Far From Perfect

Chapter 22

It feels like a lifetime before I finally arrive at the one place where I always feel at home no matter how old I get. I park my car by the curb and grab my duffel bag before walking up the familiar stone pathway that leads to a two-story Victorian house I know all too well. It's still painted a pastel yellow just like I remember it.

I step up to the porch and see a woman sitting on the porch swing, hunched over her latest knitting project. I drop my duffel bag on the ground, making her jump in surprise, but the moment her eyes land on mine, her hazel eyes light up.

"Alexa! Is that really you?!" my mom exclaims in disbelief and I nod. She looks just like I remembered her. Her hair is black and curly like mine, but instead of keeping her hair long, she cuts it shoulder length. She likes the way it frames her beautiful, round face. It makes her look younger than her fifty-three years even with her graying roots.

Besides her hair, I also inherited her beautiful hazel eyes and her curvy figure, but unlike me, she has her curves in all the right places. I always envied her for that growing up, but eventually, I realized that it did me no good to envy what I couldn't have, and learned to simply see my mother as the beautiful woman she is. No one compares to her in my eyes and I recognize that she looks amazing for her age, and just hope that someday I can age as well as she has.

"It's me, mom." She quickly shuffles over to me, and pulls me into the warmest mama bear hug she could give me. I close my eyes and breathe in her vanilla perfume that has been her preferred scent for as long as I can remember. Every time I smell it or anything like it, I can't help but feel like I'm at home. This scent comforts me more than she will ever know. "I missed you mom," I whisper as I sniffle from the cry fest I had on my way over to my parent's house.

"I missed you too, sweetie," she says sincerely and kisses me on the cheek.

"Pumpkin, is that you?" I hear my dad say and pull away from my mom to see him standing on the porch with his arms wide open. I don't think twice and run straight into his open arms.

He wraps his arms around me tight, reminding me of all the times he comforted me when I would come home crying from school. He saw me cry more times than I can count, and held me in his arms each and every time but never complained once. He just held me in his arms and let me cry my heart out until I couldn't cry anymore, and I love him wholeheartedly for it.

He's still the same man that held me all those years ago, the only thing that has really changed about him is his hair, which is now pewter instead of its usual black. His eyes are also a bit more wrinkled in the corners, but other than that he still looks the same and is just as handsome, if not more than he was when I last saw him.

"What's wrong, pumpkin?" my dad asks me, pulling me out of my reverie, only to realize that I had started crying again.

"Nothing," I lie and wipe my tears before pulling out of his arms that have provided me so much comfort over the years.

"Are you sure?"

"I really don't want to talk about it right now if that's okay," I whisper.

"Of course, Sweetie. We can talk about whatever you want," my mom tells me as she steps up beside me and rubs my back.

"Thanks, mom."

"Go get settled in your room and when you're ready, come back out to hang out with your old dad and I," my mom insists axnd I nod.

"That sounds good," I tell her with a half-hearted smile, grab my duffel bag, and walk inside the house that saw me grow up since I was born. Even though it's old and has a lot of imperfections after all the years we lived in it, it's the most perfect house in my eyes because there will never be any place like this lovely place I call home.