weeks, headlines graced every nation paper.