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brOOKLYN

“Mom!” I yell from my upstairs bedroom. Clothes scattered all around my floor. My hot pink suitcase lay open on top of my bed. “I can’t find my black sweater Aunt Eve gave me.” I say in a hurried rush. This is me. The ultimate procrastinator. My disheveled room, little messes all around. My kind of organized. I blame my ADHD. I know it has always driven my mother crazy. She would come into my room while I was at school to clean and organize, just for me to make it look like a tornado had landed only a few days later. They are my little mess piles.

I know where everything is located. So, when she came into clean and organize her way, I would never be able to find anything. Drove me insane. I am not upset with her; I know she suffers from extreme OCD. She has always been so neat and perfect. So put together. Rooms and house were always pristine. No dust to ever coat a tiled surface, no dirt to ever lay on the wooden oak floors. It’s something I always wished I could have inherited from her. Maybe not as full blown, but just enough to keep my life organized and well-kept together.

“Honey, it’s hanging up in the back of your closet where I have hung all of your fall and Winter clothing.” She says appearing at my door and leaning on it. “You know, maybe if you took the time to truly slow down and be aware of your surroundings. You know, maybe take the time to care about your possessions.” She says while looking at me with one eyebrow raised, a slight smile at the corner of her mouth. “Then you would be able to find anything without any difficulties.” I give her a half-annoyed smile and roll my eyes slightly.

“Or, maybe you could just allow me to live in my little mess’s mom. Not everything has to be perfect.” I say to her teasingly, shooting an eyebrow back at her. I make my way towards my closet and find in the very back, next to my winter jackets, my favorite black sweater. I have had this sweater for years. It was once my aunt’s and was given to me after she passed away from a drunk driver accident.

She was on her way home after a long shift at the Hospital in the early morning, when some boozed-up asshole blew through a stop light taking my world away in the blink of an eye. My mother was never the same after it happened. Most nights I would hear her in her room, just sobbing quietly.

I tried in my own grief to cheer her up, but I knew there was not much I could do to ease her pain. That was her little sister. The one she always protected from all the monsters. We both changed in so many ways because of it. So, when my mother gave it to me, I slept in it for two months straight. Tears soaking it until I had nothing else to shed.

Eve always wore it. She would tell me it was her lucky sweater. Once you wear it, love flows to you. She always had so many lovers in her life. Devastatingly handsome men, all types. She seemed to always gravitate towards the real losers though. The ones I think she believed she could truly change.

All those adventures only took parts of her heart away. With them. Collecting them. Even though the pain in her eyes ran deep, she always kept her broken heart open. Hoping to find the one to mend all the pieces back together again. A hopeless romantic of sorts. She had so much faith in those stunning deep golden-brown eyes.

Some loves she truly never fully let go of. But nevertheless, it was still tragically beautiful. She was a sight. Men were a moth to her flame. The universe's light went out a little the night of her death. The stars seemed dull. That twinkling muted. I would always smile and dream of that kind of lust and passion when she would tell me her stories. She kept a picture book of all her loves.

I even believe she had a small shoe box hidden under her bed filled with little notes and memories from those past relationships. The last time I saw my aunt, a few days before the accident, she had told me about a new love that had come into her life just a few months before.

She had told me that she had found “the one.” I remember smiling at her and rolling my eyes a bit at the confession. She looked different though. I remember her having a certain glow about herself, one that I had never witnessed before. She seemed to carry herself a bit differently, her posture more upright.

The man she told me about was a patient she had met at work. When her gaze met his sea green eyes, something flashed inside of her like a bolt of wild lightning.Rocking her to her core. Something powerful and ancient. She couldn’t explain it. I could tell she was the happiest she had ever been. Which made my heart so warm and buzzing in excitement for her new possible love story. We were meant to meet her new love soon, she was going to be bringing him to Thanksgiving, Kallum I believe was his name. We never got the chance though.

I remember vaguely at her funeral seeing a man standing towards the back, leaning against an old oak tree. Dark raven hair, and those sea-green eyes filled with tears. He was tall and well built. Looked to be in his mid-thirties. Dressed in a black suit and trench coat.

