Chapter 1
Whatever I thought life would be like after graduating high school—I was wrong. You grow up thinking you’ll graduate and suddenly be an adult. That you have life all figured out and you’ll be on your own and it’ll be amazing. That is not how it’s working out for me.
These last few months of summer were pretty normal. I fulfilled the fantasy of sleeping in late for days at a time. Back when I was still in school and had to wake up at five-thirty in the morning just to drive across town and get to school on time, sleeping in late had been my ultimate dream. But,technically, I do that every summer. And,technically, this isn’t summer break anymore. I won’t be going back to high school in the fall because high school is officially over forever now.
The first few weeks after graduation were fun. I did all the lounging around that I wanted, until I kind of got bored of it. I hit up the movies with my friends and went out for dinner until I ran out of money. Then I got a job as a cashier at the local grocery store, and I told myself it was temporary because working as a cashier would not be my ultimate life’s goal. I haven’t enrolled in college yet and my parents aren’t too thrilled with me. I just don’t know what I want to do. I decided to take a gap year, which is a term I heard on a movie once. You skip a year after high school and before you start college. It’s supposed to be a way to “find yourself” or whatever.
By July, my friends had all become consumed with buying stuff for their college dorms, and planning epic end-of-summer parties so they could have one last blow out before starting a life of higher education. My best friend, Mandy, got accepted into NYU—freakingNYU—and promptly became completely obsessed with New York and college and her fancy new life that would be fifteen hundred miles away from me. This freaking sucks. I’m happy for her—she’s living her dream, after all, and I am her best friend, so I have to be happy for her.
I guess I’m just sad for me.
Taking this gap year was supposed to be some amazing life-changing experience. At least that’s how it’s portrayed on literally every movie ever. The pathetic small town girl (that’s me, Avery Dunn) takes a year off after high school and finds out the true meaning of her life. If I were in a movie, surely that would happen to me. I’d do some epic soul searching and end up on adventures and go on this amazing journey that would lead me to what I’m supposed to do with my life. I’d find out my true purpose. I’d come back home with this renewed sense of being, and I’d smile at my parents and they’d see how wise and grown up I got, and we’d all think this gap year was a great idea.
My gap year technically started in August when all my friends went off to college and I stayed here in Green Leaf, Texas. Now it’s the end of November and I’m four months into this gap year and haven’t done squat.
I got a fifty cents an hour promotion at the Shop Mart, but that’s hardly life-changing. Maybe the fates are telling me that I’m doomed to a life of wearing a blue apron and working at a small town grocery store. Maybe I’ll become assistant manager one day and then I’ll never leave!
Ugh.
A chilly breeze makes me shiver, and I pull my flannel blanket tighter around me. It’s Sunday, the last week of November, and I’m wasting the day away by sitting on the porch swing in front of my house. It’s not as nice as it sounds because this porch swing sucks.
I live with my parents in their two-story boring square of a house that looks like it maybe wanted to be a Victorian-style home, but it just ended up as a huge cube with a wraparound porch. My mom tries so hard to spruce up the curb appeal, but it’s just an ugly house. Not much you can do about it.
It only got worse when a few months ago, the porch swing broke. It had been there since I was a little kid, so I guess its lifespan had reached full capacity. The wood was rotted through and the metal chains were rusted, and the whole thing just fell apart one day. Instead of replacing it with a new wooden swing that hangs from the porch ceiling, my dad bought some cheap metal and canvas thing that we spent hours putting together using the instruction manual that wasn’t very helpful. It squeaks every time you swing on it, and the metal gets cold and it’s not even close to being as fun as the old wooden swing. I feel like this dumb new swing is kind of a metaphor for my entire life right now.
It also exactly describes my parents. I love them, I totally do, but my mom and dad have grown up in this tiny little town. They got married right after high school, then went to college together and they both became teachers. Now my mom teaches high school English and Dad teaches junior high History and they just totally love their boring life.
All my friends think my parents are the cutest couple ever. But I think they’re weird. I mean, who can live their whole life in the same town? I’ve only been here eighteen years and I’m completely stir crazy. I want to see the world. I want to do stuff. I want to meet people I haven’t already known my entire life.
But I have no clue how to do any of that. My parents were semi-supportive of me taking a gap year, probably because they know I’m good for it. I’ll sign up for classes at the community college next year, and hopefully I will have decided on a major by then. It seems like I’m the only person who graduated Green Leaf High without a plan for my future.
And now, seven months after I walked across that graduation stage, I still have no idea what I want to do with my life.
I just know I don’t want to be here.
Mom’s black sedan pulls into the driveway. If she’s already back from her Sunday lunch with her teacher friends, I must have been out here a lot longer than I thought. Maybe that’s how people stay in this town for so long—time just slips by when you’re not doing anything, and before you know it, your whole life is gone.
Mom waves at me as she gets out of her car and walks to the trunk. “Avery, come help,” she calls out.
I grudgingly get off the swing, which finally stops squeaking, and leave my blanket on the seat. The entire trunk of Mom’s car is filled with boxes and plastic bins of teacher crap.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
“Janice Montgomery is retiring,” Mom says, her eyes wide with excitement. “She let me take anything I wanted from her classroom. Look at all this great stuff!”
“That’s cool,” I say, giving her a smile before loading my arms up with boxes of stuff. Teachers have to pay out of their own pockets to decorate their classrooms, so free teaching supplies are always appreciated. My mom is like a kid in a candy store when she gets stuff like this, or when she finds supplies on clearance at Target. I help her carry in all of the stuff and then she gets a call from Grandma, and I’m suddenly bored and alone again.
I head upstairs to my bedroom and sit on the bay window that overlooks the backyard. We have a few acres of land, but the wooded property behind our house makes for a nice view beyond my own backyard. I sit on the large windowsill like I have a million times before, and gaze out at the unchanging landscape. We’re too far north of the Texas hill country, but the land still slopes just a bit. It’s enough to let you see for miles.
I wonder what’s out there. Besides just the Texas landscape, of course. What else is there to life?
And how can I possibly find it for myself?
A little voice inside my head mocks me. Obviously the answer is toleave the damn house, Avery. Leave the house. Leave the town. Go somewhere you haven’t been before.
That’s how you get out. That’s how you have an adventure.
But real life doesn’t work that way. I’d need money and a place to stay, and some kind of plan. I can’t just hop in the car and drive for hours. Mostly because I share a car with Mom, and that would be rude to just take it, but even if I had my own car, what would I even do?
