Dandelion Weed

It’s bright, too bright. The rays of sunshine glisten my cheeks like a soft touch. I squint my eyes enough to see the field of dandelions and wild daisies dancing in the warm summers breeze. I splash my feet back and forth in the refreshing mountain spring, just past the almost transparent waterfall. I have started to lose feeling to my toes and quickly remove my stubby tan legs from the numbing water and place them on the searing hot rock.

Summer will be over soon and I will again, be the new girl at school. My dad seems to think it is a fun idea to move me and my younger sister, Ava, around nonstop. My mom you ask? she is long gone with some Cabana boy from one of our lovely family travels to Pisa. I was only 11 at the time. Since then, my sister and I have been traveling wherever, whenever my father uproots us from our perfectly settled lives.

He does some kind of import or export business. As if I care. He makes cash, good cash. Decent enough to send us to private schools and live in fancy lofts such as the new one we moved into recently. The Loft is nestled in a small town called Waterferd. Smaller than anywhere we have ever been before. Unusual for my father to have placed us in some town that has a mere 42,000 population. We are used to living in New York, Hongkong or London, just to name a few. This new job has him home a lot more often. This is the most he has been home since I was 8 and Ava was 3.

My father’s working a lot is most likely the reason my mom left. Or she left because she is some free-spirited asshole who decided her family was not good enough for her I guess. To this day, being 17 I am still salty to the situation. Can you blame me? I am pretty much left alone to babysit Ava while my dad works endless hours on several business trips and my lovely mother is nowhere to be found.

Once she sent me a cheap looking Birthday card when I turned 13. It had some corny looking smiley face with one of those dorky party hats and a standard generic message. She did not even bother to write anything inside. That was the last time I heard from her. Poor Ava is clueless about the matter. She was too young to really get to know our mother. I guess that spares her the pain.

Ava is now a very outgoing 12-year-old. She is sometimes bratty for being a preteen but for the most part, she is tame enough so I can bring her to the corner ice cream stand, without being mortified. We are close, her and I. We spent most of our time together alongside a nanny named Mrs. Glint. Mrs. Glint went with us everywhere. The one constant thing in my life. She even taught us some dutch when we lived in Amsterdam. Shame the woman is dead. Been about two years or so. She lived to be the ripe age of 76. Gecondoleerd to her son and family.

Feeling my legs and soles of my feet starting to scorch. I place my navy colored flip flops back on my jet black painted toes. The rhinestones glimmer from the ample amount of rays the day has provided. I place my palms on either side of my hips, lifting my weigh off the slab of stone I was camped on for most of the day. This place is peaceful. I have come here every day alone since we moved here at the beginning of June. I found this area of the woods when exploring early on upon moving here. I have been alone now for a while as Ava decided to stay at her private boarding school at our last location in Berlin. I do not blame her for staying. She finally made some really good friends.

Suddenly, I hear rustling in the bushes behind me. I turn around slowly expecting a deer or a rabbit. My eyes are met with these amazingly deep grey eyes, almost like the color of the rock I was planted on earlier. His hair shaved evenly on both sides about a quarter of an inch in depth. He has some wax or moose keeping his long fringe out from his face and slightly tilted at a 30-degree angle. He has a small black earring in his upper right ear. His shoulders are broad and strong. His tan arms a few shades deeper than mine.

“Sorry,” he says in a low raspy voice “I did not realize anyone was here.”

“Its fine,” I say in an almost mute tone. We stare at each other for a brief moment as if the world stopped and we are the only ones around for miles. I notice more definition to his chiseled jawline and some small freckles by his left eye. Cute. They remind me of the stars. No more like the constellations.

I notice him eyeballing me from top to bottom. I could feel him tense at the awkward situation. He reaches his hand out towards me smiling a toothy grin “My name is Ru” stunned by the sudden moment I jump a bit being awakened from my daydreaming. He lets out a low giggle.

“I’m Avery, Avery Blake, “I say grabbing his hand lightly

“Are you new here? Never seen you around,” he questions pulling our hands apart.

While stumbling on my words I manage to make out a low “y...yes.”

“Will you be going to Waters High?”

I nod in response. Why does he ask so many questions? Or maybe I am just not good at meeting new people. I always have isolated myself from all the places we moved to. I tried to get close to people and my father would make us leave. I would be heartbroken and disappointed. Rather not get close to anyone just in case. Rather not get close to him.