Endless Love

It was a beautiful Texas March morning; the trees were blowing in the warm breeze; with the little amount of leaves that had grown. Lyla had just been abruptly awoken by her phones alarm clock, and she was groggily ready to start her day. She checked her phone - expecting a text to be waiting from her best friend; there always was, every. Single. Morning. Lyla couldn't complain she loved her best friend like a sister; they had done everything together since Lyla moved there in the first grade. She was used to her best friend, Serena, staying up late or getting up extremely early to leave an expectant message for Lyla; it was the best part of her morning.

Lyla finally peeled herself out of her twin sized bed; not ready for what the day awaited her. She never could figure out why she had chosen to sign up for an 8 am lecture to start her day, but she was glad to get her last one of the semester, out of the way. She went downstairs of her two-story condo that she and three other girls were sharing - one of those girls being Serena, who of course was spending the night at her girlfriend's dorm. Again. She started with making a nice cup of coffee that even the worlds' best barista would be jealous of; she then poured her favorite cereal in her bowl. It was the same one she had eaten since she was five, mostly because her mother had always told her that it would make her smarter, so she never stopped even into her adult years.

Lyla sat down ready to text Serena to see if she had planned to actually show up to class later today, or if she had planned to spend her last day in classes admiring her girlfriend as her muse. Serena was an art major, and she had always been attached to the spiritual world, but not the one with bibles and churches. She loved her rocks, crystals, tarot cards, and astrology charts, and she was really good at all these things too - Lyla swears that she tries everything out on her to make sure she knew what she was doing or if it was even something she wanted to follow.

Lyla dug into her cereal and unlocked her phone. She searched for the little envelope on her screen - part of her morning ritual; she started thumbing through her emails when one in particular had caught her eye. 'Lyla Urgent!' It was from her mother and that meant one of two things; that something serious had happened back home or with the family, or that Lyla's mother was being completely dramatic. You could never tell with her; it was hit or miss most of the time. She clicked on the email ready to be met with tragedy or something worrisome, but she was instead met with another one her mother's schemes to get her hooked up with someone so she could have grandchildren. As she always likes to say to Lyla when she goes home to visit, "I'm not getting any younger and I would like to see a grandbaby before my hair is completely grey," and Lyla always ignored her and changed the subject to divert her always chirping about the guys around town that would be such good matches for her.

Her mother was asking her to come back home after the semester ended so she could meet the 'new neighbor boy' who had moved in next door. Of course he had to move in next door to her mother, and of course it had to right before she went home for the summer to help her mother with the flower shop, they owned. She rolled her eyes and continued chipping away at her coffee and cereal. She texted Serena and closed her phone, then put her bowl away in the sink - knowing they'd be there in the afternoon waiting for her. She slinked up the stairs to finish getting herself ready and got her supplies ready for her classes for the day.

She eventually made it out the door, down to her 2019 Camero that her father had bought her out of guilt because he was more a sperm donor than an actual father. He was always off with another young women and somehow always making top dollar, and she never asked how or why. Her mother never stopped him for trying to grovel to Lyla any chance he could since she was his only daughter and it meant she didn't have to lift a finger and spend any money.

Lyla arrived at her university, one of the top ones at least a day's trip away from home. She liked the distance it was almost like the saying in action, 'distance makes the heart grow fonder.' She also liked that she didn't have to pay a dime and that her condo is paid for by her sperm donor, but he didn't have to pay for much because she had always been a very perceptive person, so she received a hefty scholarship that cover three quarters of her tuition.

As Lyla was strolling to her first class of the day, Statistics, Lyla passed all of the friends she had made through the past year; giving them all hugs and promising lunches when she got back to town. She journeyed across the historic quad that everyone always strayed away from because if you accidently strolled past the school seal without kissing it with your hand when you passed it, then you had to stop whatever you were doing and bolt all the way to the campus bridge and dive off into the pond. Lyla never missed kissing it though because she never missed anything in her routine, but today. Today was different. Today he walked past her. She had never seen him before, but she was determined to change that after she saw his face.