It was just a thought.

I didn't even want to go in the first place. Partially because I'm that kid. You know the one. I'm that kid who doesn't want to do something simply because they were expected to do it. I was the kid who cried and pleaded to go home while at the circus for the very first time. I was the kid who whined and complained at every picnic, park, beach, pool, arcade, concert, you name it. If it was fun, I hated every second of it. Plus by that time, I was nearly sixteen years old, I had a boyfriend named Ryan, and like every silly teenage girl "in love," anywhere Ryan was not was simply tragic. So tragic that I sobbed-sobbed-when my parents told me we were going to Florida for two weeks. Yes, I'm a drama queen. I am a recovering teenage girl and I must admit that it has been quite the struggle to shake all of the Scarlett O'Harra woe-is-me nonsense out of my head. I still sob when I'm "starving to death" and a stupid old Mercury cuts me off at the entrance to the Burger King drive-thru line, and I'm a grown up now. You can only imagine me, at the prime of my "princess" years, having to let go of my "soul mate" for two, excruciatingly long weeks. Even though Ryan was my "boyfriend" it wasn't as though I could actually talk to him outside of church. My mother was beyond confusing. She thought it unfit for a girl to ever call a boy as calling was the man's job. However, when I asked if Ryan could call me, the answer was a rehearsed, resounding "no." However, she allowed me to call Ryan the night before we left so I could say goodbye (this is seriously how dramatic I was, I needed to say goodbye before I left on a vacation for-a year? That's what you'd think right? No, for two weeks.) With tears seeping through the cracks and holes in the cordless phone I held shakily against my red, puffy face, I managed to hiccup a goodbye through the unsteady sobs huffing out of me. I know Mom really did have good intentions for that trip, I know it because she even bought me a track phone with a minutes card so I could call Ryan. You can only imagine how bizarre that was of her, how truly unselfishly nice it was of her. I know she wanted that trip to Florida to be good, I know that. Maybe that's why it went so horribly wrong. The trip just cracked under the pressure, and then my mom you know, stomped through the cracks to watch it completely shatter.
       It was barely morning when we all seven piled half-sleeping into the black Dodge Caravan complete with a DVD player, a rocket box on top to store some of our luggage, bags upon bags of snacks: sandwiches, Goldfish, cookies, Cheerios, fruit snacks, peeled and sliced apples, granola bars, juice, water bottles, cereal, anything and everything you need to occupy four children and a baby. We set out in the pitch dark of Kansas, all dreading the eighteen hour, non-stop trip to Florida. Are you surprised we all seven drove eighteen hours in a hot, cramped, unbearably loud minivan instead of flying? That's the other reason I didn't want to go to Disney World: we were flat broke. It was the summer of 2007 and over the past year, my parents had sold our house in Pennsylvania, took us out of public school (again,) gave up a steady income, and moved us to Kansas to become missionaries. That means no income. That means no money. Most people save their money when they see it rapidly dwindling in their bank account, they don't spend an excessive amount on frivolous family vacations. We were barely making it by, and not without the number of worry-lines on Andy's face impetuously increasing with each click on that spiteful little Account Balance button. My parents' marriage was really only good for the first oh, I don't know, six of the ten years? Andy, being the epitome of a good guy wanted to do everything in his power to make things work between he and my mom and if that meant clearing out all the accounts, leaving behind mere pocket change and cobwebs, to take the family on the elaborate vacation my mother assured him would be the glue that kept us all together, he would do so but not without a tense jaw and many sleepless nights. The ignorant bliss that comforted me the majority of my childhood was no longer and I had become very aware of the financial crisis my family had fallen into. That being said, the thought of going to Disney World was not that of child-like excitement, but a quite mature one woven of worry and uneasiness that left my legs unwilling to carry myself out the screen door early that brisk morning, but inevitably, I did. I don't remember much of that car ride to Florida, and praise God for it. I'm sure it was like every other excruciatingly long car ride, with noise so mind-numbing it truly