Chloe

Chapter 21 - The Anxiety is baaaack!

I never realized how anxiety driven I was until I wasn’t anymore. Edwin took that feeling and stuffed it in a laundry basket to never be seen again. Or so I thought. All dirty laundry eventually comes back. - Chloe’s diary

Chapter 21

The Anxiety is back

   “Edwin might as well move in as much as he stays here,” her aunt said over her morning coffee. Indeed Edwin stayed over a lot and was there a lot. Aunt looked candidly at her when she spoke, “I’m not sure this is healthy, but, for some reason, I have a hard time depriving you of anything, especially since you never ask for anything. I’m as bad as some of my brat’s parents.” 

Her aunt shook her head disrupting the smooth sleek style of her pixie hair cut. It was hard to take her serious when she looked like Tinker Bell even when she was trying to convey her best parental representational scowl. They both knew she wasn’t pulling it off and busted out laughing.

   Contradictory to what Aunt thought, she thought it was very healthy for Edwin to stay over. She had never felt better, slept better, been better. But she also understood Aunt’s trepidation. They were young and behaving as if they were married. 

Her silly, girly heart jumped at the thought. She was as crazy as those girls who wrote all over their notebook “Mrs. Whoever” they dated at the time. 

The best thing she could do was try to reassure her aunt that she was okay. That she understood the seriousness of the situation.

   “Don’t worry, Aunt, this is new to me, but I assure you I’ll let you know if something goes wrong or if I get in over my head.” She squeezed her aunt, “I know we can work through it together, me and you.” It was the best she could do. It didn’t sound like a lot but she could tell her aunt liked her honesty and trusted her impeccably.  

   “Well, honey, tomorrow is the big day, are you okay?” 

Chloe groaned rising from the table to refresh Aunt’s coffee. Tomorrow was the first day of school and no, she wasn’t okay, she was terrified. The thought of returning to school sent chills through her body, and not Edwin evoking chills, more like the chills after seeing a horrific car accident that haunted a person for months.

It was the official end of summer, and it felt like death to her. It was the best summer of her life, and all school could to do for her is take her away from Edwin longer. 

She had some major insecurities emerge with the thought of Edwin not seeing her as often. What if another new girl intrigues him more than her? She was certainly nothing special, just different. Any new girl could be classified as different.

Returning with the coffee, she looked at Aunt straight in her eyes, “No, but I’ll deal. I always deal. Maybe this year will be different.”

  Edwin, fresh from the shower, walked in and kissed the top of her head, “Of course it’ll be different, you have me.”

She tilted her head back to receive a soft kiss on the lips from him. “So cocky” she teased. Smiling she glanced at Aunt, who was watching them closely with that worried frown again. The one she only had when it dealt with Edwin and her. Shrugging she went and prepared breakfast.

  It was a lazy day spent in Edwin’s arms. Surprisingly, long before the sun fell, her friends began to arrive at the cottage. Usually they showed up right before dusk and started the fire, not here. Frowning and slightly alarmed, she straightened up when Sandra waltzed in with a birthday cake. Whose birthday was it? Why wasn’t she told? How embarrassing! She shot Edwin a look clearly asking him what was going on but he just shrugged. 

She stood and pulled Sandra aside, “Please tell me I didn’t miss a birthday party!” 

Sandra laughed, “No silly, it’s your going back to school celebration!” 

Chloe frowned, “Who celebrates going back to school?” 

Everyone erupted into laughter as Edwin came over and kissed her. “Haven’t you learned by now that Sandra will use any excuse to celebrate?” That was true, Sandra was officially the party organizer.

   After a delicious cake, they all gathered around placing Chloe front and center with gifts. She stared at them. She never had a party with gifts, heck she had never been to a party where gifts were given. 

How was a person to act? Everyone watched her expectantly, and she felt … ridiculous. Edwin, sensing her unease, put his arm around her and whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s not difficult, just pick a present and open it. Make some noise on how lovely it is and move on.” 

To anyone else, it may have sounded condescending, but Edwin knew her insecurities and lack of experience. Most importantly, he always knew how to make her feel better. He was like her very own security blanket helping her act normal or at least as normal as she could be.  A sudden pain grabbed her stomach. How was she going to survive school without him? Someone shifted alerting her to their impatience, she pushed the morose thoughts aside, laughed nervously, and fumbled for a gift. 

   Each gift was wonderful and thoughtful. Christoph gave her a notebook with seashells and one perfect sand dollar in the middle. Inside he wrote, 

Chloe, I’m so glad we ran into each other…Literally. With all my love, Christoph.

