Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
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1
Clementine looked around the tarmac, scanning the area with her eyes for a suitcase that would slightly resemble hers. All the bags were black, and hers was no exception other than for the golden ribbon tied around the handle.
Though it was actually Louis Vuitton, Clementine hated to stand out like that in public and made sure that it was a simple black. She was especially careful not to stand out in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The same country her family practically helped run due to her father's businesses. Even though she was American, she grew up in and spent a large chunk of her childhood and adolescence in Rio.
Now, after having lived alone in New York City in what was supposed to be her great escape to finish a fancy university, she was kicked out on probation due to some mishaps she had gotten herself into.
But, more on that later.
She adjusted the shoulder strap of her handbag, and moved slowly across the airport floor so as to keep her composure among the chaos that ensued around her.
She attempted to play several versions of what she was about to go into, in her mind on the plane. But it seemed that the longer she tried to figure it out the more complicated it all seemed. And the worse the idea of it all became in her head.
She felt as if her life was taking form around her at an incessantly fast speed, and she was helplessly looking around trying to understand the colours that surrounded her only for them to change as soon as she thought she had it all formed in her mind.
Finally, she managed to find her own bag. She stood behind the shoulders of a few men, one of whom offered his hand when he saw that she was trying to pull out her bag. She was used to this. In fact, it was something she was still trying to navigate, among many other things.
The plane ride on the uneven skies was made easier with a miniature wine bottle, red. She was looking for ways to make it better, but she was not sure how to bridge the paths between what she was leaving behind and what she was going forward to meet. The two were too disjointed and too unstable to ever meet in the middle.
She tried imagining how she would face her father, what she would tell him after all the money spent on her education, apartment, etc. All only for it to go up in flames, as it did when she felt she no longer held any control over her life. That life was something meant for others to understand and for her to move through, attempting to set out fires as new ones began.
But, she moved forward nevertheless. Even if momentarily she wasn't sure where this forward would bring her.
Clementine found a car to take her home easily enough. The long line of black vehicles already waiting outside the airport were picking up passengers one by one as if in a puzzle, piece-by-piece.
She put in her headphones and clicked shuffle on her iPhone. Even her music seemed to be too disjointed, each song a different genre than the one before. She wished she could shake this feeling of discomfort. She wished she could find one, coherent playlist that she could listen to for the rest of her life. But, of course, real life was far from that.
It seemed that as closer as she got to the house, the more her heartbeat wouldn't allow her to breathe.
But as the car finally pulled into the driveway, Clementine breathed to herself, here we go...
Maybe she needed a cigarette. No, that would make everything look even worse. And didn't she come here to partially detox all the negative habits out of her life? She knew she would have to navigate these waters first before anything even remotely to that would be able to happen. That's okay, she was ready...
Tipping a little extra to the driver, hoping it would make her feel better (it didn't), she walked up to the front door of the house that was somehow both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Taking a deep breath in, she turned the door handle open.
Dropping her bag onto the marble floor, she looked around and noticed that everything looked slightly different from the last time she was here, last summer. Now, it was the winter break even though Brazil was still hot in this time of year, in any time of year.
Now, all that was left to do was go to sleep. She hasn't been sleeping very well in the past few months leading up to coming home, much less in the days.
Now this intense weather/landscape/time change was not doing her much good at all anymore.
"Clementine," she knew this voice, it was her dad. He came down the stairs and took one good look at her, almost as if seeing something that wasn't quite his own, but the expression passed on his face only momentarily until he came up and hugged her.
Clementine tried not to cry there and then, like that. She hugged her father back, though she knew that this was not going to go very well or easy at all.
"Where's mom?" Clementine's voice caught in her breath. She really wanted the comfort of her mother's arms this time.
Her father stepped back and his brow furrowed as she heard her name once again, only this time in her mother's voice and a little bit more frantic.
"Clementine!" Her mother appeared at the top of the stairs, looking as elegant as always but tired, "oh baby."
Clementine hugged her mother and felt a momentary relief only to find that it almost made the pain worse.
Clementine looked between her mother and father, though she did not know what to say.
She did her best to hole up the tears the were welling up behind her eyes and to disregard the lump in her throat.
"I'm...I'm sorry," Clementine just blinked, she was holding it together so well until she realized how much she was holding it in, finally feeling safe in her mother's arms.
Clementine stepped back and met her father's eyes. She could tell that she was going to get what was coming for her, but even her father was doing his best to hold back his anger. He opened his arms to Clementine. They hugged swiftly and then helped her bring the luggage into her room.
Before stepping out, her father paused at the door, and looking back he said quietly,
"Rest, we'll talk tomorrow."
Then Clementine found herself alone, again. Sitting on her bed in the dim twilight, the jet lag hit her and she resisted long enough to take a shower before falling into a deep sleep for what felt like the first time in a long time.
