“What are you doing?” Mom asks, sitting on the floor, her eyebrows drawn and frown fixed as she looks at me in confusion.
“Dancing for joy,” I lie. “I’m just so excited for the trip,” I add, traipsing into the hall. “And I need a snack.”
I continue my impromptu dance down the stairs, leaving my mom to probably jot a note about my erratic behavior. She doesn’t know I know about her notepad of instances she takes to Dr. Alverez, documenting moments to bring up during the part of appointments I’m not in.
I hate that notebook.
But I do have a tendency to do odd things like this, sometimes. When feelings build and overwhelm me, pushing at my joints until I feel like I’ll fracture from them, I do something explosive with my body. It just feels … good to move. To get it out.
I know my mom thinks it’s bizarre and some sort of defect in my programming, but I’ve given up trying to hide it.
Maybe if I’m fully myself for long enough, she’ll finally give up on me. And I can just be.
Chapter 2
Future? I Hardly Know Her.
TILLY
“While we’re aware you are looking at this trip as a vacation, don’t forget you’re going to help Mona and learn about business. I also encourage you to utilize any free time for educational and enlightening pursuits,” Dad says, carefully changing lanes on the highway as we head to the airport. “Try to learn all you can about the history of the places you visit. Become more cultured.”
History. Right. Because the last twelve years of my public school education didn’t focus enough on Eurocentric history. How tragically I’ve been deprived.
“Write down all your experiences!” Mom says, turning around in her seat to smile at me. “You won’t want to forget a thing.”
I smile. A real, genuine smile. Because that’s the first time in a long time she’s brought up my writing in a positive light. I love to play with words, swirl and shape letters until I’ve translated a feeling into an expression.
I’ve filled hundreds of notebooks with thoughts, getting lost in the creamy lined pages. Much to the dismay of Mom, who flips out anytime she finds me (more frequently than I’d like to admit) at two a.m., eyes crusty from not blinking and hand smudged with ink and a journal stained with my heart on its pages, while none of my homework for the next day is done.
“This will all be perfect for a college application essay,” Mom continues, reaching back to give my knee a squeeze.
I pull away. Not this again.
“Yeah, it would,” I say, picking at my nails. “For someone actually applying to colleges.”
Mom frowns at me for a moment before turning around in her seat.
“It’s not too late to change your mind about college,” Mom says with forced lightness. “You can enroll in community college classes for the fall, or even try to get into a four-year university for the spring semester. You have options, Tilly. I’d hate to see you waste your potential.”
“A college degree doesn’t even cut it anymore,” Dad adds, looking at me through the rearview mirror. “You’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of struggle if you don’t get an advanced education.”
“Right. Never mind the crushing student debt and the mental gymnastics I’d have to force myself through to do it,” I whisper to myself.
“What was that?”
“I said I get it, Mom.” I press my forehead against the window. This is the passive-aggressive argument we’ve had more times over the past year than I can count.
College is not for me. End of story.
My grades in high school were average, but the work to get those average grades felt like turning my brain inside out. I couldn’t figure out a way to focus on numbers and equations and scientific principles and names of old dead white dudes because, truly, who cares? Sitting at desks, trying to listen to teachers drone on, felt physically painful at times. The second I dropped my white-knuckled attempts at focus, my brain would strap on a pair of Rollerblades and zip away, frolicking into fictional lands and dancing around words, my hands somehow keeping pace with the random ideas by scribbling ferociously in notebooks.
More than once a teacher called out my mental wandering, successfully humiliating me in front of the class by asking if I’d like to join everyone on this planet instead of whichever one I was currently inhabiting. The inevitable hiss of laughter from my classmates always felt like a thousand tiny needles being poked into my skin, mortification and shame prickling out of my pores.
It was, to put it delicately, absolute ass.
The only time I hadn’t felt tortured was during AP Lit. I’m always able to lose myself in the works of others. That’s how I know I want to be a writer. I want to hop along similes and revel in hyperboles. I want to make people feel and experience and live through the stories I tell.
I also want to avoid going to college to do so.
But explaining that to my parents generates a more horrified reaction than if I told them I kick kittens as a hobby. It’s made worse by the fact that perfect Mona went to a perfect university and graduated at the top of her perfect class and blah blah blah. Mona set an educational bar that I can’t even skim with my fingertips, no matter how hard I jump and struggle.
We finally pull off the highway for the airport, and when we roll up to my terminal, I scramble out of the backseat like a puppy at a park. I can’t stop the little bounce in my legs as I take in the movement around me, the rumble of suitcase wheels along the sidewalk and the whoosh of the automatic doors sliding open and closed as people take their first steps to their next destination. It’s so exciting I could puke.
“Try to stay organized at each hotel,” Dad says, pulling my overflowing bag out of the trunk and handing it to me. “Don’t dump out your suitcase and have things everywhere or you’ll forget something in each country.”
“Okay,” I say, accepting my backpack from Mom and grabbing my suitcase from Dad. I do feel a pang of sadness at leaving. As much as my parents drive me bonkers, I will miss them.
“Leave Tornado Tilly in the USA, please,” Mom says, pulling me into a hug. “We don’t want you to lose anything important.”
A tiny hole is popped in my bubble of excitement. With that fabulous moniker, I feel a little less sad about leaving.
“I love you,” I say, giving Mom and Dad one more kiss on the cheek before turning and marching toward those sliding glass doors that are the entrance to my grand adventure.
“Don’t lose anything!” Mom repeats as I step through the doors and am smacked by the cold AC.
“I won’t forget a single thing!” I say over my shoulder with a wave before heading to security.
Chapter 3
Failure to Launch
TILLY
I forgot my luggage at security.
I swear, it wasn’t my fault, but between the crush of bodies and trying to keep track of my shoes and my backpack and my phone while also being swamped by the echoing chaos of the airport and being so damn excited about everything, I may have made the oh-so-small mistake of leaving my suitcase at the security checkpoint.
“It rolled straight from my hand!” I say to the TSA woman who’s giving me a bland look. “There I was, walking along, palms all sweaty because, truly, is it always this hot in here? And then poof my bag slipped from my grip and I’m not sure if this airport was built on a tilt or what but it rolled right back here and that’s why—”