Mimeomia

06 | parhelion

CHAPTER SIX

PARHELION

( — a bright spot in the sky appearing on either side of the sun, formed by refraction of sunlight through ice crystals high in the earth's atmosphere. )

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

          MICHAELA HAS A TENDENCY TO DO STUPID STUFF WHEN SHE'S UPSET. It's something she has carried with her since high school and, since we all have baggage, Michaela thinks she has the right to do it as well, dragging it behind her and whining whenever it bursts open at the most inconvenient moments. So, as she makes her way through the crowd towards the bar, she wonders how many martinis she can down in one night without puking all over someone.

          She's not a good drinker. Period. That's why she threw up over the carpet in her previous apartment all those years ago, making everyone think she was pregnant because no one had seen her finish an entire bottle of red wine by herself. She wouldn't consider herself an alcoholic, but she has made mistakes.

          She knows she can do stupid things, but she's not stupid. Ginny, Roya, and Kelsey are here, meaning she'll have something to distract herself with instead of walking back and forth between the bar and a place of interest, especially when Roya is here to blog and has no issue with photographing what she shouldn't.

          Really. They're standing ten feet away from each other and, when Michaela timidly sips her martini, Roya somehow sees her and threateningly rotates her camera's lens before slipping her free arm through Ginny's and disappearing with her. Needless to say, Michaela is feeling a bit lonely tonight and almost wishes she had invited someone to come with her, but that's what you get when your personality finds a way of always isolating you.

          You'd expect Michaela to be friends with the models her mother works with, even if most of them are five, four years younger than her, but she can't help but feel a bit self-conscious when she's around those girls, who have their whole lives planned and she's just . . . there. Yvonne herself blabbers about her models all the time during family dinners, talking about their accomplishments, but, whenever someone asks her about Michaela—who's sitting right there and can speak for herself—she merely says her daughter has been writing a lot.

          Michaela knows her parents aren't exactly proud of her career choices, but this was one of the first decisions she made for herself and not to please them. Naturally, it led to several arguments in their house, back when she still lived with them, as Yvonne wished she had pursued a career in the fashion industry ("with a body like yours, Mich?"), while Ulysses insisted she should have followed his footsteps and gone to law school ("with brains like yours, Mich?").

          She didn't do it out of spite—that's what she wanted to do and couldn't care less whether they agreed with it or not, as she had saved enough money throughout the years to pay for college herself, refusing to live one more year in the shadow of her successful parents. So, she got into Yale and aced it.

          That wasn't nearly good enough for them, as they had never agreed with it in the first place—they were happy she had gotten into Yale, though, but that was about it—which meant going home during the holidays was the worst part of the year, oddly enough. At Yale, she had supportive friends. She had Lincoln.

          It's ironic that her parents have always approved of Lincoln's decisions, up until the break-up. Michaela wonders if they would have done the same if she wasn't a woman or an only child.