"How are you doing, honey?" My mom's voice was distorted through the receiver, but in the background I could hear what sounded like the ocean and perhaps seagulls. It sounded so relaxing. I inwardly sighed, wondering for the five millionth time if I had made the right choice by not going with my parents on the cruise.

"I'm pretty good, Mom. How's the cruise?"

Taking the opportunity just as I thought she would, she launched into a detailed description of all of the wonderful things she had been doing for the last month. Apparently, they had docked for two weeks on an island resort of some sort and my mother said that she had spent the entire time shopping and sipping mimosas out of a coconut on the beach. She also told me about the accommodations on the cruise ship, including the five star meals, three swimming pools both indoor and outdoor, and the suite that she and my father were staying in which sounded like a penthouse the way she described it. By the time she finished gushing nearly twenty minutes later, I was convinced that she had gone back in time and was a passenger on the Titanic.

"Oh, honey, I wish you were here," she said wistfully. "You would have absolutely loved this."

I didn't doubt it. "No, you two should enjoy it. I'm good here." It was true; I was doing just fine as long as you didn't count my minor blunder at the beginning of the summer. Still, lounging on a tropical beach did sound pretty nice. It wouldn't be the same as going to the beaches around here, that's for sure. I knew I shouldn't be thinking that way; I had made my decision and now it was impossible to go back on it anyways. And besides, if I had gone with my parents, I wouldn't have gotten the chance to spend so much time with Taeyeon.

Come to think of it, if I hadn't gone to that party and gotten absurdly drunk, getting to know Taeyeon wouldn't have happened. It was weird to think that something that was turning out to be really promising came from something completely nightmare-ish. I couldn't decide if I would actually go back and change it so that night never happened because I was almost positive that if those two guys hadn't tried to hurt me, then Taeyeon would have never even spoken to me for the entire summer and I would have never known what an amazing person I had missed out on all those years.

My mom's voice brought me out of my thoughts and I focused on the phone call so I could hear what she was saying through all of the static, "What have you been doing?"

I snorted quietly to myself. That was an interesting question. No matter what I said, there was no way I would get out of the conversation without a million more questions. Clearly telling her that I had gotten drunk and a boy had basically spent the night with me was not the best choice. However, neither was informing her that I had spent the vast majority of the month sitting on my and ingesting massive amounts of junk foods. Talking about Taeyeon was completely out of the question. "Oh you know," I said slowly, "just relaxing."

"Relaxing doing what, Jessie?"

"Um, not much. Just teenager things."

My mother sighed and I knew right then that she was completely aware that I had done nothing. Rather than nag me about it though, she decided to stay silent which was surprising. My mother was probably one of the most active women in the entire universe. She couldn't stand to be still for more than a few seconds at a time. I was the exact opposite of that; doing a lot of things was almost physically painful for me. I would much rather sit at home and watch an old movie which was something I never heard the end of from her. Still, I appreciated that she was going to let me use my summer the way that I wanted to rather than chastise me for it and make me feel guilty.

"Well I've got to go Jessie. We'll be home in another couple of weeks but I'll call again before then."

"Okay. Bye Mom, enjoy the rest of your cruise." Amazing; not even any last minute orders from her.

"Thank you honey. And don't forget about your doctor's appointment next week." Ah, there it was. I smiled to myself; I knew she wouldn't be able to resist telling me about at least one scheduled thing.

"I won't Mom; don't worry. Love you." She said her goodbyes and then I hung up the phone. For a moment, the silence was disconcerting. I still hadn't quite gotten used to being alone in my house for such a long period of time. Even though it was almost eleven in the morning already, I was still halfway expecting to hear my mother cooking a late breakfast like she always did on Saturdays.

Which reminded me that I was starving. Laying in my bed for hours was really starting to throw off my schedule. The plus to not having anything to do was that I would lie in my bed for an extra hour or two before I was forced to get up for food or other necessities. As a matter of fact, my mother was lucky that the phone was right beside me because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten up to answer it. There had been plenty of other phone calls that had gone unanswered for just that reason.

Still, my growling stomach had determined that it was time for me to get up and what my stomach wanted is what it usually got. I rolled out of my bed, not bothering to make it and jammed my feet into my favorite pair of fuzzy slippers. Glancing at the mirror in my closet, I grimaced and threw my messy hair into a bun so I wouldn't have to brush it and then slipped on a pair of cotton shorts so that I wouldn't be prancing around my house in my underwear. Even though I knew there was no one there, it was still a hard habit to break. I had never been one to flaunt anything before; why start now?

My sloshing footsteps sounded abnormally loud as I made my way down the stairs, but I didn't care. In fact, I rather liked the sound. I shuffled around in the kitchen, trying to decide what to eat that would require the least amount of effort. Staring into the fridge, I didn't see anything overly promising and I sighed with dismay. What I needed was a gourmet chef. I needed someone who just knew when I was hungry and would always have the best, most delicious meals ready for me at all times in the day.

Settling for cereal, I pulled a bowl out of the cabinet and got the milk from the fridge. As I sat at my table, I reflected on my meal. Cereal is a wonderfully uncomplicated thing. It didn't matter what time you ate it, it was always good. As a matter of fact, the further away from breakfast time you were the more delicious it was. Ten thirty really wasn't far enough from normal breakfast time for my cereal to really hit that amazingly amazing stage, but it was still pretty good regardless.

As I crunched on a spoonful, I happened to look over into the living room to the corner designated for my college things. I smiled fondly at the giant pile of multicolored crates, towels, bed sheets, lamps and other miscellaneous college things that my parents had been building on since the middle of my senior year. That was a huge contributing factor in my not going out anywhere. Buying college things was a big part of the summer, but my parents had already taken care of all of that for me. They were probably more eager than I was to go to college. Of course, that's not to say that I wasn't excited to go, I just had some reservations.

I was happy that I had made it through high school and I couldn't wait to start the next chapter of my life, but I felt like I was looking at it a bit more realistically than the rest of my senior class. They all seemed to think that college was going to be getting drunk and going to parties - two things I had already had quite enough of, thank you very much. Not only would we be going into four more years of work and teachers and assignments, but it would be the most rigorous four years of our lives. And then from there, we would have to become real drones in the working world and I knew I definitely wasn't ready for that. I hadn't forgotten that fact and it was making me a bit anxious.

I wished I could be someone with an amazing talent that got them to cool places after high school, like Taeyeon. How is it fair that he gets the opportunity to go to Hong Kong and act while the rest of us have to follow society's plan and go to college? Of course, that's assuming he even does it which he hasn't said a word about since our conversation over ice cream. But he has to go. I completely understood the issue with his mom being sick and him wanting to stay with her, but he was pretty much our senior class' only hope of being remembered for anything. No one else had any insane talents like his; we didn't even have any future pro athletes. All we had was Taeyeon and we were counting on him.

Oh well. Not all of us could be so lucky. And I couldn't fault him for not going if that was the final choice that he decided to make. I just wished that Hong Kong wasn't so far-

"Honey, I'm home!" the loud, male voice startled me so much that I dropped my spoon into my bowl with a splash. So distracted by my thoughts, I hadn't even heard my front door open. Trying to still my insanely beating heart, I stood up and left the kitchen, nearly colliding with the one and only Kim Taeyeon. He grinned, "Well, hello there." He looked me over and his smile widened, "Gosh, Sica, you didn't have to get all dressed up for me."

Ignoring that comment and the insane urge to blush like crazy since I knew I looked like I had just rolled out of bed (which I had), I gave him a stern look, "Since when was it okay for you to come bargi