Before I had time to realize who he was, he had disappeared before the ceremony had ended. It haunts my mind to this day that I may never know who that mystery man was to my aunt. The joy he bestowed upon her shattered and bruised heart that only ended up in tragedy. How he was handling it all. Seeing him show up for her, told me all I needed to know. He truly loved her.

The sweater itself was nothing special. Just a long and loose off the shoulder onyx soft material. Thin enough to wear on a sunny day but warm enough to shield you from the winter’s kiss. But it was everything to me. The stories that thread life into it. The passion and pain forever woven into its fabric.

“You know, I am going to miss you. Miss taking care of you.” My mother says while I start to place my wrinkled clothes into my suitcase. A small lump at the back of my throat has tears wanting to flee my eyes. I suck them back quickly.

“I know, Mom. But I won’t be far away. Only a few hours. You can come and see me whenever you like.” I say while keeping my hands busy folding and packing my disheveled outfits. Eyes daring not to meet hers.

“I know, honey. You are my baby. My only child. I am so proud of you. So proud of everything you have ever accomplished.” She says while walking towards me, tears starting to catch with her words.

Placing her hands on my back, she slowly turns me towards her. My tears, unable to stop them, stream down my pale face. Gently she wipes them away with the sleeve of her shirt and pulls me in close.

“You are my greatest achievement in this life. I know just how wonderful and powerful you are and will be. You will be everything I was not.” Her words sent a small shock into my heart. I know she has had a rough life. Single Mom, working two jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over my head. Taking extra shifts at the dinner to help pay for my ballet classes I just had to take. She was always my calm in the storm. Always the one who held me through every heartbreak. She is my safe place.

Looking up at her I say, “No, Mom. You are everything I want to be.” Her tear-filled emerald, green eyes swelled over as she pulled me in again for one more hug. The scent of her jasmine and lavender dark hair covers my face like a soft feather. All my memories of her holding me, taking care of a scratched knee. Going to all my dance recitals, everything flashes so fast. Letting go of me, she sweetly places a kiss on my forehead and turns away.

“You better hurry up. Jenny will be here soon to pick you up. She sent me over six text messages making sure I would have you ready.” She says while laughing and shaking her head. “At least I know you will be in good hands with her.” She says with a warm smile before she turns and exits my room.

It’s almost time. I have been waiting my entire senior year and Summer for this. I made it to my dream college. My best friend and I that I have known since I was four, will be attending together. Dorm together. Be crazy college kids together. Live the fucking dream together! Baine University will be an adventure. Located in the small town of Dover in northern California. It’s about a four-hour drive from my home.

Thinking about all the late-night parties, dance clubs and mindless one night stands I want to do, leaves dark, twisted thoughts in my mind. I am addicted to that feeling. That craving of wanting more. Wanting what I have not experienced. I am no virgin.

I lost that to my first dumb-wit boyfriend on homecoming night when I was 16. It was nothing like what I had thought it was going to be. It was just a dark trailer room on his small twin sized bed, country music blasting from his stereo and a few thrusts in then done. Rinse and repeat over and over. What a rodeo man .

You know, I have never even experienced an orgasm. I was with that loser for over two years, and not once had any kind of mind-blowing sex. I didn’t even know orgasms were a thing until Jenny told me all about it! I just thought you laid there, pretending to have a great time, moaning a bit and that was it. I am highly inexperienced and never really had the confidence to be open sexually. He never made me feel that way at least. Never truly made me feel beautiful or craved for.

The POS went out on me multiple times. Dicking down whatever female would give him the time of day. Needing to stroke his own ego due to his deep insecurities. Me being a naive idiot at the time, allowed him to saunter back in time and time again because I believed I loved him.

What a joke man. Jenny was always right about ‘little dick’. I was wasting my time on a fucker who didn’t even deserve one glance from me. But being the stupid teenage girl, lost in a bad lay, it took me a while to see the truth. Way to fucking long.

Jenny and I have always been close. She pretty much lived with my mother and I for two years when she was nine, while her mother was in and out of rehabs for whatever drugs she could get her hands on. Ever since her father went to prison when she was eight years old for manslaughter, her mother was never the same. She completely checked out mentally and abandoned her daughter. Void of all emotions.