makes you black it all out. I remember when we finally got to Florida though. It was so amazing; I had never seen palm trees before and now I looked out the tinted windows of the minivan we never opened (who needed to with air conditioning?) and saw them bending down over us as we drove beneath them, and I feel so lame saying this, but I felt so rich looking up at them. It's so silly, but I thought, if we were truly poor, we wouldn't be looking at palm trees right now. It makes absolutely no sense because poverty is everywhere, certainly in parts of Florida, and many people make their homes beneath those palm trees and fall asleep looking up through those vibrant green palms every night. Seeing palm trees doesn't make anyone rich, that I know, but at that point, logic didn't matter, and at that point, for the first time in months, I felt comfort; I felt rich. We pulled up to the hotel in the just-running-in-real-fast lane right by the huge revolving glass doors welcomed with a giant Mickey Mouse door mat and Mom got out of the passenger seat with her purse on her arm and her planner in her hand, stuffed full of confirmation forms printed off the home computer and folded up inside her trusty planner. She slammed the door shut and strutted past the bellboy where she disappeared within the enormous granite building. We all waited impatiently inside the minivan, all of us wriggling and writhing, itching to get up and out, seeing fresh air and space and suddenly becoming very desperate for both. After what felt like an eternity, Mom came back out with a parking pass and we all went to park and unload the van, and in the parking garage is where we were all finally liberated from that automotive cage and were able to get the feeling in our legs and butts back. I remember the foyer of that hotel was exquisite. The floors were marble with an enormous Mickey Mouse glittering on the tiles. The lights seemed to make everything sparkle, and the sunlight beaming in through the many windows danced across the glittery floor and washed the walls with a splash of  authentic Florida sunshine. A family of hunchbacks is what we must have looked like, each of us loaded up with multiple bags around our arms, waist, wrists. We all waddled up the multiple flights of steps wrapping around the outside of the building, down a long stretch of patio with numbered doors along one side of us and a railing guarding us from the giant Mickey Mouse shaped pool three or four stories below us. The pool is what psyched me up the most. I don't know what it is about hotel pools but they're often my favorite part of the entire vacation. Once in Virginia when I was eight, during the day at the beach a wave had crashed over me, tossing me all around as I tried to get my head above the water and I attempted to take a breath as a wave of salt water poured into my gaping mouth. Instantly, I vomited in the ocean and ran out, trembling and shivering despite the warm Virginia sun shining high in the sky. Then that night while in an especially warm hotel pool, I puked again, this time in the pool, and I saw it sitting on the surface of the water and then I saw it go through the pool filter. That story makes me feel sick all over again. Even so, I still love hotel pools and the one in Disney World was magical. That was back before I cared about preserving my skin from the evil, youth-sucking sun and I loved laying out beside the pool with my sister beside me, my headphones blurring out the surrounding noise and my phone against my thigh so I could feel it vibrate if Ryan were to call or text. He never did. I called him every night before I went to bed. Sometimes he answered and when he did, he'd end each conversation with something along the lines of, "I think I might kill myself tonight so I probably won't talk to you tomorrow," and so I was just a little ball of stress the whole vacation already, constantly wondering if I'd wake up to a phone call from Ryan's mom informing me her son finally made good on all the promises he made to terminate his "unbearable" life. And all those times I'd call and he wouldn't answer further confirmed my worst fears. Maybe if I had wised up sooner and dumped Ryan long before my vacation, Disney World would have turned out a teensy-weensy bit  better, but not much. My Nana and Pop-pop, Andy's parents, were with us for the first week in Florida, for the Disney World part. The second week was just my parents and us kids in Daytona Beach. Nana has a terrible fear of heights so they drove as well and met us there. What I remember most was my feet killing me regardless of what shoes I wore-my Adida slides, my Puma track shoes-by the end of the day, my feet would tingle