I cut the engine and just sat there, thinking about what this meant, why I felt this way for a girl I didn’t know, that I’d just met. This girl had already gotten under my skin in such a short timeframe.
I climbed out of the car, leaving my books in the backseat. I had to go to work in a couple hours and during my breaks would try to get some assignments done. It was the only time I really had to do homework, that or stay up fucking late to finish them.
I opened the front door, and the smell of disinfectant and artificial lemon slammed into my nose. This was the smell I was always greeted with when I came home.
The house was old, with a retro sixties theme going on. The kitchen flooring was this off-yellow linoleum with little daisies in the center of each faux tile. The counters were Formica, chipped in several places, with gold veining throughout it. The counters might’ve been white at one point, but now they just looked dingy and faded, with a few high traffic areas worn down. Despite the counters being clean, they looked perpetually dirty from age and wear.
The appliances were about twenty-five years outdated, the fridge occasionally making a rattling noise when the compressor kicked on.
And although the house always smelled of disinfectant, its cleanliness was something I made sure of. I needed to make sure everything was clean for my mom; with her compromised immune system from the cancer treatments, I didn’t want to risk her getting sick.
“Mom?” I called out and heard her rustling around in her room. I made my way down the hallway, the carpet not the kind you’d walk on without at least socks on. The brown shag hadn’t been replaced since the house was built, and who the fuck knew what was living in it. No amount of steam cleaning could get something like this fully disinfected.
I found my mom rummaging through her closet. The colorful headscarf she wore was hot pink today. It had little white polka dots on it. Although she was officially done with her treatments and her hair was starting to come back in, she still preferred to wear it for her own comfort.
“What are you doing?”
She started tossing out clothing but looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. I was glad to see each day she was looking and feeling better.
“Oh hey, sweetheart,” she said in a soft voice and went back to doing whatever she was doing in the closet. “I’m getting rid of a bunch of crap I haven’t worn in years. I figure somebody else can get use out of them.”
“Do you think you really need to do that right now?” I knew better than to even ask that question, because she would do whatever she wanted. In the end, she was headstrong, very independent, and did what she wanted to.
She stopped and looked over her shoulder again at me, her lips pursed. She was telling me without actually saying anything that I needed to mind my business.
I held my hands up in surrender and felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it, seeing Harlow’s name pop up from an incoming text. Instantly, my body reacted. My heart started beating a little bit harder and faster, and I felt my palms start to get a sweaty. I was nervous, and all over a text.
I felt my mother staring at me and glanced up at her quickly, seeing in her expression that she knew something was up.
“Making new friends?”
I cleared my throat and shook my head but then nodded and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a girl from school. She was having car trouble today, and I gave her a ride home.” I swore if my mother’s face could’ve lit up any more, the room would’ve been practically glowing.
“A girl?” Her grin was wide. “Is she nice?” She fully faced me and sat on the floor, I guess expecting there to be some long, intricate story regarding Harlow and me.
The truth was, there wasn’t some detailed story about us. Yes, I felt an intense kind of pull toward her, this inexplicable, confusing desire that made no sense because we hardly knew each other, but a story on how it all came to be? I had nothing to tell my mom.
Instead of saying all that, or hell, saying anything, I shrugged. I hadn’t read what Harlow texted me yet, and I didn’t want to while my mother was sitting there looking at me, this little smile on her face as if she thought I just met the woman I’d spend the rest my life with.
“Do you need any help?” I asked, changing the subject.
My mother’s expression told me she wanted to ask more questions, but I got my stubbornness from her, so after a second, she exhaled and looked back at her closet.