The Impossibility That Was Us

Eight more minutes, I told myself. Actually, less than eight. You only have to survive seven minutes and twenty-six seconds more of this crap!

The hands on the clock hanging on the wall of my psychology classroom seemed to tick slower every second, moving in slow motion as the last day of school for the year came to a close. My teacher, Mrs. Warren, continued to yack on and on about how we needed to appreciate education and blah blah blah, even though she had to of known that the crowded room full of soon-to-be-free juniors weren’t listening to a word she was saying. That included me.

Six minutes. I dug my pink fingernails into the palm of my hand to keep from screaming. I felt like my head was going to explode.

You know how you see those people on TV that have the perfect summers? Sand volleyball, bonfires on the beach, drinking with friends, going on road trips with a Jeep full of hyped up football players? Yeah. Those were my summers. Southern Cali was the best possible place to live for a high schooler, especially a social partier like myself, because summertime meant the best three months of your life. Doing all those things, and then some, I usually had the wildest most stereotypical summers that society suspected of my generation. Only, I knew this summer was going to be a little different. It wasn’t going to be my typical summer and I wasn’t exactly happy about it. But that so didn’t mean I didn’t want to get out of the hell-hole that the public called Pasadena High School.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!” I heard one of my classmates yelling from behind me as they counted down the final seconds to three O’clock. Everyone joined in for the last five seconds, including myself, until the shrill sound of the bell released us all to freedom. There was a loud chorus of “whoo-hoo” and “hell yeah” as students raced out into the crowded hallways. Crinkling up the last piece of psychology paper I had, I stood out of my desk and followed the herd of teens out into the halls, feeling like a suffocating fish in the shoulder to shoulder traffic.

“Ginger freakin’ McWhen!” Arms restricted around me as soon as I stood at my locker, trying to gather all my candy wrappers and crap from throughout the year. Chuckling, I turned around to hug my best friend, Alicia, as my boyfriend, Jordan, approached us. Yes, my name’s Ginger. No, my middle name is obviously not freakin’ and no, I’m actually not a redhead, but in fact a blonde, despite everyone’s jokes about my name.

“What’s up, sis?” I asked, hugging her tightly and giving Jordan a peck on his smiling lips as he wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Just getting ready to start the best effing summer of my entire effing life! Jake Lebbi, you know that really hot soccer defense? Yeah, he even texted me the other day and said we should hang over summer. Ohmygod, Florida with everyone, Jake Lebbi, some nice Jack Daniels up in here, this is going to be epic...” she exclaimed, continuing her babbling. I felt my face fall at the mention of her plans for the next three months as I knew that my consisted of some very different agenda. She stopped mid-sentence, her look of excitement melting off. “Holy crap, Ging... I totally forgot that you’re not coming to Florida with all of us. I’m sorry...” she trailed off and I forced a smile.

“It’s alright,” I lied. We all stood in silence for a moment until Jordan squeezed my shoulders reassuringly.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, a strong amount of fake in his voice. “We can still have fun this summer.”

“How?” I whispered. The facade had faded out and my voice cracked a bit. “You two are going to be in Panama City almost all summer with basically all our other friends and I’m stuck with my friggin’ parents.” Yes, that’s what I meant by this summer was going to be different. For the first time since I was eleven years old, my parents were insisting that we take the whole summer to spend as a family, which meant no beach with Alicia, no parties with Jordan, and no fun.

Neither one of them really said anything. They just stayed quiet until Jordan picked my backpack up off the ground and said, “Let’s get you home,” taking my hand and leading me out to the junior parking lot.

The drive home in Jordan’s 1970’s Mustang was a silent one, only the sound of the radio breaking the quiet atmosphere. I don’t think the first words were even spoken until Jordan pulled up in front of my large, white two-story house and cut the engine.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

Deciding to be outright, I blurted, “How is this gonna work, J?”

“Huh?”

“How is this going to work? Me and you on opposite sides of the country for most of our summer... I mean, this will be the first summer since eighth grade, three summers, J, that we haven’t been together every single day. Isn’t that going to be hard on us? Will we be able to take being apart that long?” My voice kept cracking from the tears that were accumulating. Even though everyone else was happy as heck, being the last day of school and all, there I was in my boyfriend's car, on the verge of crying. Jordan was completely quiet and the only sound was my controlled sobs. It was at least a minute before he put his hands on either side of my face and touched his forehead to mine.

“You wanna know how I know that it’ll work?” he whispered. I nodded. “I know it’s gonna work because I love you, babe. You’re my girlfriend and nothing over the summer will change that.”

“But I’m leaving tomorrow and I won’t see you till August.” My voice was nothing but a squeak as I squeezed my eyes shut, a tear running down my cheek.

