Present

My dad was my savior. He got me though a lot of things. He came and picked me up at least once a week for the rest of the third grade. Turns out Mackenzie's (and sometimes Mom's) naptime came around the time she was supposed to pick me up from school. Mom vowed she'd never forget again but she did, at least once a week until May rolled around and I got out of school.

He got me through the fifth grade when we first learned about human reproduction. I asked him questions I couldn't ask my teacher (she was 70 years old and she got mad every time we laughed at the word penis… I mean we were ten, come on.). Unfortunately eight days after my eleventh birthday they told me I was getting another sibling. It left me cringing as I thought about what my parents had to do to make my second sibling.

After Mackenzie turned three, we found out it was another girl. Cassandra Lucille Bolton. She was born on January 8th of 2010. Cass, as I dubbed her, was going to be a trouble maker. I could already tell, just from the day she was born. Let's just say mom was in labor for three days before Cass decided to make her appearance. I loved both of my sisters equally but Cass took the role as 'annoying little sister.' Mac was calmer, nicer. They both had big personalities that I love so much.

Dad got promoted at work just as a graduated the eighth grade. He still worked a lot but his hours were more flexible. Since I was starting my freshman year of high school, I wanted to play Basketball in the fall and Baseball in the spring. Good grades came natural to me, it was etched in my DNA by my mom.


October 15, 2012

Today was my first basketball tryout. Dad was coming in to watch. I was really nervous. Dad was the MVP and captain for three years when he went here. I got out of school, running over to the locker room. I changed into some shorts and a shirt. Dad assured me I would be fine because he's been working with me all summer.

I was waiting outside of the gym when I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Hey Bud."

I looked up at my dad. "Hey."

"You're early." He said, looking inside the open door.

"I'm nervous." I said, fidgeting my hands.

"How many times do I have to tell you you'll be fine? Do you love basketball?" He asked me.

"Yes." I said confidently.

"Do you want to play?" He asked again.

"Yes."

"Think of it like this: Whether you sit on the bench on Varsity or start JV, you will get better every day, every practice, every game. If you work 110 percent every time you step onto that court and be the best player that you can, that's all that matters. Wins are something that comes along with practice and team work. You have to play like you're playing your last game." Dad said, looking at me.

I nodded, taking a breath. "Okay."

"Now go out there and play your heart out kid." He said, patting my back firmly.

"Should I go in there now?" I asked him.

He chuckled. "Yes, go."

I ran in there and walked up to the coach. "Hey Coach Riggs, I'm Andrew Bolton." My eyes flicked over to my dad who was walking up the stands.

"Ah, Andrew Bolton. I've heard a lot about you. It's nice to meet you." He said, giving me a firm hand shake. "I'll be watching you."

I gave him a stiff nod. As if I wasn't nervous enough. I walked over to a couple of other guys who were in the gym already. One of my best friends caught up with me. It was Gary Roberts. After I apologized for punching him out in the second grade, we became civil. We were stuck in Spanish 2 together in seventh grade and I helped him out a little bit. Turns out he was a big basketball fan, just like I was. We just got closer and now I considered him one of my best friends along with Colton Watson. Colton was more into baseball than basketball.

I glanced up at my dad again and he was watching me. I let out a deep breath as coach blew his whistle. We had to line up. We played a shirts vs. skins game against each other after we warmed up and did some drills. It was pretty fun, the guys were all really cool.

After tryouts were over we all headed over to the locker room and got showered. The returning players had a little meeting afterward. I got dressed in regular clothes and grabbed all my stuff. I walked out over to my dad. He patted my back as we walked over the car quietly.

We got in. "How do you think you did?" Dad asked me.

"I think I did well. It was really fun when we got going." I said, looking at him.

He grinned. "Good. I told you that you would be fine."

"Thanks dad." I said, sighing. "I'm starving."

"We'll be home soon." Dad said, driving home.

