Two Masked Hearts - ✓ #WattysShorts

One

As the rolling Virginia mountains faded into the distance, I couldn't help but cry. In the midst of a global pandemic, my world seemed to be crashing down on top of me. Here I was, cruising down 95 in my jeep—the one that my parents gave me for my 16th birthday. When I still saw love in their eyes. Even though I couldn't get my license until I was 16 and three months, the gesture was still clear: they would always be there to support me, even as I grew older and more free.

I felt anything except free now.

When fear of the pandemic swept the nation, my high school plans were derailed entirely. School was cancelled. At first there was hope of us returning, back in time for prom and graduation. I had my dress picked out since the beginning of the year. I hadn't gone my junior year because no one asked me.

This year, though, I had planned to go with a group of friends. "Screw boys!" we had said, each suffering our own forms of heartbreak. Ashley, whose boyfriend cheated on her with a beautiful Spanish girl over summer vacation. Lillian, whose boyfriend moved to Korea. Melinda, whose boyfriend was "going through a rough time" and "needed to take a break," only to be caught three days later under the bleachers with another more popular girl doing not-so-school-appropriate things. And me, who had never been loved at all.

When we started virtual classes, we kept in touch pretty well. We stayed socially distant while everything was so unclear and everyone freaked out. We would meet up in each other's driveways and sit six feet apart in a square. Eventually, we were able to walk around town in our masks, but we still couldn't hang out like we used to.

Then my parents came to me with a dilemma. I had two options: I could risk going to college and having a sub-par experience, or I could defer my enrollment for a year. After long, arduous debates at dinner, I decided I wanted to take a gap year. I had been so excited to be attending the University of Mary Washington, the school of my dreams. But having a better college experience with the freedom to attend social events and classes without a mask on seemed very much worth waiting out the year. There was no promise of a vaccine within the next year, so I decided to take my chances. I stood by my decision, but now all of my friends were in college, and I was stuck at home.

I felt myself slowly crumbling away. I was envious of my friends off starting new lives, while I was at home doing absolutely nothing with myself. We promised we would stay in touch, but that was never going to happen. We all led separate lives now that only intersected when one of us remembered the past. I dwelled in it. I was stuck in it, forever frozen in the moment right before I would have gone to college. Not to mention the inescapable turmoil at home between my parents.

My world was quickly becoming an avalanche, and I needed to stop it.

So here I was, on my way to our beach house in North Carolina. Nobody wanted to rent it because of the risk of catching COVID. So it was empty.

And it was the perfect place for me to get my life back on track.