F***in' Arizona

Straight from The Horse's Mouth Pt. 3 (Chapter 8)

Ari's P.O.V:
2012-May

"UCLA HERE I COME!!!" I yell after walking to my car with all of my family after the high school graduation.

I was so happy to have all of my immediate and extended family here to celebrate my accomplishment. My family was so excited about all the scholarship money I was awarded and all of the accolades I received. I honestly think my parents were just excited that they weren't going to have to spend a dime on anything.

"Son, your mother and I are real proud of you. You are a smart and talented young man and you get it all from me," my dad says laughing.

"Thanks dad."

"UCLA huh? That's a pretty big school and city, little bother. You think you're ready to be that far away from home?" Dakota asks me.

"Ready?! I've been ready and preparing for this for the past year!"

"You're so lucky you've graduated. I'm so ready to get out of here," Georgia says to me.

My little sister is only in the tenth grade and hates school. She's smart as a whip, we all are, but she's more into school clubs than she is homework. She's a bit of an introvert and not really "into" people.

Dakota graduated two years before me and is currently in college, also in California, at medical school to become a pediatrician. He loves kids and will probably have a billion of them.
Apparently, he's been semi talking to some girl that he won't tell any of us much about. He says, "just in case it doesn't pan out to be anything more than what we are now, I won't bothering telling you much about her." I think he met her at school, I'm not really sure, but I do know that he's been a lot happier lately. Hopefully, things work out for him in the love department.

Montana (Hannah as an occasional nickname), our oldest sibling and five years older than Dakota, currently lives in South America teaching English at a middle school. She loves her job and she loves living in a different country. She got married a few months ago to another teacher at her middle school, Rakim is his name. He's this cute Brazilian guy. I've only met him a handful of times, but he seems to be taking care of my big sister. They seem to be genuinely happy.

"I can't believe almost all of the Matthews kids are out of high school. Won't be long till the rest of you are married and all of us with kids," Montana says smiling and snapping off-guard pictures of me.

"Hey, don't get ahead of yourself Hannah. I'm not trying to have kids anytime soon. I just left high school," I say.

"Kids are gross. Teenagers are even worse," Georgia complains.

"Sweetie, you are a teenager," my mom states the obvious, laughing.

"And that's how I know they are the worst, mom."

"You kids cut it out and let's go celebrate your brother. Today is his day," my dad settles us.

"Yeah, today is my day so let's celebrate me," I say grinning.

I can't believe that after today, my life will never be the same.

*A few months later at UCLA*

"Hey babe, how's UCLA treating you so far?" Charlie says to me over FaceTime during one of our many conference call "dates".

I was hanging out in my dorm a few weeks after the semester had started. So far, Charlie and I call each other every night and of course text each other every day. I was already missing him like crazy. I won't get to see him again until fall break when he plans on coming to visit me here.