We got home and I got out of the car. I grabbed my bags and walked inside our house. After Cass was born we moved into a bigger house. My room was on the far side of the house. The girls' bedrooms were near my parents room. I walked up through the living room to my room. I walked down the stairs into the kitchen.

"Andy!" Mac ran over to me. I picked her up.

"Hey Mackie." I gave her a tight hug. "Hey ma." I said, kissing her cheek.

"Hey." Mom said, distractedly, kissing the air in my direction.

"Hey Cass." I said as I set down Mac. I walked over to my youngest sister, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "How's my little monkey?"

"Nany," She said, reaching over, gripping my ear.

"Ow, Cass." I tickled her belly lightly and she giggled, letting go.

Mom walked over, sitting down to feed Cass. "How was try outs?"

"It went good." I said, sitting Mac on my lap.

"He did great baby." Dad said, walking in, planting a kiss on my moms lips. He leaned over and kissed Cass' head. "Hi Cassie girl."

"Daddy!" Mac reached out for him.

"Hi Mackie." He picked her off of my lap, giving her a kiss too. "You gotta finish your homework after dinner." Dad reminded me.

"I will." I said, getting up. "I'll go start it until dinner's done."

"Alright." Mom called after me as I went up the stairs.


Present

I made the basketball team. It was only JV but I was happy to be playing. They pulled me up to Varsity for the last couple of games. It was a good learning experience and Dad was really proud of me. I kept up with my homework easily and when spring came around I made the baseball team too. Sports were my life until the middle of basketball season sophomore year. I was on Varsity but I barely played.

I met the new girl, Audrey Reynolds. I swore I fell in love instantly with her long blonde hair and her pretty green eyes. We talked everyday in our English class we had together. I finally got the courage to ask her to the Winter formal and she said yes. Two weeks after formal, I asked her to be my girlfriend.


June 5, 2014

Yesterday was my last day of sophomore year. I turned 16 a couple days ago and got my learners permit. Dad was teaching me how to drive when he could. They even bought me a used car for my 16th birthday. I had to wait a couple more months to drive it. I wasn't sure what I was going to be up to this summer but I had a girlfriend and I couldn't wait to spend more time with her.

Just thinking about Audrey made me smile like an idiot. I really liked her. She was smart, pretty, and nice. She laughed at all my stupid jokes. She was my first kiss. The first girl that I actually considered choosing over sports. I didn't though. Dad would kill me. He gave me really good advice about dating and taking her nice places.

He told me about his first date with my mom. He took her on a picnic in the park with pizza and chocolate covered strawberries. I wanted to recreate that to have our first real date. I'd been prepping this for weeks because the date was today. I made sure I had everything I needed when the doorbell rang.

"I got it!" I called out to my dad who had the day off today. We were home with the girls while mom was at work. I walked over to the door and opened it. "Hey." I said with a confused smile. It was Audrey.

"Hey Andrew, can I come in for a second?" She asked me.

I nodded. "Sure." I let her in, closing the door behind her. "Our date isn't until later."

"I know, I was just- I need to-" She sighed. "We need to talk."

"Do you want to sit?" I asked, motioning over to the couch.

She shook her head. "I can't, I have to go soon."

"Okay." I said slowly.

"I'm sorry, but I think we should break up." I blinked at her. "I like you Andrew, I do. I think we're more of friends than boyfriend and girlfriend… you know? You're like a brother." She said.

"But-" I cut myself off, closing my mouth. "I really like you Audrey."

She frowned. "I'm so sorry Andrew. Maybe we could be friends still?" She offered. I stood there, dumbfounded. I didn't know what to say or what to do. I was really hurt. "I'm sorry. I guess I should go now."

I just watched her walk out the door, closing it behind her. "Who was that?" Dad asked, walking down the stairs with four year old Cass in his arms.

"Audrey." I said, looking over at him.

"Audrey? I thought you were going out later?" Dad said.

"We aren't going out anymore." I said, letting out a breath.

