Dancing on the Moon {h.s.}

1. Jayden Carter Morris

"There's leftover soup in the fridge with the takeout your dad had yesterday. Make sure you eat the broccoli in the chow mein, Jayden," I hear my mom frustratedly ramble as she maneuvers her way through the messy kitchen, looking for her lunch. I sigh and she stops in her tracks to give me that look. Rolling my eyes and straightening my posture, I mumble a quiet okay. She gives me this sarcastic pleading look that I want to slap right off of her pretty face. "Please bear with me, won't you?"

"Mom, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. It's past twelve. You're going to be late," I snap back. She stops. Again. Here it goes.

"Jay, I am perfectly capable of reading the time myself. It's past the days you got to boss me around. You're late."

There it goes. It's always the childish way of dealing with everything, rather than a simple, "Shut up, Jayden. I know better than you and that's it. Case closed." With attitude, she grabs her keys from the holder and slips into her uncomfortably tight stilettos. I would see why she'd give a side-eye to our neighbor or her colleagues, or hold her chin up as she walks past my aunt. But I'm her daughter and she can't seem to wrap her head around that. Snatching her navy blue cardigan with hesitation, she opens the door. It's August. It's California.    

"The conference won't last longer than a couple hours. I should be home before six. Don't die," she says one more time before planting a quick kiss to my hair and closing the door behind her. I wince.

I let out a sigh and begin making my way to my room. I step into the white space, seeing it at its brightest. I reach down and pull out my secret stash of paintings and excerpts I've collected over the years. Some I even wrote myself. I run my fingers over the dried paint, appreciating its rough texture against my fingertips. They're all of different things: the European Renaissance era, some from Hudson River School, and two from John Berger and his interest in women. The rest of them are in a doodle-decorated portfolio, which are all my own paintings.

The excerpts start from classics, to random treaties I managed to get a copy of, Bible passages, and various other ones that I got my hands on. I had folded some of my posters in the little booklets, a few being Fleetwood Mac and one I got signed at a The Grateful Dead concert. Of course, my parents never found out that I snuck into a concert on a Monday evening, dancing among thousands of high adults. I was quietly dropped off by this girl's family whom I had met the same night at the back of the venue.

I pull out my journal and stash the rest of the books and papers back under the bed and get up, walking to the veneer desk. I flip to the last page I had written in and pick up a pen. I unlock my phone, past the screensaver of a sunset in Oceanside, past the menu, into the music app and pressed shuffle. Of course. Jon Foreman. I sigh and begin writing.

When I bring my head back up again to check the time, I realize that an hour had passed. So I go to my wardrobe and throw on a pair of shorts with a long sleeved shirt, rolling up the sleeves to my elbows. I walk into the bathroom and quickly braid my dark hair, grab my phone, slip into my converse, snatch my keys and I'm on my way out. I lock the door behind me and stroll my way down to the coffee shop a few blocks away. My best friend, Boston, works there as a barista. Even though her parents are crazy rich, they still insist she steps down and makes her own money. Considering the fact that she's going to UCSD, she's going to have to work her butt off in that coffee shop to pay off her student loans.

I live in Carlsbad. It's a fairly large town with the beach always within reach, regardless of your location. It's a sunny place. There always seems to be a warm hue surrounding me with these sunsets that everybody is guilty of taking photos of. Even myself. The only difference between me and them is that they share it with their friends and I share it with my canvases. They seem to like it. I think everyone loves it when you paint their colorless lives into something so much of a façade but enjoyable enough that the whole pretense just comes off absurd. That you're so in the moment that you often times forget that that's not even you.