Retrace the Lines

Quinn

~ 7 years later ~

I fiddle with the volume of the car radio as a melancholy song fills the Camaro. A fitting match to my current mood. Sighing as I stare out the window, my vision starts to blur from the continual stream of pine trees racing past. The soft sound of my mother's hums unwittingly soothes me, as her head moves to the beat of the song.

A faded wooden sign catches my eye. We're only a few miles away from Mapleton - my home for the next few months.

I unwind my wavy ginger hair and proceed to plait it, my fingers slightly shaking as I do so.

"You can't ignore me forever, Quinn darling."

I turn to my mother, who looks poised and sharp, her clean-cut pantsuit unwrinkled and the fresh highlights in her hair catching the light. A blinding ray of sun peers out from a passing tree and I turn back to the window, as if her words had never been uttered.

She emits a languorous sigh, and begins to tap on the steering wheel, her sharp nails biting into the leather.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

For the last week I've been carefully avoiding her, too angry to even be in the same room for too long.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Will you stop that?" I bite.

She raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me.

"Darling, we've been over this." I can tell she is keeping herself from rolling her eyes. "I'm sorry that we can't take you to Greece but it's simply not an event you bring your children to."

This line has been repeated to me so many times over the last few weeks that I practically recite it in my head as she says it.

"It's a wedding." I fire back. "And you know that it's not about Greece. I'm just so sick of you and dad abandoning me, speeding off to some distant country and leaving me behind any time you please." 

I'm not usually this blunt, but something about the stuffy car combined with the impending end to the drive brings it out of me. 

The tapping stops. Now she's angry.

"We're not abandoning you, Quinn. You're going to have a great summer and I promise that next time you can travel with us. Just please, stop being so angry and childish." Her tone is sharp, putting me on edge.

Imagine the gorgeous coasts of Greece. Picture reading next to the crystal clear ocean, tanning all day and dancing all night.

Now visualise herding rowdy kids around in canoes in a muddy lake. Doesn't quite compare, does it?

"It's hard not to be angry when you shipped me off to summer camp without even asking. You've taken me away from all my friends in my summer before senior year." I cross my arms.

She sighs, turning back to the road. She's heard my spiel one too many times. "You have your uncle, you won't be completely alone. And you're a social girl, you'll make friends! By the end of summer, you'll have a whole new outlook on summer camp." She smiles.

"Being a camp counsellor is character building." She nods self-importantly.

Character building? This is ironic coming from the woman whose idea of self-improvement lately is taking a quiz in the latest Cosmo and giving up wine for a night.

She hasn't always been this shallow, though.

A few years ago, the company she works for promoted her and transferred her to their corporate sector.