and throb with a mingled pain and relief as I hung them over the side of the hotel bed, not allowing them to touch the floor but rather hang there in a weightless limbo. The food in Disney World was ridiculous. Five bucks for the school-cafeteria-tasting fries I lived off of that week. For dinner we splurged and ate in Epcot (always at America and Italy due to the notoriously picky eaters in my family) and I remember having breakfast at this Hawaiian Lilo and Stitch themed restaurant and I had Belgian waffles and the best mango juice I've ever had. My parents argued through most of it, while we were on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Splash Mountain, but they tried to keep it low-key this time unlike the New York City trip the winter of 2006 where they screamed shamelessly at each other in the middle of Sbarro. Isaiah's birthday so happened to land on one of the days in Disney World and we all went with Nana and Pop-pop to Rain Forest Cafe and sang happy birthday to an elated Isaiah, ogling wide-eyed at his Volcano chocolate cake with the sparkler candles. We all went to the Olive Garden our last night in Disney World after a long day of shopping at Nana's favorite shops, and I had the Capellini Pomodoro I always have with a cup of Minestrone (that's when I learned how much I truly hate Minestrone.) We said good-bye to Nana and Pop-pop and loaded back up into the Dodge Caravan we had grown to loathe entirely, and headed to Daytona Beach for a week. I don't remember the hotel at Daytona Beach, but I remember the floating bar in the hotel pool, that would have been pretty cool if I weren't sixteen. There was hardly anybody there, we were there mid May and there were but a handful of people, it was nice to be on the beach with nobody beside you for a couple of feet. So nice, in fact, that I fell asleep on the beach one day and got my first taste of sunburn. I thought some prankster had replaced the water in the shower head with sewing needles, and was informed by a smug Andy-notorious for leaving every beach trip looking like a white person's distasteful representation of a Native American- that showering while sun-burnt is supposed to feel like sadistic acupuncture. I had been wearing a black swimsuit, practically asking for sunburn, but as I had never gotten sunburn before, I didn't think anything of it. I had a nice khaki-colored swimsuit outlined in crimson on my body beneath my clothes for weeks. The sun had turned my face copper and brought out my freckles, making me look like an Ecuadorian Pippy Longstocking. I don't remember much of Daytona at all, except for the last night. We were all going to have dinner at the hotel's outdoor restaurant, Mom said she was going to put in our name and didn't come back. After waiting for her at the entrance for maybe twenty minutes, Andy went to the hostess and asked if the name Angelino had been put in; it hadn't. We all ate dinner together in silence save for the incessant jabbering of my little brothers, wondering where Mom was and knowing the answer at the same time. She was where she always was when she disappeared as she so frequently did: a bar. I still don't know what bar she was at or when she got back because after dinner, Autumn and I wandered off to the deserted beach, and though we were in jeans and sneakers we sat down on the sand as close to the water as possible without getting wet, and let salty tears fall silently off our cheeks. I don't know how long we sat there, but we stared blankly at the ocean and watched the sky turn pink with sunset, and then violet with a faint sunless-light, then finally a deep indigo that washed over the ocean, painting it the same color. We sat there together, feeling the same hurt, asking ourselves the same questions in a silent unison. Finally, Mom walked down to where we were and from the unsteady steps she took in the sand, I knew she was drunk. Autumn and I still stared ahead though we felt her presence right next to us. We couldn't look at her. Every vacation with her was a chaotic trap we were caged in for a few weeks and this one was no different. In fact, this one was worse. We had all had a rough year and we all knew the equally turbulent future we were to come home to now that the last of our money had been spent on a trip that was supposed to lift our spirits, a trip that was supposed to bring us together, and she couldn't give it to us. The worst part was that I actually trusted her that time. I really did. She had fooled me into thinking that she was actually going to give us a memory we wouldn't have to suppress. And now she was standing beside me, expecting me to say something to her. I had expected her to come back with her