It's always just been me and Mom since I could remember. Her parents kicked her out when she was sixteen because a) she was pregnant with me and b) she wouldn't get an abortion. I say that's pretty messed up but, unlike them, I actually have a sense of morality and family loyalty. I'd only met my mom's parents like once, but it was enough for me to know where I wasn't wanted. As to my dad's family, well I'd never even met him so meeting any of his relatives was clearly out of the question.
I used to dream that one day my dad would come back but one can only take so much disappointment so I gave up on that hope by the time I was six. I didn’t want a dad that didn’t want me. Besides, I had my mom and I was fine with it being just the two of us.
Mom and I were really close. She taught me how to swim before I could even walk so both of us did aquatic activities together nonstop. She's amazing. Mom would've gone to the Olympics if she hadn't gotten pregnant when she was only a year older than I am now. She was an excellent swimmer and sometimes I wished that she hadn’t had me so early so she’d have been able to live her dream.
The day started out like any normal day. When I woke up before dawn, Mom was already gone. I hauled ass to get ready and raced down the beach. "What the hell?" I bitched, paddling out on my surfboard to meet her. "You couldn't have waited for me?"
"Ya snooze, ya loose," she drawled in her deep Southern accent. I was lucky enough to have most of her looks- athletic build, curly auburn hair, clear skin with freckles, and instead of her crystal blue eyes mine were sea green- but not her accent. My voice was more California than Okie, but I still was mostly a country girl at heart. Huh, surf meets country.
The waves were awesome and we surfed and swam until the December California sun poked over the horizon. That was when Mom made me get my butt in gear and get ready for school. I ran back home and got a quick shower and threw on some jeans and a T-shirt. I pinned my reddish-brown curls back with my lucky barrette- it was light blue with white waves etched into it. I munched on a banana when I got back to the kitchen. Mom was there with her newest boyfriend, Trevor, a guy that I couldn’t stand.
“’Morning, Naida.”
“Hi,” I said deadpan. Mom gave me a look but didn’t say anything on my rudeness.
"Do you have your suit?" she asked instead
"Yes, mother," I sighed. My mom usually acted more like she was my age but she did have her moments of being the grown up.
She glared at me. "You're swim meet is this afternoon and I'd rather not have to leave work early to get your crap. And I'd really rather you not swim in your birthday suit, Naida."
I rolled my eyes. "I've got it all under control. I'll see you this afternoon at the meet."
I threw my backpack over my shoulder and marched out the door. My mom followed me and I had a bad feeling that she was in total Mom-mode. “Did you have to have that attitude?”
“I don’t see why you put up with that douche,” I snapped. “He’s just another scumbag and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I like him and he likes me.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly the best judge when it comes to guys. I mean, the first guy you were with knocked you up and then bailed like a typical deadbeat.”
My mother’s face went pale so her millions of freckles stood out against the white and I knew that I should have apologized. I knew that my father was a sore subject for her but I couldn’t help my raging temper. I hated fighting with my mom like that but we were both too proud to call a truce to our argument. When we were mad at each other, it was best just to avoid each other until the waters cleared a little. I turned on my heel and started off to school without another word.
The school wasn't too far from our beachfront house, but it still sucked to walk. We didn't have a car because we moved a lot so Mom didn't really save much before we were leaving town. Plus, our beach house cost what little fortune we had. It was pretty awesome though so I couldn't complain.
I didn't have time to talk with any of my friends from swim team when I got to school. I had to rush straight to English, my worst subject. It sucked because I had some serious dyslexia- it was weird, though, because numbers weren't hard for me at all like they were for other dyslexic kids I’d met. But other than being dyslexic, the teacher was an old hag that bored me to death. Boring plus my ADHD equaled short attention span and not learning crap in that class.
"Partner up now, children," Ms. Jonston said the moment the bell rang. "Start discussing last night's reading in your pairs before we go over it as a class."
"Shit," I muttered under my breath.
"Didn't do it?" my partner guessed. His name was Grover. He was short for a high school guy and kind of gangly. His face was covered in acne and he had a bit of a goatee growing. Grover had to use crutches to walk and for some reason he always wore a red baseball cap over his curly brown hair.
"Of course not," I answered. "There were too many words and the print was too small. It got all jumbled up together and I couldn't make sense out of any of it."
"I'll just give you a summary then. It went over all the major Greek gods and goddesses plus gave their Roman names. If nothing else, you should at least know the three main gods."
I scrunched up my nose trying to remember anything about Greek Mythology. “Okay, so Zeus is the lightning dude and Hades is the guy in charge of dead guys, right?”
“Yeah. How’d you know that if you didn’t read the book?”
I grinned. “Disney. Those were like the only gods in the Hercules movie. Then there was that old movie about the boat that flipped over, The Poseidon Adventure which means Poseidon is the god of water or something. And the Roman names were named after the planets, right?”
“Planets were named after the gods,” Grover corrected.
“Whatever. Anyway, Neptune is Poseidon, right? That’s the mermaid guy on Spongebob so I’d assume so.”
Grover laughed. “Well that’s one way to remember the three most powerful gods.”
I rolled my eyes. "I don't really see how studying this myth stuff is really part of English. Who cares about some gods and goddesses acting jealous and petty and just like regular human beings? You could study high schoolers and get the same results. Except we don’t throw the world into complete chaos when we have temper tantrums."
"Uh-huh. Just keep thinking that, Naida. See where that gets you."
I rolled my eyes again and tried to take notes while he told me about the rest of the gods and goddesses in the first chapter of Edith Hamilton's Mythology book.