The breeze caressed my cheek again and I smiled and I looked over at my Mom. She had a slight frown on her brow, caused by concentrating on navigating the overcrowded car park to get me to the drop off zone in front of school. With cars and students everywhere, the whole scene was chaos in its purest form.

Just at that moment, our favourite song came on the radio ‘Everywhere’ by Fleetwood Mac and my smile got wider. Mom’s frown softened at hearing Christine McVie’s voice and she looked across at me smiling too, her frown melting. Every time I heard the song my heart began to fill with joy because it reminded me of our family’s love of music. Mom and Dad had brought us up on a menu of bands like Fleetwood Mac, The Temptations, Led Zeppelin and a smorgasbord of other bands from the 70s and 80s that they loved, of which there were many. I put my feet up on the dashboard and tapped my toes to the tune singing at the same time, Mom started singing along too.

Mom was a classically beautiful woman, she had curly chestnut hair that ran down past her shoulders and gorgeous big blue eyes that always sparkled when she was excited about something. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt tucked into tailored pants and bright red high heels, looking very professional. She worked at an art gallery in town and was dropping me off before continuing on to her job. Being an artist herself, she still practised when she could find time on the weekends, by painting and also modelling small sculptures from clay. But these days she really loved selling other people's work and made it her mission to know everything about the art scene in our little town plus working in the art gallery provided a reliable income. She'd helped quite a few artists gain traction in the art world and they were now successful in other areas, which made Mom feel proud that she’d been a part of their journey.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Ariah, could you please get your feet off the dash?” Mom asked mock sternly, giving me the side eye in the process. I laughed and put my feet back down in the footwell and into my sneakers. Dressed in a Ramones t-shirt and jeans, my sneakers finished off my casual look for school. Mom said I looked a little too casual at times but I would retort with ‘being comfortable in my appearance helps me learn better’ which she found hard to disagree with.

I reached down into my bag that was laying between my shoes and pulled out my sunglasses. Putting them on, I looked up at the sky again. The light had an even pinker hue to it and the air had an eerie stillness even though there was lots of commotion with the bustling movement of people and cars all around us.

I couldn’t help but feel somewhat edgy as a strange unease grew within the pit of my stomach.