tail between her legs, tears brimming her wide, repenting puppy-dog eyes, because Lucy, she had a lot of s'plainin' to do. But the way she was standing, erect with her arms crossed confidently across her chest like a defiant teenager (you got somethin' to say? ) told me she was far from ready to repent. So I just sat there, hoping she couldn't see how fast my heart was pounding, praying she'd just go away. Why was it every time I wanted her to go away, she wouldn't, but every time I needed her near, she was gone? She spoke and the smell of vodka on her breath took away any bit of ocean lingering in my nostrils. "What's wrong with you two?" she more demanded rather than asked. I blinked quickly, trying to make the tears that wanted to come change their mind and stay inside my tear-ducts, safe from the eyes of my mother. It was Autumn who spoke next. "What's wrong with us? What's wrong with you? You just disappeared, seriously Mom?" Mom ignored her and looked at me. "Gabrielle? What's wrong with you?" I just shook my head and out my peripheral, I saw her glare at me, uncross her arms and walk away back up shore to the hotel. Though I wanted nothing more than to just stay out there forever, the ocean wind whipped at my face, convincing me to go inside. I stood up, brushing the sand off the seat of my jeans, grabbed Autumn by the hand and pulled her up to her feet. Together we walked as slowly as possible up to our hotel room. From a couple feet outside the door, I could hear Isaac screaming bloody murder. Isaac was fighting with Isaiah, screaming at him, and Mom was fighting with Andy, screaming at him. That hotel room was a chaotic mess. Far too small for seven but our funds had dwindled significantly in the past two weeks and we still needed enough for gas to get us from Florida back to Kansas so it would have to do. I think it would have been a little more spacious if it weren't for all the noise and tension in the room. I ignored all of them and put on my pajamas for bed, tried to call Ryan and got his voicemail, he probably waited for my last day here in Florida to kill himself, I thought, and brushed by my mom who stopped arguing with Andy to shoot me a glare and slur, "What?" at me. Again I shook my head. "What?" she repeated, only louder. "You're drunk," I said. "As always." Her face crumpled into a look of disgust. "Oh, I forgot, you never do anything wrong. You're always perfect. Get off your damn high horse, Gabrielle." My lips pressed hard together, turning them into a single white slit. I nodded and got into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin and turned over on my side towards the wall, facing my little black Nokia flip-phone that never rang. Seconds later, the comforter was ripped off of me, exposing my red legs to the cold blast from the hotel air conditioner. "Get up!" she yelled. I sat up on my side, looking at her with bewilderment. "Get up!" she yelled again. I sat fully up now, lowering my bare feet to the cold, coarse carpet. I stood up, still staring at her. Her arm shot out, pointing a wavering index finger at the door. "Get out," she said. "You ain't gonna disrespect me in this hotel I'm paying for. Get out." Confusion trumped every other thought in my head. "Where will I sleep?" I asked. "I don't care," she said. "Sleep outside. You ain't sleepin' in here." I stared at her incredulously. "Mom, we're in Florida. You can't just kick me out of here, what if something happens to me?" She raised her eyebrows and shrugged nonchalantly. "Shoulda thought of that before you ran your mouth. Now get out." I walked out and stood there facing the hotel room that was quickly disappearing behind the closing door which automatically locked  with a hollow click. After about an hour, it sunk in that I was truly going to be sleeping on the cold cement in front of my family's hotel room. For a while, I just sat there, my back against the door so my butt could be somewhat cushioned by the thin welcome mat thousands of tourists had wiped their feet on, wondering if this ever happened to other kids on their family vacations. Probably not, I thought to myself. This was an Angelino-specific sort of thing. At one point, I took a brief walk down the outside hallway to that room that has an ice-maker and vending machines. I didn't have the ice bucket they supply you with or any money, so I cupped my hands below that spout the ice shoots out of and let hard rocks of ice hit the soft palms of my hand, inflicting a subdued icy pain. I walked back to the hotel room, unknowing of the time, had it been hours or simply long minutes? I resumed sitting in front of the door, chomping on ice cubes even though I was shivering. Finally, I heard a