"How come?" He asked, setting Cassandra down.

"Because she came to break up with me." I said, looking up at him. "I'll be outside." I said, walking past them out to the basketball court in the backyard. I picked up the basketball on the concrete and slammed it down against the ground. I dribbled the ball roughly and took a shot. The ball bounced off the hoop and bounced away.

That happened four more times until I got frustrated enough to kick the ball over the fence. I let out a groan in frustration and walked over to the fence. I peaked over to see our neighbor, Mr. Hensley, cleaning the pool. "Hey Andrew." He said, fishing the ball out of the water.

"Hi Mr. Hensley." I said, looking over at him. "Sorry about the basketball."

"No problem." He said, picking the ball up. "Bad day?" He asked, walking over to me.

"Yeah." He tossed me the ball and I caught it. "Bye Mr. Hensley."

"Bye Andrew." He called after me. I tossed the wet ball over by the hoop and walked inside.

I went up to my room and laid on my bed. "Hey bud." I just sighed. "Mackie just left for Christina's house and Cassie just went down for a nap." He took a seat next to me.

"Love sucks." I said, sadly.

"I know it does." He said looking over at me. "But this was your first girlfriend, you'll have many more girlfriends in your lifetime, son. You're still young."

"I know, but it still sucks."

"I remember the first time I was heart broken. My freshman year of high school. I was going out with a senior girl. She was really pretty but she was just messing with me. I was very gullible when I was your age. I had braces for the gap between my front teeth. I didn't have bad acne but my hair was long. I kind of looked like a girl." Dad said, making me laugh a little bit. "But I grew out of my awkward looks. I got my braces off and worked out all summer. I forgot about that girl and moved on."

I sighed to myself. "Can I sulk for a day or two?"

"No, son. When your mom gets home, I'm going to take you to the gym." He said. "You are going to work your ass off this summer."

I looked at him, horrified. "Why?"

"Because you see those varsity boys. You need to bulk up son, not just for basketball, for baseball too. I'm counting on you to lead the team in homeruns this year." Dad said, looking over at me.

"No pressure or anything." I said, sarcastically.

My dad chuckled. "You'll be fine son. I know you can do it."


Present day

I ended up working out all summer. My abs, arms, and legs were defined. I was much stronger and more athletic. It showed when I dominated in both basketball and baseball. I forgot all about Audrey and how she hurt me. The pain went away and I was more focused on school.

Dad was right, of course. I had many other girlfriends. I broke up with most of them for some reason or another. I guess that's what high school was about. Not exactly finding yourself but getting you on the path to doing that. Realizing the different types of people in the world and learning how to adapt to them all.

The longest girlfriend I had was senior year. Her name was Erica Olivera. Thinking back she was the complete opposite of Audrey. She was tanned, shorter, short brown hair and chocolately eyes that weirdly reminded me of my mom. She was a great girl but we were heading off to college and we knew we wouldn't make it though. She was going to an Ivy league and I wasn't sure exactly where I was going yet.

I had multiple scholarship offers just for being the valedictorian. I had scholarship offers for basketball and baseball and all three. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stick to one sport of play both. I had a lot of decisions to make in a little amount of time. Dad sat me down though. We had a talk, not about baseball, not about basketball but what I wanted to do after I graduated.

It really put things in perspective for me. I knew I had two years to change my mind. Did I want to be an engineer like my parents were? Did I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a Politian, a professional athlete? I had no idea. I didn't want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a Politian or a professional athlete. I established computer engineering as my major.

I just needed to pick a school. My top two choices were MIT and Berkeley. I decided on Berkeley because it was closer to home. Once I got to California I was a little homesick. I quickly made friends and felt a little better. It was interesting living in a dorm; thankfully my roommate Alan and I got along well.


