BARELY ✓

1: The Meet Cute

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NEW YORK CITY

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        KARA's POV:

"I can't believe you're getting married to a man you barely even know, you've only known him for 3 months!" I said, stomping off to the kitchen with my dirty plates.

"But I've never felt this way before, honey. This time it's for real, I just know it," mom followed right behind me.

"That's what you said about the last-- I don't know how many men, Lacey."

"You're walking on thin ice right now Kara. And I am not Lacey, I'm your mother." She said sternly.

Yeah maybe I'll call you that when you start acting like one, I thought to myself, but I wouldn't say it out loud of course. No matter how much I disagreed with my mom's decision to get married— I would not hurt her feelings like that.

Mom was only 16 when she had me. She had to drop out of high school to become a single mother. My father was never around from the beginning. He'd sent checks from time to time, but he had never appeared in my life.

Since then, she struggled to raise me on her own in New York City. Mom managed to get her GED and attended college, and eventually she became a flight attendant. I learned many things from watching my mother's life story. Number One: I must be a strong and independent woman who could stand on her own two feet. And Two: men cannot be trusted. Period.

My mom had many, many boyfriends. She had dated doctors, lawyers, bankers, waiters, personal trainers, married doctors, married lawyers— you name it. I couldn't keep track. But none of these men ended up staying around. And watching so many men broke my mother's heart so many times, I had made a decision; I focused myself in my schooling and vowed to practice abstinence until marriage.

I believed I made the right choice. I graduated as valedictorian from the prestigious Stuyvesant high school, earned a full ride to Columbia University, and I never got my heart broken— not even once.

Funnily enough, I thought that I would be able to spend my last summer before college peacefully with my mom. I thought of getting a part time job to make some extra cash, I thought of visiting the library, or maybe the museums or watching some Broadway play. But all that plan went down the toilet when Lacey suddenly announced that she was getting hitched to a man named Peter, whom she met while on a layover in Hawaii. 

I only knew three things about this Peter guy. One: he's a widowed man in his mid 40s. Two: he owns a business down in Hawaii— something related to boats. And three: he has a son.

"Mom, are you sure about this? I mean, I get that you date a lot. But this is a marriage, not just some Sunday picnic at Central Park."

"Kara, baby," she said, taking my hand. "I know my track record hasn't been very clean. And I know you're worried about me. But honey, I have been waiting for sooo long for a man like Peter to come into my life. He makes me very, very happy."

I looked at the sincerity in my mother's face. My heart gave up. Like it or not, my mother was the only family I ever had. I knew I had to support my mom's decision, no matter what.

"So you're really gonna get married, in August?" I said finally with a defeated sigh.

"Yup. It's gonna be a sweet little wedding in Hawaii, just some family and friends."

"And you're moving to live with him there?"

"Yes."

"Which means, when I go back to New York for college in September, I'll be living on my own?"