faint click and looked up to see the silver door handle turning slowly. I scooted away from the door, threw down the rest of the ice melting in my hands, and stood up to face whoever was on the other side of the opening door. It was Autumn. Her finger was pressed against the center of her pursed lips and she gestured me inside with her other hand, propping the door open with her shoulder. I shook my head but she furrowed her brow and mouthed, "Mom's passed out, come in." I nodded and tiptoed silently inside, holding my breath as we attempted to noiselessly shut the door. That hollow click made my skin jump and we both snapped our heads in Mom's direction, letting a wave of relief crash over us as we saw the drool dripping out of the side of her mouth. She was still snugly wrapped in her drunken slumber. I pulled back the covers of the bed Autumn and I had shared all week and sunk on top of the plush mattress, letting it cradle my sore butt and legs. I pulled the covers back up to my chin, rolled over, and instantly fell asleep. Suddenly, my legs and arms were covered in goosebumps, my whole body was shivering. The covers had once more been ripped off of me and Mom was standing over me, fire in her eyes, stale alcohol mixed with morning breath was puffing out of her mouth in poisonous pants. My tired, heavy eyelids instantly shot open, and the first thing I felt that morning was pure fear. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked. I shook my head, unable to speak. "I told you you were not to be sleeping in here so what are you doing sleeping in this bed?" My throat was dry, disabling me from swallowing. I lifted my tongue to speak and it merely stuck to the roof of my mouth then flopped down in a shameful surrender. "You just think you can do whatever you want! Nobody can tell Gabrielle anything. Gabrielle knows everything. Gabrielle can do anything she wants! You're so selfish, it's disgusting. Get out of my face. Pack your clothes up, we need to be out of her by eleven." She and Andy started hauling luggage down to the parking garage. Eleven o'clock came and went and all of us kids were still sitting in the hotel room with the remaining of the luggage. Andy and Mom had taken bags downstairs and hadn't come back. It had been nearly forty minutes. Isaac was screaming about something and a very irritated Autumn had forced him into the bathroom and was holding the door shut as Isaac pounded his fists against it and told Autumn in vivid detail how he was going to punch her "idiot face" in and then "kill" her when he got out. My stomach was in a knot that tightened each time the minute place on the digital hotel alarm clock changed. Finally, after losing (or winning) a debate with myself  over whether to call my parents' cell phone or not, I picked up the hotel phone and with trembling fingers, punched in the ten digits, remembering to first dial a one as we were out of state. I was praying for Andy to answer, but I don't have luck like that. "Hello?" My mother. And judging from her tone, she was mad. "Hi, mom, I was just making sure everything's okay...Isaac is kind of flipping ou-" "Gabriella! Are you using the hotel phone?" My heart sunk, "Yes," I replied. "Gabriella!" she screamed. "Do you even know how much my credit card is getting charged for this phone call? You're calling a long distance number, Gabrielle. You're wasting money-money we don't have-on a stupid phone call because you're impatient?! We're coming!" And with that, she hung up. About fifteen minutes, my parents walked back in, Andy's face was bright red indicating they had been fighting for the past hour or so in the parking garage. Mom pushed Autumn away from the bathroom door, walked in, whooped Isaac's butt, then grabbed him by the arm, pulled him out of the bathroom, and then out of the hotel room altogether. We all followed, being scolded unanimously by my mother who was ranting to no one in particular about how we're all ungrateful and she doesn't know why she even bothers, et cetera, et cetera. I sat in silence the next 18 or so hours back home, my head pressed against the window, watching trees and cars whip by me, longing to just open the van door, jump out, and run until I couldn't run anymore. Just like Forrest Gump. I refrained and after what felt like years later, we ended up back on 69th street. The next two days went by painfully slow as I sat at home wondering maddeningly if my boyfriend was dead or alive. Finally, Wednesday came around, and I spent the entire day getting ready for youth group, getting ready to see Ryan. I remember being so stressed out, I got sick in the garage before getting into the minivan. Autumn was like, "Seriously? You're that