October 5, 2016

Alan's alarm clock was going off and I was about to throw my pillow at it, it was so annoying. I got up and looked at the time. Shit, I was late for class. I hopped up and got changed quickly. I looked around my dorm for my books, finding the ones that I need. I walked over to Alan who was sleeping. I smacked his arm.

"Wake up, Alan, you're going to be late." I said, pulling my shoes on.

"Fuck off, Bolton." He grumbled.

I laughed, shaking my head. His loss. I picked up my backpack and walked out the door. I went down to the cafeteria and got a quick breakfast. I was already late to my first lecture so I was running uphill across campus to make sure I didn't miss anymore than I had to. I looked up at the sky because I swore I felt a rain drop.

I heard a soft grunt when I ran into somebody in front of me. "Oh shit." I said, trying to catch whoever I had ran into. The girl in front of me had dropped her biology book. She kept one hand on the ground because I was holding the other up. "I'm so sorry."

She laughed quietly. "I'm so clumsy, I'm sorry." I helped her up. "God I'm so late." She said, reaching down to get her book. A couple papers flew out of the book.

I ran after them, stopping them before they got to far. I looked at the name on the paper, Maya. I met up with Maya and handed her back her papers. "Here you go Maya." She just looked at me confused. "Your name was on the paper." I said awkwardly.

Maya laughed again. "Oh, I was like how do you know my name? I just bumped into you." She had a pretty smile.

"I'm Andrew, by the way." I said, holding out the last paper.

"Thank you for getting my papers, Andrew." She said. "I'm Maya, but you already knew that, I guess."

I smiled at her. "What's your major?"

"I'm undecided." She said with a soft sigh. "I was thinking about pre-med but do I really want to go to school for ten years. Then I was thinking about Marketing and accounting because I'm pretty good at math."

I chuckled. "I know the feeling. That's how I was when I was picking colleges. I'm an engineering major. I'm probably going to shift into more IT engineering though, like computers and stuff."

She tilted her head. "What made you decide that?"

"I don't think I'd make a good doctor, or lawyer, or teacher, or anything else." I said, laughing. "My parents are engineers and I like computers."

"My mom is a self proclaimed artist, she's a little crazy but I love her. My dad builds cars. It's like night and day. I didn't really have something to look up to when I declared undecided." I watched her talk, then push her hair back. "I'll figure it out. I talked to my 'guidance counselor' like six times since I got here. Everybody in her office knows me. You know what sucks? She has been no help. She gives me pamphlets. PAMPHLETS. What the hell am I supposed to do with a folded up piece of paper?"

I chuckled, shaking my head. "Man, do you have those pamphlets?"

"I do actually." She said, walking over to a near by table. We took a seat at the table and she dug through her backpack. She pulled out a bunch of pamphlets.

"You weren't kidding were you?" I asked, taking the pamphlets from her. "Molecular and cell biology?" I asked, flipping through the papers.

"I didn't pick all of them." She defended.

"Okay, lets narrow it down. How do you feel about biology?" I asked her.

"I hate biology." She said with a small laugh.

"Okay, no biology." I took all of them out. "Mass communications?"

"it has potential." She said with a shrug. "Keep creative writing too, ooh and Economics."

I chuckled. She was picking some random ones. "Alright… Liberal Arts?"

"Eh, keep it in there." She said, peaking over to get a look too. "Ooh, media studies! I can be a weather girl. This is Maya Lowry with the channel five news. There's a big cold front coming down through the Contra Costa county."

"Wouldn't that be meteorology?" I asked, chuckling at her weathergirl impression.

"Fuck." She said breathlessly. "I don't know. Why is real life so hard?" She asked pouting, she put her head down on the table.

"I think you'd be a great weathergirl." I said, encouragingly. "Psychology?" She sighed in response. "Sociology."

"Yeah." She said her voice muffled.

"Theatre, dance, and performing arts?" I asked her.

"I guess that could be useful." She said sitting back up. Her cheeks were a little rosy.

"And last but not least; Woman's studies."

"Ew, no. I hate women." She said.