The random men her mother would have come in and out of her life would hurt Jenny. Some would take advantage of her innocence. She hasn’t opened up much to me about it all. I know she pushes that trauma deep down inside herself, locking it into its own little barbed wire cage. I think that is why sex, just isn’t a big deal for her anymore. Since she was ripped of her innocence at such a young age, she doesn’t see the importance anymore.

Now, she just sees it as a physical act to get some type of high from, some kind of vice to help her with the noise that constantly fills her tortured mind. Something she has complete control over.

My mother became hers . I still believe that is the only reason why she made it through school and stayed away from drugs. Even after her mother got clean and married a wealthy man, Jed Jones, who owns the local Volkswagen dealership, God, he’s a douchebag. She would still sneak over at night and stay in my room with me. We would bundle up together and watch our favorite cheesy scary movies while we shoved our faces full of salt coated, buttery popcorn. My mother was always ok with that. She loves Jenny like she is her own child. Maybe she doesn’t agree with everything Jenny does in her spare time, but nonetheless, she loves her.

She saved Jenny. Now, Jenny has her own addictions, boys . Which reminds me so much of my Aunt Eve. It was a high she was never able to reach, despite how many hits she took. Probably because she never felt love from her father. Which I get as well, because I haven’t known mine since he left me at age 3.

But instead of me opening myself to boys, I am terrified. My mother was both a protector and nurturer. I was lucky. I still want to chase that high though. I want to feel what it’s like to be truly wanted. Craved. Longed for. I want to get over that fear and let myself fall.

I want to know what true pleasure really feels like. Like what Jenny has told me of her own physical experiences. The mind-blowing orgasms she had experienced from a few of the football team boys. Some by way of a hot threesome at the parties we would attend in a parent’s bedroom and others of men that stole her heart that were much too old for her.

The other girls always called her names behind her back, out of pure jealousy. That their man wanted her more than them, but we never let it affect us. She would never touch any man that was attached. If any girl ever said one tasteless word about her in my presence they would have my fist in their fucking face. Sisters. That is what we are. Blood or not.

I was always so jealous and envious of her. The long, glowing blonde hair, sun kissed skin, big breasts, little waist. Her toned legs looked a mile long. Her baby blue eyes that could pull any man she wanted with just the flick of a gaze. Just the scent of her strawberry perfume would have a man drop to his knees and beg her for one night.

Me on the other hand, have plain, jet-black hair that falls past my chest, onyx eyes that I am sure I inherited from my absent father. Pale skin that always burns in the sun and slightly underdeveloped breasts that though they are not small, they do not compare to Jenny's mountains.

I have thick thighs that bring out even more insecurities about myself. I would say I am pretty. Maybe a little plain. An inexperienced girl who wants to shed that skin and live for once. Be free. Let myself live in the moment. Jenny and I are stark opposites in looks but feel one of the same souls. Night and Day. Sun and Rain.

BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! I hear suddenly, jolted out of my wandering thoughts.

“Brooklyn Eve Winters Hurry the fuck up! We got to hit the road!” I hear Jenny yelling outside, Pour It Up by Rihanna blaring from her car. I run over quickly to my window, slide it up and yell back.

“I am almost done, just give me one more minute!” A squill quickly left my voice. Laughing I raced around my room, throwing in the rest of my ripped jeans, shorts, seasonal shirts, little dresses, underwear and necessities I had scattered on my bed. Grabbing my suitcase, I raced out of my room, down the stairs to her waiting at her black Volkswagen, trunk open.

“Took ‘ya long enough babe,” she says while taking one last drag of her cigarette and stomping it out. I gave her a small smile and quickly threw my suitcase in the back. Shutting the trunk, I turned around to face my mother one last time.

Jumping into her arms, she says, “Now don’t get too lost out there. Remember who you are. Don’t break too many hearts. You be safe my love. Both of you girls. And study Brooklyn!” Kissing my head gently, I turn and get into the car. My mother grabs Jenny one last time, hugging her tightly while whispering into her ear.

I cannot hear whatever it is because of the blaring music from her bumping speakers. She nods at my mother and jumps into the driver’s seat. Tears fill my eyes once again as the car pulls out of the driveway and speeds down the road. Turning around I see my mother one last time, tears flowing down her beautiful porcelain face, gripping her shirt above her heart and waving goodbye.