You're Not Just A Teenage Dream | C.H.

"No more thinking about that. No more thinking about him."

"Dammit, why was I cursed with an astigmatism?" Dakota muttered to herself as she perused the walls of frames at the eye doctor. "Another year of no contacts."

—-

An hour later, she left the doctor's office with the invoice for her two new pairs of glasses. As she got into her car, she looked over it one more time. They should done a week and a half before she has to leave to Australia. That was cutting it a little close for her taste, but it was her own fault for waiting so long to get them ordered. Between packing her things for three months at the University of Sydney and dreading saying goodbye to her family, friends, and country, she had almost forgotten to get her new glasses. Her current prescription was roughly two and a half years old, and she shuddered thinking about what her life had been like two years ago.

"No more thinking about that. No more thinking about him. I'm going to the other side of the world to get away from all of this. He won't be there. All this crap won't matter over there," she told herself to stave off the anxiety attack she could feel building in her chest.

Calming herself down enough to drive back to her apartment, she got on the road. Keeping her eyes straight forward, she kept thinking about Australia. Even though it was a typical, cold Colorado November, it would be summer by the time she was in Sydney. She couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact that she needed to pack her tank tops, shorts, and dresses for December. Even as she was thinking about beaches and sunshine, tiny snowflakes started landing on her windshield. That snapped her back into reality as she pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex.

Not seeing her roommates' cars, she headed up the stairs to their second floor apartment. As she was trying to get her keys in the door, she felt her phone vibrate.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me...just hold on, let me get inside..."

 It turned out just to be a text from her friend asking what time she could come over later that night. Dakota thought about it for second then replied.

Me: Well, are you coming before or after dinner? Haha 

It was already 3:00 pm, which meant that regardless of the answer, she only had a couple of hours to get her apartment into a semi-presentable state and still have time to shower and get ready, which would be a miracle, considering her other two roommates were guys who never actually cleaned up their messes.

Just as she was throwing her hair up into a bun to get ready to clean, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket again.

Sue!: Umm...after I suppose. So like 8ish? 

She breathed a sigh of relief and replied.

Me: Works for me, see you then!

"Well, I should still clean up before I sit down and don't want to get back up..." Dakota said to herself. She threw all of the boys' stuff into their respective rooms, her stuff into her room, and gave the living room a quick vacuum. Next up, the dishes. She got a load into the dishwasher and did another load by hand. By the time the dishwasher was done, it was already 5:30.

She looked at her work, and then at the bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey sitting on the counter. She figured that there was nothing wrong with one drink to help her relax before showering. With a nice little buzz going from her stronger-than-necessary drink, she grabbed her phone and headed into the bathroom for a shower.

Putting on her "Showertime!" playlist, she got the water running at the perfect temperature and undressed. As she stepped in and started wetting her hair, her phone started ringing. Seriously, she thought, I JUST got in the shower. Carefully, she stepped back out and dried her hands and face and looked at the screen.

"Sue, this better be important! I'm about to get in the shower!"

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry! Well...I was just wondering..."

"WHAT?"

"Could I come over right now? My dinner plans fell through." Did she not just hear me say that I'm about to get into the shower?

Dakota sighed heavily. "Sure, yeah, whatever. Just come in when you get here, I'll leave the door unlocked." They said a hurried goodbye, and Dakota wrapped a towel around herself to go unlock the door.

"There better not be any more interruptions, or I'll be pissed."