I chuckled. "You are a woman."

"I know, how pathetic am I?" I felt my phone vibrating. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I stared at it for a minute. "You can take that, I'll recycle these."

I watched her get up and I answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Andy, I'm sick."

I frowned. "The birthday girl can't be sick."

"Daddy said I might miss my party. Are you sure you can't come?" Mac said, adding a wet cough.

I frowned even more. "I'm sorry Big Mac. I'll try to make it, okay? You just need to focus on getting better. Did dad take you to the doctors?"

"Yes, they said I just have a cold, but I feel like poop." She said, coughing again.

"Are you with Dad?" I asked her.

"Yeah," She said. "Do you want to talk to him?"

"Yes, please, quickly." I said. I watched Maya argue with somebody as she tried to put the papers in the recycling bin.

"Andrew?"

"Dad, I think I met the girl of my dreams. She's amazing dad." I said, with a sigh.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?" He asked me.

"Yes, but I'm not." Maya threw her hands up in frustration and handed the pamphlets to the person and stalked back over to me.

"You know you're supposed to be in class. I really want to hear about this girl now, but Cassie wants to talk to you." Dad said.

"Love you dad." I said before he handed the phone over to Cass.

"HI ANDY." She screamed on the phone.

I made a face and moved the phone away from my ear. "Hi Cass. Why aren't you at school? You're going to get sick."

"Daddy said is not outrageous."

"Do you mean contagious?"

"Yeah. What are you doing?" She asked me.

"I'm at school Cass, I have to go."

"Why?"

"Because I have to go to class."

"But why?"

"Cassandra."

"Fine. Love you Andrew."

"I love you too. Bye." I said hanging up the phone. I let out a deep breath.

"Girlfriend?" She asked, putting the pamphlets back in her bag.

I shook my head. "No girlfriend. That was my sister. I have two. The older one is going to be ten in a couple days, but she's sick. That was the younger one, she's seven. She's very obnoxious." I flipped through my phone and showed her a picture of the three of us.

"The older one looks more like you. There eyes are pretty." She noted, taking a closer look.

"Our dad is their biological dad." I explained. "They look more like him than me and my mom."

"Oh." She said nodding. "I'm an only child, but we do have four cats. They're kind of like siblings." She said.

I chuckled. "That's pretty cool." I said, watching her play on my phone.

"Is this your dad?" She asked, showing me a picture of my dad. I nodded. "I'm sorry but he is hot."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you into older men?"

She just laughed. "I dated a 24 year old once. All he wanted was sex. I kind of lead him on so he could put in my sound system for free. He worked at Best Buy."

"So you're one of those girls?" I asked her. "You like to play with people?"

She looked over at me and shook her head. "Nah, I mean, he knew I wasn't giving it up. But man did he try. I haven't found someone worth settling down for."

I nodded, understanding. "Me and my ex broke up for college. She's in New York somewhere. We weren't that serious."

"I haven't been in a relationship in… two years." She said with a slight smile. "I'm too weird for people."

"You think you're weird?" I asked her, she nodded. "Somebody just argued with you about recycling a piece of paper. You're not that weird."

She smiled at me. "That's because I haven't unleashed the full weird on you yet."

"Go ahead, lay it on me." I said, spreading my arms out. She rolled her eyes, turning back to my phone in her hands. I looked down in my backpack and I heard her take a picture. "Are you taking pictures of me?"

"Nope."

I looked over at her. "What time is it anyway?"

"8:50." She said, looking over at me. "My class is almost over."

I laughed. "Mine is too."

"I think this was much better than class."

I nodded in agreement. "So do I." She slid over my phone and I picked it up. I turned on the lock screen on my phone and it was a funny picture of Maya's face up close. I burst out laughing. "That is terrifying."

"That better still be your screen when I run into you again." She said seriously.

I laughed. "Alright, I guess I'll keep it."


I might finish this today... one more chapter left! Don't forget to review!