The Last Summer

Amanda

I laugh at Ruby who was trying her best to make Juliet give her a piggy-back ride. Cara and Heather are talking and looking at pictures on Heather's phone, most likely looking at picture of the beach house Heather's aunt owned. Lucy, Sarah, and Isabelle are giggling and looking over their shoulders at, what I can only assume were, cute guys. Sofia and Cameron run up to me and threw their arms over my shoulders.

"So are you ready for the summer?" Sofia asks.

"Sofia you've known me since the fourth grade." I tell her as the ten of us stop by the scoreboard on the football field. Having just graduated roughly five seconds ago we were simply waiting for the millions of pictures we'd be forced to take soon. "Since when am I not ready for summer?"

"She's got a point." Ruby says from Juliet's back. "When is this bitch not excited about school ending?"

"Thanks honey." I tell her with the sassiest face I could muster. To be honest I'm sure I looked constipated.

"Anyways," Heather says with that large, ever present smile on her face. "I talked to my aunt and she's totally fine with us staying at her beach house this summer. I'm so excited."

"Try and calm down." Isabelle says as she flips her blonde hair over her shoulder.

I roll my eyes and see my parents and siblings trying to make their way over. I smile when I see my siblings-in-law and my niece and nephew. I have no clue how they managed to keep the two quiet enough to not bug the other people sitting through the long ass ceremony and to be honest I'm not 100% sure they did.

"Alright guys I gotta go." I tell them breaking whatever argument Ruby and Isabelle were about to start. "Family calls and I'll call you guys tomorrow." I turn to run over to them.

"No Safe and Sober Grad Night?" Isabelle calls after me as I begin to head over.

"Isabelle," I sigh. "if we're being honest no one is safe nor sober at the bowling alley. I'd rather have a Mexican after party. And you aren't even going to Safe and Sober."

"Still. It would've been fun." she adds.

With that I turn and run to my family. My sister and brother instantly hug me and my dad took a quick picture. When we let go my mom had began to cry already and my dad rolls his eyes.

"Done with school at last." My brother laughs.

"Sadly no." I tell him with a sigh. "Four more years, but I think I'll survive. It's just college."

"Never dealt with that." My sister laughs.

"Pretty sure the nine months you spent in beauty school count as college." Her husband says, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"It did not. I will fight you on this until the day I die." She responds.

"And most likely after that too." I add.

We laugh and my nephew tugs on my graduation robes. I lean down and see his frown. "What's wrong buddy?" I ask.

"You're leaving this summer." he says as bluntly as he possibly could.

"It's just three months buddy." I tell him with a smile.

"Fine." he pouts. "Just don't get a boyfriend."

He hugs my legs when I stand up and his mom tries to hide her laughter. It wasn't hard to put two and two together and figure out Andy had a crush on me. It was cute before his mom married my brother and he became my nephew. Then it was just strange. I never focused on it too much, graduating high school had been my main priority. Now that it was over and done with a summer away from home before coming back and going to the local community college was definitely in order.

We go back home where my aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins kids, and grandparents had most likely been waiting for a while now. There's a large banner over the kitchen window that said 'Congrats Grad'. The plates and balloons are my schools colors (blue and gold). Instead of typical graduation balloons my younger cousin hands me Disney princess balloons. Music is playing from the TV and the smell of enchiladas filed the house. I serve myself some food and sit down next to Lewis and Abel.

"So how does it feel to finally join the big kids?" Lewis jokes, jabbing me with his elbow.

"Probably the same way you felt when you graduated last year." I tell him with a smile.

"Aw it's adorable how we think we're the special ones." Abel says with a half shrug. "And don't try to deny it we're the odd ones out."

Lewis and I nod with Abel's words. It was about as true as the sky being blue or water being wet. I was the only one in the family who was Asexual (and to be honest my Nana still wasn't convinced that that was a real thing), Abel was Bi (again Nana wasn't convinced about it), and Lewis ADHD caused his siblings and some cousins to avoid him at times. So the three of us banded together and have been extremely close ever since then.

"True." I say. "But that was a sudden topic change."

"You okay?" Lewis asks.

"I guess." Abel shrugs. "I mean don't you think it's unfair that one of our two siblings can do no wrong and the other is just 'misunderstood' and 'needs time'." He uses air quotes and I think about it as Lewis nods.

While it was true that Jake was seen as Mr. Perfect, Tammie wasn't seen as the one who was 'misunderstood' or 'needed time'. If anything she was in the same category as Jake. Which left me as the 'misunderstood' one. But that's not how I was treated. At least I was sure that wasn't how I was treated. I just remember being afraid to disappoint anyone in the family. However once I thought about Lewis' family I knew it was false. Calvin used to be the All-American boy, until his mom found out he was more human than she would've liked to known. Ryan just finished his freshman year and still had no clue who he was. When it came to Abel's family it was similar. Except both Karen and Justin were both pigeon-holed in the same category as Calvin (or maybe it was the other way around).

I just nod and keep my thoughts to myself. I learned quickly in this family that you had to be careful about what thoughts you shared and kept to yourselves.

I quickly get my phone out of my pocket and send a message to Cara. She was, evidently, still calming down from her speech. I figuren I'd talk to her tomorrow for lunch with the rest of The Group.