3 Two

The week flew by.

It was another Saturday and I was sitting in a booth in a restaurant with my mother and her friend, Janet.

"Bailey wants to pursue literature in the future," My mom boastfully said. "She has mountains of books at home."

"Wow!" Janet cooed. "I'm cheering you on, Bailey. I'll be sure to buy all of your books. Make sure to write about me, I have plenty of stories to tell."

I smiled.

Janet was my mom's friend of almost thirty years. I had only met her a few times since she moved to Australia in 2005 and only came back twice a year, my mom told her everything and entrusted her with her life. They were more than best friends but not quite sisters. Janet was married to a CEO and so she was wealthy and always treated me and Flora to dinner.

"Thanks, Janet. But, although I like writing, I'm not sure I'm cut out for it full-time."

"Bailey spent the entire summer collecting books and writing her own miniature stories." My mom chimed in, trying to make me look as extraordinary as possible. "She's so talented, she definitely picked up that trait from Nathan."

My dad. Deceased. He was a painter, taught night classes at a local art gallery, and lived for everything that involved paintings or painting. He met mom at an art convention in Arkansas and they hit it off straight away, he taught her how to paint and so she wanted to pursue painting too, just like he had, to keep a part of him with her; but she never made enough money to keep our lives afloat and so she resorted to teaching art.

In the end, my father's mind overcame with dark thoughts and let his paintings become colorless, filled with unkind imagery, and, eventually, it's what killed him. No one wanted to admit it, but it was a trait I had been slowly picking up too.

"I agree, " Janet responded, taking me out of my reminiscence. "But she picked up her beauty from you, Flo."

My mother smiled shyly. "Please, she got that all on her own."

I wandered off into my imagination as they continued talking, staring at the clock on the other side of the diner and came to the realization that I had been here before. It was only once because it was on the other side of town and the menu would cost you a limb but I remembered the clock because of its particular color - a shade of orange, similar to a crab, but mixed with touches of green. I remembered thinking it was the ugliest clock I had ever seen. I knew that I loved it the last time I visited, and I was the happiest I had probably been since dad died, but I then remembered that I had been there previously with Dylan, and the memory became sour.

"Bailey! Stop daydreaming and eat your food." My mom nagged. "You seem to be daydreaming a lot lately."

"Sorry, " I said. I had been. Letting my thoughts wander off to the edge of the world, all through the week. Even in a lesson, I would blank out and be the only one left in class, or even when Amalia was talking to me; my mind wouldn't stop wandering away to a place, refusing to stay in the present. I did this a lot anyway, but it had been happening more often ever since that unfortunate Saturday, and it was driving me insane.

When we got home my mother gestured for me to sit next to her on the couch. "Flower, what's going on with you? You're so distant, even Blake noticed it before he left and the principal called me the other day, asking if anything was wrong at home." She brushed my hair out of my face.

I hadn't realized people had noticed. "Nothing is wrong, mom. I'm just daydreaming. Writing miniature stories."

"About what?"

"About everything, in the restaurant I was daydreaming about you and dad, and then how I'd been to that place before. Yesterday I was daydreaming about Blake's wedding and the day before about something else." I comforted. "It just keeps happening lately, I like reminiscing, you know that."

"Bailey, when it happens at every turn, I think there's a deeper meaning."

"I doubt that," I was drifting much more than I did and I knew it was unhealthy but I kept finding comfort in memories, in happier times. But with every daydream, those memories became distorted and cruel for one negative reason attached or another. "I am fine, mother."

"You remember too much, " She said to me. "Why hold on to all of that?"

And I said, "Where am I supposed to put it down?" I looked at her dead in the eyes. "These are the fragments of my life - of other people's lives - that I hold dear, that I miss and can turn to when I'm sad or bored, I know that you're concerned and everyone is concerned but, mom, I'm happier in my own mind than anywhere else right now because no one can get in my way up there. Tell me that they're worried or want to talk to me about boys or bother me, just like you're doing now."

"Bailey..." She began but before she could finish, I went upstairs into my bedroom.

I didn't keep a diary, I liked to hold all my thoughts in my head, where they'd be safest of all. I enjoyed items that represented memories, like the empty water bottle on my shelf that I had brought at my very first concert, or the picture of me and Amalia at her fifth birthday party; and the first book I ever got gifted that sat proudly on my drawer. I could remember all of the moments that those items had relevance to, and I found myself thinking back to the story of how that book came to be.

It was a few days after my sixteenth birthday, I was sat in a park waiting for Dylan. He couldn't make it to my party because he was out of state and so he had messaged me, asking me to meet there. The air was cold and I'd underestimated that on account of looking 'pretty' for the encounter. He was late, he always was, by forty-three minutes exactly and apologized for more times than he needed to when he saw me. He asked me to close my eyes and hold out my hands, then placed the book into them. When I opened my eyes, I glanced at Dylan who had a boyish grin on his face and thanked him for the gift. It wasn't until I looked inside the novel that I realized it was entirely in Spanish and I couldn't understand a single word; a sad look spread across his face and I assured him that it was fine, I still appreciated the thought.

"What am I doing...?" I said to the air when I caught myself thinking about that moment. "Would you please leave me alone?"

I decided that it was enough. I took the book, and any other artifacts of our relationship, and stuffed them all in a box that I placed at the furthest possible corner of my closet then covered the package with a mountain of old clothes that I never wore; slammed the closet shut and occupied myself with schoolwork and forced myself to stop this habit that I had dug myself into. It was a routine that came into my life after dad passed away, I didn't know how to cope with the shock of the event, and so I unconsciously let myself lose sight of the world all the time, looking back on things when everything was okay and the world seemed to work the way I wanted it to.

We all want everything to be okay. We don't even dare to wish so much for 'fantastic' or 'marvelous' or even 'outstanding'. We happily suffer and cry and fill ourselves with pain for okay.

We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.