When I Grew Up
Prologue:
"What do you wanna be when you grow up?" Turning my head, I stare up at the face of my best friend.
She looks down at me with her serious brown eyes and purses her cupids-bow lips, making the sparkly lip-balm wrinkle and smear around her lips.
"I dunno something special. I wanna be… inde- idne. Independent. Like my mommy, but better." She smiles widely, her tongue poking through the gap in her front teeth, "What 'bout you." Little fingers shred a rain of daisy petals and I duteously shift and shuffle the mess away before looking down at my half-finished daisy chain.
"Hmm, I thought about it. But then I didn't, but then sometimes I wanna by a cop like daddy, but then that's real dangerous. I wanna be special too. Way better than my mommy." My little hands form pale fists around the twining daisies, crushing them sadly. Elena tries to cover her snigger behind her palm. I don't think she knows I wasn't joking.
A flutter of blonde hair and sun kissed skin twirls in our line of vision and thumps onto the green grass lightly. Her sandaled feet flick out over my crossed legs and she smiles her pageant smile at us.
"I want a good husband. One that'll pay for all the good stuff. One that'll buy me pretty jewel-ally and dresses. That's what every girl needs. Like my daddy does, but better." With twinkling blue eyes she laughs and we laugh with her, but not before we share a look. The Caroline-look. With a pity-tilted head and an over exaggerated eye roll.
And then we're joined by a tired looking Bonnie, her dark hair slicked back in two buns on each side of her head, it's pretty and I fiddle with my poorly done pigtails in envy.
"What about you Bon? What'd you wanna be when you grow up?" She sighs heavily and lifts her shoulders high before dropping them and resting her head on Elena's shoulder.
"Anything but my Grandma. She's nuts." Elena pats her head, but we all look over to where the adults twist and sway around in groups. Dressed in pretty sundresses and full of exaggerated laughter. And then to Bonnie's Grandma, who's given a wide berth, her and the Cuckoo Crew as their lovingly dubbed.
Famed for telling crazy stories and cursing Tyler Lockwood when he TP'd her house last Halloween.
But we're only ten years old. And everything's easy when you're ten. Nobody really cares what we'll be when we grow up. Maybe a princess or a fireman. We never knew what was coming. Certainly not way back when and to be perfectly honest, we barely not what's going on now.