“Ginger, I promise that it’ll be like I’m right there with you all summer. I will text you every every every second of every every every day, call you every every night, FaceTime you every every--”

“I got the point,” I cut him off, letting out a sad chuckle. Our foreheads were still tilted together so I leaned forward a little more until our lips touched. When we pulled back, I looked at him thoroughly. He was every inch of the six foot, blue-eyed, blonde-haired star quarterback that I’d liked since sixth grade and fallen in love with my eighth grade year. Secretly, I cursed the fact that he and I weren’t somewhere more private where we could have more of a goodbye.

Opening the door, I craned my neck around to give him one last kiss.

“I love you, J.”

“I love you, too.” He gave me a sad farewell smile and, before I could burst into tears, I climbed out of his car and started walking up my driveway.

You’re my girlfriend and nothing over the summer will change that... Nothing will change that... thinking over Jordan’s words as I walked up the sidewalk gave me hope. Maybe, just maybe, he was right. Maybe we could get through the summer without becoming distant, maybe everything would be perfect and we’d go back to being the comfortable, crazy couple we were as soon as we both returned to California. But maybe, just maybe, he was dead wrong and nothing would be the same when August rolled around again.

* * *

“What?!” I screeched. It was later on that evening and me and my parents had been in the middle of a relatively pleasant dinner before they decided to ruin my night.

“Ginger, honey, calm down. Your sister and her boyfriend are spending the summer with us up in the Hampton’s whether you like it or not.” My mother put on her best parental “don’t-mess-with-me” look and took a stab of lasagna. Before I could say anything that would probably get my phone taken away until school started up again, my dad butt in, speaking in his usual detached tone.

“Ging, we’re spending summer together.”

“As a family,” my mom chimed in again.

My sarcasm, which occurred often to my parents dismay, decided to intervene on the conversation. “Oh, a family, huh? We haven’t been a family,” I sneered the word, “since Crystal was sixteen. Ever since she graduated early, because she’s just so damn smart, and went to Harvard, she hasn’t been part of this stupid family at all!” I had layered my rant with sarcasm and my parents looked highly affected, sitting there with their mouths gaped open like fish.

“N-now, I believe you owe us an apology, young lady,” my mom stuttered.

“Why?” I slouched back in my seat, crossing my arms across my chest and putting on my best rebellious teen expression.

“Because that was very disrespectful,” my dad added from the end of the table, finally putting aside his newspaper to pay attention for once.

“Respect is a two way street here, guys,” I pushed back my chair and stood up, “and if you respect me at all, you won’t make me spend the summer with Crystal. I hate her.”

“Ginger!” my mom scolded, “You do not hate your big sister!”

Rage finally bubbled up inside me to the point where I couldn’t contain it anymore. I finally exploded. “Yes, I do! I hate her! I’ll never be your favorite daughter because I’m never going to achieve as much as Crystal. I’ll always be a disappointment! And you two don’t even bother to cover up the fact that she’s the one you’re proud of!” Swirling around, I marched up the stairs, willing the tears not to come and ignoring my parents demands that I sit back down. When I got to my room, I slammed my door with extra strength, flopping down onto my bed and screaming into my pillow like a child.

Obviously, people judged me for the relationship I had with my older sister. But they didn’t know the whole story either.

My sister had this overwhelming sense of entitlement and thought that she was better than everyone around her. After graduating high school at the age of an average sophomore and getting a four-year partial scholarship to Harvard, my parents had never stopped praising her-- even four years later. Crystal treated me like a pest that inflicted her life, a minor asset that was nothing more than one of her multiple high school boyfriends, since guys were always fawning all over her and her gorgeousness. She’d always treated me like I was smaller, under her. Even when we were children, she stepped all over me, bullied me, but never once got in trouble or even scolded for it.

One of the major problems, much to my dismay, was that my sister and I were too much alike. No, I was not a snobby, arrogant twit like her, but we had the same likes. We both loved pink, anything sparkle, manicures, expensive makeup. Anything Chanel, we had our hands all over. But we also had the same personality traits. Kind of stubborn, close-minded, goal-oriented, determined... which always caused knock-down drag-out fights when I was younger. Since we were both, as my mom called us, “pig-headed,” our conflicts were never easily resolved. And when she left to start a successful life as a pre-law major and now at law school, we had left many of our conflicts unresolved.

I never talked to her. Hardly ever. She had only come home maybe three times since she’d left. She always claimed to be “too busy” trying to get ahead in her studies so she could graduate Harvard at an early age too. Three Christmases was all we got and my parents would fly up to see her occasionally, but other than that, she had completely cut herself out of the McWhen family; and yet, Mom and Dad couldn’t be more proud of her. It’s like they didn’t even realize that she was trying to slowly break away and remove herself from our lives.

Well, apparently, she wasn’t trying to completely remove herself since she agreed to spend the whole summer with us at our beach house up in the Hampton’s. Aw, hell… this summer just kept getting worse-- and it was only the first day of break.