Chapter 1
Chapter 1, Summer’s tech
Bex Pop: August 11, 2023
I enter the college’s parking lot, I’m pretty early cause I don’t want to deal with 280’s morning traffic to the city. I’ve been waiting in my car, it’s kinda old but I don’t mind; I can try my best to fix it if it breaks down. I’m still scrolling on my phone to kill time, this event starts at 8:30; and it’s currently 7:59. Just after 25 minutes I’ll enter the school’s auditorium and sit through another boring lecture about Google Classroom and job finding websites for after college.
I talk to myself, “Man, I can't believe we have a few more weeks until the next year of college.”
Anyways, I think I should introduce myself, I’m Bex Pop; currently 22 and the youngest of 4 siblings. Why am I at this college? Well, I do plan on becoming a professional baseball player someday, but if that doesn’t work out, I’ll just become an architect. While in the parking garage across the campus, I text my friends Lily and Billie. They’ve known me since we were little, I would estimate around 3rd grade we both meet. Anyhow, I give our little group chat a message.
“Hey, what’s up?” I sent it.
“Nothing much, you’re at the parking lot right?” Lily responds to me.
“Just a home, guess it’s your turn for the tech thing” Billie also replies.
They both selected different dates for this event, and honestly I think it would’ve been better if all carpooled here. Oh well, maybe next year. After a long wait which felt like forever, I left my car and started to approach the campus. I see a multitude of students also walking there, some I recognize from last year though there’s also a lot more that are probably transfer students. Just outside the auditorium, there’s a large table with about a 100 or so name tags, all arranged in last name order. I stroll over to the “L-P” table and find my name within the name tags, and I enter the auditorium for the lecture.
“Welcome students! We’re so proud to see you all” Says the host of this tech lecture.
Well, at least this will only take about 20 minutes of my summer; and I don’t have to wait for my mom to pick me up unlike the ones from high school. During several times in this lecture I look around the room, just seeing the types of classmates and peers I’ll have for this school year. Like what I said earlier there are several familiar faces, though there’s quite a lot of new students. Though I see a face that stands out against the rest, he has some glasses and some pretty dark, almost black, brown hair. I really like the outfit he’s wearing, a sweater, collared shirt, and some jeans. I look at him a few times, and I think he does the same. Finally after a couple of minutes, I get to go home and return to my room, or more like a cave as Brenden jokes to me about. Oh Brenden, the jokester of my siblings, he was always a little mischievous to me and my other brother Ken. Though recently he’s calmed down a bit now that he’s married and has a family. Anyways, I leave the event, with that one classmate still in my head. Would I ever get to see him again? Hopefully we share a few classes when the school year starts, all I can do is wait and see.
Bex Pop: August 11, 2023; the evening
I got invited to eat dinner at my older brother, Lorenzo’s, apartment with the rest of my siblings. It’s something I’ve been excited for this entire week! Finally being able to meet up with Brenden, his wife Clara, their son and my nephew Maxwell, Lorenzo, and most importantly Ken. Ken is definitely my favorite, he always stood up whenever Brenden pranked me or when Lorenzo went on one of his rants. Anyways, I drive towards his apartment, the sun is in my eyes due to the sunset. After a few minutes I got a call from my friends.
“Hey Bex! Can you tell us more about that one guy from the morning” Lily says
“Yeah! We need to know more!” Billie follows up with.
“I mean, I don’t know him that much. We didn’t really talk at all.” I tell the both of them
“Aw.” The two reply to me, “You could have at least said hi.”
“Yeah, I know” I say, “Look, I have to go now; I have a family thing.”
“Alright, talk with you tomorrow then.” Billie tells us.
“Yeah, see ya!” Lily soon follows up with.
They both hang up, and I enter the parking garage and I find an empty spot in the guest parking. I’m currently in just my normal casual clothes: jeans, button up, and rain jacket just so I’m not cold. After entering the elevator and going around the corridor, I find his apartment and I knock. After about 5 seconds, Ken opens the door and I greet him.
“Ken! How are you doing!” I say, then I hug him.
“I’m good! How’s my favorite little sister doing?” He tells me.
“Pretty well, has Brenden showed up?” I reply as I enter the apartment.
“Not yet,” He says.
I crash into the couch and wait for Lorenzo, I’m pretty sure he’s in the bathroom. I look around his apartment, it’s pretty clean, though there isn’t a lot of room as he placed a table to seat all of us. Finally, the man himself Lorenzo appears; I’m quick to greet him.
“Hey smarty pants” I tell him jokingly.
“What’s up Becky, you better not call me that in front of Max and Clara.” He replies, in his signature almost grumpy kind of way.
After we hugged, I turned on the tv and put on a baseball game. The stakes aren’t really high because both of the teams playing right now aren’t teams I follow, so I get an unbiased view on this game . Ken sits down next to me, he’s the one who introduced me to baseball; he says he introduced me to it at 4 months old. Anyways after a few minutes after we put on the game, we hear a knock on the door, and Lorenzo answers it. Finally, Brenden and his family enter; and I see Max run up to greet us.
“Aunt Bex! Uncle Ken!” He says, going to hug us.
“Hi little Max!” I say.
“How’re you doing buddy?” Ken replies
“I’m doing amazing!” Max says before running, others were.
I stand up, and move towards the kitchen to greet Brenden and Clara. I see Clara put her coat on the coat rack.
“What’s up Clara?” I say, giving her a light greeting hug.
“I’m good Bex, how’s your baseball practice going?” She replies in an upbeat voice, she’s usually pretty happy unless me and my siblings get too funny and start pranking each other.
“It’s going pretty well, can’t wait to eat this dinner.” I tell her.
Though I do want to mention the guy I saw at the presentation earlier today; I don’t really have the courage to do so. So, finally I need to greet just one more person. I walk over towards Brenden.
“What’s up big guy? Planning on pranking me?” I said to him,
“I’m probably going too.” He replies while laughing.
Finally, It’s time to eat; and Lorenzo prepared some pasta for us. We all started to sit down at the table, personally I preferred Mom’s pasta compared to Lorenzo’s but he still can cook pretty good. Just before we prepare to eat, Lorenzo prepares for us a speech.
“Welcome everyone to this dinner, all I really want to announce is for us to do a prayer before we eat.” Lorenzo tells us.
“Oh! Can I say the prayer Uncle Lorenzo?” Max says.
“Yeah you can! Just remember to say it in Italian.” Lorenzo exclaims.
Max stands us, we all get into a prayer position, and he starts to say the Our Father in Italian. We all repeat this until we soon dig in towards the feast. I probably won’t tell my brothers and sister-in-law about my crush just yet. Probably once I get to know him he’ll probably be a good cause. But I have to worry more about the pasta and if Brenden is going to prank me instead of some random boy, so I’ll focus on that.