Raleigh, North Carolina
3:50 pm.
Nancy smelled the cigarette smoke as she approached the door, judging from her unbothered expression it was not the first time she had been welcomed with the smell of cigarette smoke.
She opened the door and immediately made eye contact with Aunt Kat; her deceased mother's sister who she had been living with ever since she left New York.
"Your Dad had sold the house out before the tragic accident, it is the best to move to North Carolina with Aunt Kat, it is the best option right now".
Her Uncle Rob had said two days after the funeral.
Even though her parents never mentioned selling the house to her before they died, she had no choice but to move away as she had no other option at that moment. Uncle Rob has always been a good person to her before the death of her father, his brother.
The last time she had seen Aunt Kat before the funeral was when she was eight, and she never remembered her being a drug addict.
Aunt Kat instantly noticed her sticky hair from a short distance, she puffed in the cigarettes and wiggled her nose.
"Your hair…" she asked.
"It's nothing", Nancy snapped as she walked towards her room, trying to ignore her aunt and her disturbing questions.
Aunt Kat watched as her niece walked away, she turned her chair towards Nancy direction and asked again.
"Is it what I think it is… you know? Did you and a boy did something and then it got on your hair", she chuckled while inhaling her cigarette.
Nancy stopped walking, she turned and narrowed her eyes at her Aunt.
It was not her first time saying things that makes Nancy uncomfortable, Aunt Kat never for once mourned Her mom's death. Ever since she had moved to North Carolina to live with her Aunt, she's either smoking or drinking. On worse occasions, she brought different men like her to the house.
Having house parties, the men saying stuff that made her uncomfortable or inviting her to join them for a smoke or drink.
Nancy wondered where the Aunt Kat she knew when she was Little was and why this was all was left of her.
"I got paint in my hair in art class Aunt Kat and no I did not do anything with any boy in school" Nancy responded with a raise of an eyebrow.
She turned around and stalked off before her Aunt could say another weird stuff to her.
"You're in your senior year girl! you better don't graduate as a virgin. You know back in school I was…."
Aunt Kat's word faded as Nancy got to her room, she shut the door and let out a sigh.
"Why is today so messed up! What the f**k… from getting paint stuck in my hair to using the male bathroom to meeting that….."
She paused.
The flashbacks of how pretty the guy she had met in the bathroom returned to her head, for a second she forgot how frustrated she was.
Nancy's lip curled into a smile.
From the way he stared at her to how his eyes traveled up and down her body, to his voice, his perfect shaped lips, the way he was dressed. Gosh! he was handsome.
Nancy's smile reaches her eyes.
She felt a warm glow rise up into her face and somehow, she knew her cheeks were pink.
"Huh!!!".
Her legs raced to the mirror, she stared and saw how pink her cheeks had gotten.
Nancy doesn't blush often, the only time it happened was the first time she ever liked a boy in junior year back in New York which ended up being her first heartbreak.
She patted her cheeks slightly as her mouth was stretched and drawn back, exposing her teeth.
"No no! We are not doing this… I am here for a short time, with no friends… no crushes, just do what you have to do and get a college far away from this place, Nancy! Get yourself together", she advised herself and slumped on her bed.
Her face was still in terror.
Aunt Kat's laughter from a distance caught her attention, she rolled and shut her eyes.
She reached for her phone and got into her Instagram and the first post that popped out was that of her old friends back in New York, chugging beers and laughing excitedly at a house party.
Watching them having fun, being happy, and living their best life even without her.
Nancy misses it.
Going out, being drunk, talking to boys, enjoying her last age being a teenager, she misses it all but everything had changed ever since the two most precious people in the world had left her alone.
Everything became numb, she had stopped talking to her old friends and they did not seem to care also, none of them had called her ever since she left to North Carolina and right now she is watching them having fun and doing all she would have also been doing right now if she was there.
Nancy put down her phone and shut her eyes.
Things would never go back to normal again, she felt lost, lonely and indecisive and her Aunt Kat who should be there for her does not seem to care also.
The first knock on her door did not get her attention, it was the second knock that made her opened her eyes and sat up.
"What does she want now".
Nancy said in a uninterested voice.
Approaching her door reluctantly, she turned the handle and opened the door and who she saw was no close to Aunt Kat.
A girl of her age staring back at her.
Her hair weaves into long micro braid that touched the small of her back, wispy lashes, brown skinned, full glossy lips, and the brown eyes that turned up at the inward tips as if judging Nancy.
"Trust me I don't want to come up here either", the girl had said before letting herself in Nancy's room.
She ignored Nancy's suprised expression and kept talking.
Nancy immediately knew she has a bright bubbly personality, someone that would not stop talking and for some reason she felt comfortable with this stranger in her room.
"So I did not want to follow my mom but she insisted and told me to trust her, came here and it ended up being a smoking house, uncomfortable right? I was about leaving when she told me she brought me here to meet her friend's niece which turned out to be you".
At that moment, Nancy forgot she wanted to stay to herself and not have friends, or could it be seeing her friends having fun and she needed someone in her life also.
She does not know, this outgoing pretty girl in front of her was what matters at that moment.
"Nancy… I am Nancy", she said with a relaxed and smiling face.