She laughed.  Edwin shot Christoph a dirty look but she just patted him on his thigh. Christoph has told every other woman he meets that he loves them. Setting his gift carefully aside, she reached for another one.

Sandra gave her a Loui Vuittion backpack; at least that is what Sandra told her it was. After their shopping excursion she finally understood that the girls weren’t talking of boys, but brands, and she knew this one was a significant designer.

   Christine gave her a make-up bag that matched her backpack and Penelope supplied all the “necessities” to go in it, like lip-gloss and mascara. Chloe raised an eyebrow when she saw a condom slipped inside. Penelope shrugged, “You never know.” They all busted out laughing. Edwin slipped it out of the bag and into his pocket with a scornful glance at Penelope. She rolled her eyes.

  Duke gave her a couple folders with Marmaduke and one with a peacock on them. “To remind you of me,” he said jokingly and their laughter got louder as they remembered the night at the campfire she had confessed that Duke reminded her of a big dog. It was after an argument of who looked more intimidating, him or Christoph, where Chloe was forced to be the decision maker. She said Christoph because who could be afraid of Marmaduke?  Everyone had laughed so hard and pressured her to give Christoph an animal since she had compared Edwin to a homely horse and Duke to a big dog. She had to think a minute but it didn’t take too long. She announced that Christoph reminded her of an amorous peacock and everyone laughed so hard she thought they might hurt themselves. She didn’t realize at the time that peacocks weren’t the smartest birds in the world until the next night when Edwin took extreme delight in reading an educational book about peacocks.

   The gifts were perfect. Everyone left early using the excuse that she needed her beauty sleep for school tomorrow. Honestly she thought Edwin had persuaded them.

  She was content to lie with him on the couch fiddling her new backpack.  He kissed to the right of her ear whispering, “I’ll be right back.”

 She protested but he was back before long. 

 “Demanding creature aren’t you?” he said jokingly. Then he handed her a little package, “Here’s my gift.”

“Oh but you’ve already gave me one,” she touched her necklace. 

He smiled and said, “Love, you’ll receive lots of gifts from me so you better get used to it.” 

She frowned as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. 

“What’s wrong?” he inquired, sitting down next to her.

 “Edwin, I don’t want to be showered with gifts. It makes me feel…superficial and grasping. I don’t like that.”

He frowned, “If it makes you feel any better, your aunt helped me out on this gift,” he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, “Let me add just because I give you gifts does not make you grasping, it makes me happy. Just let me be happy.” She rolled her eyes, he knew her weakness, and took the gift from his proffered hand.

   When she opened it, she was surprised to find a pretty green Iphone covered in iridescent crystals that sparkled. She looked at him questioningly. 

 “I was not comfortable sending you to school without some sort of way for us to communicate. I don’t know if you know anything about County High but it’s a huge school, and I worry about you.”

He was right, she didn’t know a lot about County High. Her aunt took her by there to pre-register for classes, but she tried really hard not to look at the school or learn anything about it. It was irrational and she knew she would have to deal with her fears later, but at the time she was only interested in the summer, not thereafter. 

Now the thereafter was here and she felt utterly unprepared.

   Trying to push past the fears, she lifted the phone up for further inspection. Tilting it to the side, a charm dangled. It was a tiny gold sand dollar with what looked like a real diamond in the middle. Edwin kissed her neck.

   “You once told me about how a sand dollar is a symbol of survival. You described it as perfect even though it had to go through so much turmoil. I feel the same about you. You have been through so much but in my eyes you are perfect. You are a survivor and I don‘t ever want you to forget that, no matter what.”

Touching his face with her fingertips, “I don’t feel perfect. I have so many flaws, but when you tell me these things, I feel almost worthy, and it makes me feel I can do anything.” 

Removing her fingertips from his cheek, she lowered her head and continued, “When you’ve spent your life less than what everyone wants, to have one person who sees you as okay, you can’t understand how that affects me.” She then raised her head and kissed him sweetly on his lips. 

   That night Aunt ordered take-out because she announced Chloe didn’t need to fix them dinner every single night. She lived there too and could contribute in some way. It was beyond her aunt to understand that cooking wasn’t a chore to Chloe, but she did have to admit she was a little relieved to not do it tonight. Her anxiety for the next day was nearly killing her and no matter how reassuring Edwin and Aunt were, she knew better. She just knew that things weren’t going to go smoothly. They never did.