nervous?" I couldn't even respond, I was seriously that nervous. Would he be alive? And if he is, would he even show up? Or would he stay home in hope of convincing me he was dead when in actuality he was simply playing Halo with his brothers Connor and Cole? I had my money on the latter, which is so sad when I think about it. I knew that Ryan was the kind of guy who really would do something like that and yet I continued to see him. I continued to love him. I walked into the church and saw him across the room very much alive, very much ignoring me. I waved at him and smiled and he turned and looked away. Feeling both relieved and nervous, I walked over to him and said hi. He walked away from me and sat with his friends. I sat alone on the other side of the room, watching him, wishing he'd watch me. We'd sometimes skip youth group and make out in the backseat of his dad's forest green Infinity, obviously unbeknownst to his dad. Sometimes though, we'd agree to skip and see each other and I'd be outside in the parking lot waiting in our designated spot and he wouldn't show up. I sneaked out the back door of the church at the end of the worship segment when the lights were low and waited in our spot for him, hoping he'd actually show up this time. He did. He walked to me, his brown hair sitting in a dumb tuft on top of his head six feet and one inch from the ground. When we had started "dating" I had made him trade in a pair of hideous beige and green Pumas for a pair of grey Converse All Stars and his frumpy Old Navy jeans for a pair of skinny jeans, making him somewhat presentable save for the overdose of metal in his mouth, but I didn't really notice it because he never smiled. He had swollen red balloons for lips which were constantly surrounded by a five o'clock shadow that occurred five minutes after he shaved. He waved to me slightly. I smiled, my heart full; I never expected him to show and yet here he was. Because we only spoke to each other twice a week, we were always so awkward around each other, never knowing what to say. We walked, neither of us speaking, to his dad's green Infinity, slumped low into the backseat together, our legs pressed against the bucket seats in front of us, hoping no stragglers out in the parking lot could see us. I leaned in and kissed him. When we'd kiss is the only time I ever felt like he liked me, let alone loved me like he claimed to. We kissed for a few minutes, his braces scraping against my lips in a way that I'd find simply unbearable now, then he stopped and looked at me wide-eyed and smiling. "I have an idea," he said. "What?" I asked. Please don't say sex, please don't say sex, I repeated in my head. Though I had told him maybe a half a million times I wasn't ready for sex, he still managed to push the idea every time he saw me. "You should...you know," he said, his eyes bouncing from me, down to his fly, then back up at me. "That's not sex technically." My nose wrinkled. I knew what he was referring to. I had never done anything of the sort, in fact, he was the first boy I had even kissed open mouthed, but I had heard about it. I knew this girl Nina who used to do that to the boys on the back of the school bus. I shook my head but I didn't say no. "I don't know Ryan...I think that's considered sex..." "No it's not," he said immediately. He was already beginning to unzip his pants. "Let's just try it. If you don't like it, we'll stop." His pants were now off and he was pulling off his boxers before I could even register what was happening. Had I just agreed to do this? Apparently, because his hand was on the back of my head, lowering it down to his crotch, my face twisted in a grimace he couldn't see. After a couple second, I stopped and said I didn't want to. "Let's just make out," I was saying, but he wasn't listening. He put his hand back on my head and pushed my face back down, but this time he didn't let go. My lips were pressed shut trying to resist him. "Do it!" he yelled. My eyes closed tightly, squeezing tears down my cheeks, I obeyed. I was still crying when he was done, and while he got dressed and got out of the car, not offering me so much as a side glance. I too got out of the car and walked to him, tears and snot now flowing freely, I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my head against his chest. He pushed me away, locked his dad's Infinity, and walked back inside the church leaving me slumped down crying against the red brick, spitting to get as much of that awful taste out of my mouth as I could. Church ended and I still sat there outside, crying in the darkness of the night, the street light glinting off of the diamond Mickey Mouse hanging on a silver chain around my neck.