(8) Sudden Awakenings

After slowly opening my eyes in the bright, almost afternoon sunlight streaming from the window next to my bed, I directly focus my attention to my bedroom ceiling. Not that there's anything interesting to look at up there, but whenever I wake up and I have no place to go, I stare at my ceiling and try to picture what I had just dreamt the night before.

In the days of the typical girl obsession over Leonardo DiCaprio when "Titanic" came out, I had taped a picture of him up there so that I would have something at least pleasant to look at when I woke up. I had decided it looked weird like that with a picture hanging completely out of place right next to my light, so I took it down and taped it right next to my bed instead.
Now, I have grown completely used to the blank ceiling. Oftentimes, I scrunch my eyes at the smooth white paint and search my brain for some scene, some small clue that I have actually dreamed something, just moments before.

Only occasionally do I wake up, stretch, and instantly remember where I have just been. Since I am now a typical teenage girl, filled with thoughts about mostly the opposite sex, the dreams I can remember are usually about guys. This morning is no exception.

I can still see his face so clearly it's almost like he's in front of me, as I stretch my legs so they fall on top of the wrinkled light blue gingham sheets. Of course it was one of the many categories of Jeff Waters dreams. There are the going-out ones where we're actually a real couple, the weird ones where it's raining glazed donuts or something outside and he's there talking to my Aunt Martha who is walking her ridiculously annoying chiuaua Snooky and then her hair turns into a pile of beef jerky. Then there are the embarrassing ones where I come to school forgetting to put on any underwear that morning and fall down the stairs on the way to the science wing. And then, of course, the bittersweet ones where I actually get up the nerve to tell him I like him, he says the feeling is mutual, and then I wake up. The dream I had just left was a bittersweet one.

It had been sometime during the school year. I'm not sure where exactly I was supposed to be, but I was walking up a fresh green, grassy hill where a fountain was spurting purple. When I finally reached the top, gasping for breath, he was there standing right in front of me.

He was in his lacrosse shorts and a white tee-shirt and his arm was broken. I wasn't hesitant to speak to him at all and instantly said 'hi' and asked him about his arm. He told me he broke it playing in a game. Then, with a smile, he asked me to sign his cast and I grabbed the pen and scribbled my name in an empty space next, to my dad's signature (that was the weird part) and handed him back his red pen. He then craned his neck so he could read it, and glanced at me with a smile and asked: "Why didn't you sign it 'the love of Jeff's life'?" (Leave it to my dreams to be corny.) And when I looked into those clear brown eyes, he said, "because you are the love of my life." Then I woke up.

I sigh into the emptiness of my room. The sweetness of thinking about Jeff Waters is too short when my mom enters my room.

"You're not up yet? It's almost noon! Go take a shower and hopefully Olivia will still be willing to take you shopping for clothes for Martha's Vineyard."

"Where are you going?" I mumble sleepily, eyeing her tennis skirt.

"I have a tennis match scheduled today with Susan. Speaking of which I need to get going.” She sits on my bed and strokes
my hair gently. "I left some money on the table for you, now don't go crazy, all right? Just the necessities.”
please."

I smile slyly. Then she tousles my hair and leaves my room. I lay there for a few more minutes, against my rnofuers ' wishes, and look around my room. gambling with how much more time I can waste until my sister comes and yells at me as well.
It's just a typical boring summer morning, the first week of August, and only weeks before school starts again. Less than five minutes later, the one and only Olivia comes in.

"What are you doing staring up at the ceiling? You really don't have a life, do you?"

She jumps on top of me and pulls my arms forward to force me to sit up. She's already dressed in navy blue short shorts and a grey tank top which makes her suntanned shoulders look a shade of darker brown.

"Go take a shower you lazy butt.

I'm leaving in ten minutes, with or without you." She hands me a towel from off my desk chair. I groan in response.
Things have definitely changed between Olivia and me. For a while, her break-up with her eternal boyfriend, Jake, was a blessing in disguise. I actually began to see my older sister more than once a month and the phone line began to be open occasionally. Heck, on some weekends she actually was sprawled on the couch in flannel pajamas watching T. V. That didn't last long of course. Then, not surprisingly, she met a guy named Trevor from New Caanan while hanging out at Nantucket with her annoying friends Steph and Lisa. Now she's in love allover again not the Jake-type love. That probably won't happen for a while, but the singing-in-the-shower type love. This time though, she is more careful about saving time to laugh and talk about boys with her little sister.

We actually have started acting more like we're related, much to the surprise of our parents and also practically everyone in the whole world.

We have gotten so close over the summer, that I finally told her about Jeff Waters. She is starting to be my idol, my example. I hope that when I'm junior, I can be as witty and gorgeous as she is. I also hope that maybe, somehow Jeff and I can be like she was with Jake. I told her this and she told me with a laugh that most guys almost are not worth all the torment girls put themselves through.

“You’re almost there, just a little farther...you can do it," Olivia shouts with mock excitement. My thoughts are back to going shopping in preparation for the trip I have been looking forward to all summer with all of my best friends.

“You aren’t in the SHOWER YET??!” I jump at my mom’s booming voice echoing up from the kitchen. I could have sworn I had heard the crunch of her black suburban on the long winding driveway.

The morning had just come too quickly.

“I thought you were supposed to be at TENNIS!” I shout back. I think I hear my mom sigh.

“Just go take a shower,” my sister says again.

And before I can resist Olivia’s orders, she slams the door behind my back.