The Eighteenth Year

Chapter 1

Saturday, May 30 9:48 a.m.

I hear pounding on my door, it’s goes to one steady beat. It sounds almost like a song, like my alarm… I’m hesitant to leave my warm bed, but the constant calling of my name forced me out of bed.

“Ugh” as I pull my head off my pillow.

“Yawn”as I pull my legs out from my blankets.

“Eek” as my warm toes brush the cold hard wood floors.

“Groan” as I start walking towards my door to see who was waking me up on such a special day.

As I opened the door, I saw the Flash of my mom’s camera. I am too tired to argue about invading my privacy so I just say,

“Good Morning” with a slightly crooked smile on my face.

“Good Morning” the over-enthusiastic voice of my mom replies.

I just reply with another yawn.

She looks into my eyes and frowns. “I’m sorry that I had to wake you up so early, but I wanted to see my birthday girl before I left for work.”

I reply with yet another yawn.

“Come on! Where’s that fiery spirit of yours? You should be excited, it’s your birthday,” she sniffles, “you are now a legal adult!”

I wanted to make her pleased by giving her an excited response like she always does, but all I could think of at the moment was sleeping. I was about to start walking back to bed, but I saw her face and forced an excited phrase out of me.

“Yeah, I know! Crazy! It seems like just yesterday I was blowing out my sixth birthday candle!”

She smiled, “Aw, my baby girl is growing up!”

I just smiled. The perks of being an only child.

“Oh! I almost forgot, Julia called last night asking if you could come over around 5 o’clock. I told her you could, unless you made any other plans?” She was convinced I planned a party for myself.

“No, I’ll go. I’ve got nothing better to do” I replied.

Julia has been my best friend since Kindergarten. I wouldn’t say she knows me better than I know myself. No, that was Derek. I met him in second grade and I felt like I had known him forever. We were inseparable! Derek would most likely be the one waking me up this early on my birthday, if he hadn’t moved to Arizona at the start of high school. It’s okay though; we still keep in touch.

10:06am

Now that I’m awake, I reached for my cell phone. A text from Derek. It read:

“Eighteen years ago, a beautiful baby girl was born with the name of Kaela Noel Alexander. She had long, blonde, curly hair that her very best friend Derek was so jealous of,”

I laughed and kept reading.

“She had beautiful crystal blue eyes worshiped by God himself,”

I laughed again. I miss this sense of humor in my life.

“She was blessed with the ability to swim like a torpedo. I love that about her. I love everything about her.”

I smiled.

“Lord Green, she is the most amazing girlfriend on this planet.”

Lord Green is a leaf that we worshiped in third grade because it was shaped like a donut. An inside joke of ours.

The text finished, “I love you Kaela, Happy Birthday!”

I replied, “Thank you so much, Derek. That was so sweet of you! I hope to see you soon! I love you too!”

With that I clicked my phone off and went downstairs to make breakfast.