A Loving Tragedy

The Boy with the Brown and Honey Colored Eyes

I didn't expect anything exciting to happen that summer. It was the summer going into my senior year, and I knew that eventually I would have to start focusing on college applications. Also, that was the summer of our big move. By the end of summer, we would be finished with the remodel of our new home and probably start moving some of the smaller boxes into the house. It was exciting and nerve wrecking all at the same time because I was leaving my childhood home for a new one, but at the same time we were moving to one of the nicest cities in the area.

We needed this move. Strongsville was no longer safe to live in, and we needed to downsize since all my siblings moved out. Our new house was nice and it had good bones, but it needed a lot of cosmetic work because it had ugly wallpaper and carpeting. It was a fun little summer project, and honestly, I thought it was going to be the end of my excitement for the summer.

But meeting the cute guy at the rec center changed everything.

The week after getting my rec membership, I started going every other day to work out while my mom swam in the pool. Every time I went there, I would see him running around, too busy to talk. But every once and a while, he would smile at me or just quickly say hi. Nothing too major to make me have hope of anything happen between us, but enough to give me something to smile about later on in the day.

In the meantime, I was in the process of practicing driving for my driver's test. I wasn't supposed to be driving because my parents didn't let my older siblings drive until they were 18. But since I am the baby, the rules bent slightly for me. I'm 17, and could have had my license for a year now, but I got my temps two weeks before my 16th birthday. And because I am lazy, I waited a year before taking driving school classes. However, time was running out because my temps were going to expire in a week and I still haven't mastered parallel parking.

Luckily, behind the high school in the new town we moved to, there were painted marks on the ground and poles hidden in the bushes for drivers to use to practice parallel parking. So one day I had my dad take me to go practice. It was stressful because my dad kept getting frustrated as I would graze the edge of the car with one of the poles while backing up.

"Jade, you need to focus! You are turning the wheel too soon which is why you keep hitting the left pole!"

"Dad! You can't yell at me you're stressing me out and I can't think about what I need to do!" I replied as my hands began to sweat because of how nervous and frustrated I was.

This banter continued for the next 20 minutes as my dad made me practice again and again until I was able to pull forward and back up three times in a row without hitting anything. When he finally decided that my park job was as good as it was going to get, he said he wanted to go to the hardware store and then we can head to the new house. So I drove us to the store and waited in the car as he ran in to find the parts he needed. As I was sitting there, I was looking around the plaza which consisted of a hair place, an ice cream store, and a Subway.

Just as I was returning my attention to the hardware store my dad was in, I noticed a little silver Audi pulling past my car and parking towards Subway. My heart literally stopped beating as the cute guy from the rec got out of his car and walked into Subway. I couldn't breathe as my excitement rose. I thought to myself "If I go into Subway and order something, maybe I can talk to him!" I reached in my purse and grabbed my phone to call my dad and tell him I was going to get Subway, but he told me to wait because he would be out in a few minutes. I didn't have a few minutes though! Cute guy was there now and he probably wouldn't be there by the time my dad finished messing around in the store!