Madison Awakening

It’s the first morning of my forced vacation and I can still feel the melancholy through my bones. I turn my head with great effort and focus on my best friends’ face. Ashely’s peaches-and-cream skin is flushed, her green eyes narrowed. Inwardly, I cringe at my own pathetic state. I’ve had a case of the blahs for months and after much prodding by Ashely, I finally agreed to run away from the city for the week. 

I lift my head away from my pillow and attempt to stretch away the sullenness. “Alright, alright I’m up!” I declare with resolve that doesn’t reach the core of my spirit. 

“We are going to brunch. You have thirty minutes to get pretty and then we are leaving.” Ashely proclaims, then turns on her heels out the door, leaving me alone.

I rub my fingers over honey-brown eyes and slide them through the mop of dark chestnut coils on my head, steadying my feet on the teakwood floors in my adopted bedroom. Walking tentatively, I strip my PJs off my bronzed skin, dropping them on the marble floor of the en suite bathroom. 

I’d heard of what the residences were like in the Hamptons, the uber-exclusive playground of the New York elite. Journeying east of the city was unknown territory for me, and I’d assumed it would be full of overly affluent predators dressed in Ralph Lauren. The tranquility of the country-like setting is foreign to me, but I hope to find the peace everyone said existed here.

 As a born-and-bred Brooklyn girl, the scent of the city with its thick, pulsating air is a comfort. The sound of my heels on the concrete of Lafayette Avenue is my own personal soundtrack. Brooklyn is home. But recently it became stifling, keeping me from making peace with my past and allowing restlessness to consume me. Shaking my head to dislodge my negative thoughts, I walk into the glass shower, turn on the balmy water and try to wash away the looming sadness threatening to press to the surface….