Elise's Summer

Chapter One

It was a rainy day when I woke up this morning. My umbrella with the infamous, bouncy tiger jumping in puddles was doing it's hardest to keep me dry; even though the ankles of my skinny jeans were now soaked after being in the rain for the last three minutes. The walk from my last Anatomy and Physiology final was as harrowing as the drive to my mothers' that I was about to take.

 It's not like I don't like driving in my Mercedes, but I was about to be stuck in a car with my other three girlfriends for five hours. The drive from one side of Colorado to the other took some time, and I knew the girls would be ready to talk about all the boys we would see when we got to my mother's summer home that she always let us stay in for the summer. Since the four of us had graduated from high school we have always stuck together since coming to college. For the past four years we've lived in my father's summer home that he bought us near the college, before he and my mother divorced two years ago, he made sure he had a few extra houses set up so that I would always have some place to stay no matter where I lived.

As I got into my car and shook off my umbrella, I texted the girls to make sure they would be ready to go after I pulled into the driveway. They finished their finals in the beginning of the week and have been using their time to pack for the summer; I had to pack the week before, so I threw all my things into the car the previous weekend. The girls all love their families, but they never wanted to fathom the idea of living with their parents again. We decided pretty early on that we would all live together until we got married or had settled into our new jobs after we finished school.

It didn't take long to get the three responses I was waiting for, so I pulled out of my parking spot, looked at the school one last time for the next three months. I would be back to finish my last semester of med school before I was whisked away to some other spot on the map for my intern year. All four of us had started school a little later to take a vacation traveling the states and visiting countries overseas, so now we get to graduate in the winter. I had spent all three and half years focusing on my studies, and planning my future for after school, so I had a very small social life. Outside of my girls, I only had my study groups from group projects, so I didn't talk to very many boys.

When I reached the house, the girls were all sitting on the driveway, as though they had been waiting there all day - it had only taken me an hour and a half to finish my test. Even though I was the first one to finish the test, again. They all jumped to their feet and slid their cellular devices into their pockets as they skipped over, dragging their luggage behind them. Sadie was the first one to get in humming some popular song that was all the rage lately; flipping her beautiful, long blonde hair behind her shoulder, she got comfortable in the passenger seat. She stuffed her bag at her feet, then pulled out her blanket from the side of the bag; it was her baby blanket she had always brought whenever she was away from home - sentimental value and all.

Claire threw her stuff in the trunk above mine, and it looked like she was pulling something out of her bag. I figured it was probably her headphones, since she never went anywhere without them; she was a little edgy, and you wouldn't think she fit into our group, but she always got along with us. She had this witchy aura about her that kind of kept people from our group, and honestly our group loves it, because it keeps a lot of drama away from us. Claire closed the trunk and came around to sit behind me. Her old skull candy headphones she had for road trips since we had all gotten our licenses, in her hands.

Jessie was the last one to get in the car, as usual, she pushed her roll along luggage into the back with her and Claire, puffed up her brown curls, then pulled out another smut novel she stumbled across on one of her book apps. She was definitely the quietest out of all of us, but we were okay with that. We've always stuck up for her since preschool, because she was always known for having her nose stuck in a book - she used to walk into walls, because it was so bad.

After everyone had clicked their seatbelts, we backed out of our home, and drove for our home. I set the music for some of my favorite artists and waited for the first bomb to drop. "So, Elise, can it finally be time to talk about boys," I heard Jessie shut her book. I looked in the rearview mirror, and saw the smug look on her face, so I rolled my eyes. I could feel the other two sets of eyes on me as I tried to ignore the comment. The girls erupted in their usual giggling they always did whenever they harassed me about boys.

~

The five hours of talking about boys - especially the ones I would be avoiding - finally came to an end as we pulled into my mother's summer home that was across the street from her main home. I could see her in her garden planting her new summer blooms, and when she spotted us while picking up a pot to transfer to the dirt, she waved at us and smiled. We drove a little farther down to the house we would be staying in, got out and grabbed our things to take inside. I went to unlock the door to make things easier and when I had gotten back to the car I was met by my mother's new husband, Charles. He was reasonably fit, especially for his age - he was sixty-four - he spent most of his time golfing due to his growing app company. He doesn't really talk about it a lot, so I wasn't sure what the app actually did, but I knew it was very big.

I thanked him as I followed him through the door. He assured me that my mother would be over soon to help us girls settle in after she cleaned herself up from gardening. He left me in the living room as he took my bags up to my room, and I turned only a little bit as something caught my attention. A black motorcycle zoomed past the house, which was a little weird because no one we knew had ever gotten a motorcycle since one of the neighbors fell off their brand-new bike within the first hour of having it. I got to see the mystery character pull into their driveway two houses down and pull off his helmet to unfurl these beautiful blond locks. He glanced over towards the house where I was and flashed a warm smirk. I could feel myself getting flustered, and I knew this summer would be the most different from any other.