The scent of freshly-cut grass itched Bella’s tolerance and scratched her otherwise smooth persona. It reminded her of a past she dreaded living; a past that reeked of suburbity, dewy leaves, and above all, pristine, newly-mowed grass. The kind of ornamented grass that begged showing off, and pleaded for competition with the equally polished lawns of the neighbors. ‘Look at me!’ they seemed to call out at passers-by, ‘I’ve been slaved over for hours just to retain a look of elitist superiority!’. Their cries for attention had always set Bella’s sanity on edge.

Maybe it was the mask of innocence that hung suspended over the suburbs that caused Bella’s teeth to grind. Or maybe it was the staleness that corrupted the air in these towns, tasting of the toothpaste that demanded to linger inside her mouth long after dawn had evolved into afternoon. A remnant of her hurried morning attempts to mask her naturally rugged appearance with a look of forced hygiene, it refused to let her eat anything without the taste of decaying mint haunting her palate.

Boring. That’s what Bella feared - and as she woke up to the scent of freshly-cut grass, boring seemed to be resting right under her nose.

As light poured, unwelcomed, through the open window next to her bed, Bella vehemently overturned herself in her sheets. Pressing her right cheek into her pillow, Bella willed herself to focus not on the pungent and bitter scent of the suburban summer that threatened to waft in through the gaping window, but on trying to lull herself back to sleep. She shut her eyes tightly, painting visions of unpredictability and spontaneity - two concepts that were evidently foreign to the small town of Mapleton. Yet, with every step onto a train and every sip of wine that she imagined, visions of a dullness only found in the deep suburbs still prodded at her brain and instigated an inner turmoil that poisoned Bella’s thoughts.
Heaving a sigh, Bella thrusted herself into a sitting position on her bed and tossed the torn and fading sheets off of her body. Looking over at her blinking alarm clock, she read the time and sighed contentedly.

6:55 AM.

She wouldn’t get dragged out of bed by her overenthusiastic aunt for at least another forty minutes. Bella imagined how her aunt would try to pry her out of bed; by the banging of pots and pans outside of her room, by the ear-piercing screech that was her aunt’s attempt at singing. Or maybe it would be by the acerbic scent of blueberry pancakes that usually resided in the old Victorian home on Sunday mornings. Bella’s aunt often tried to persuade Bella to rise out of bed by unleashing the sweet aroma, and permitted it wander up to the guest room where Bella slept. Bella completely despised when she was woken up by the scent of her aunt’s fruit pancakes. She was allergic to citrus, but Aunt Marge had never asked.

If she had been back in the city, she would have been greeted by the amiable symphony of taxis heard outside her window at a time like 6:55 AM. Nothing greeted her outside of her window in this room; she was left to wake up alone, scattered among the bitterness that gave Mapleton its sour pristinity.

7:02 AM.

She missed the city. She missed the whirlwind of faces that streamed by as she cascaded down the sidewalk of 15th Street, and she missed the waves of flashing lights that engulfed her focus and dragged her towards spontaneity. She even missed the tide that swallowed her at a time like 7:02 AM, when a sea of black tweed pants and patterned ties swarmed the streets. Even though she sometimes found herself tousled sadistically by the city, gasping for a chance to inhale the smoke-infused air that sauntered above the surface of the rolling tides, she missed sacrificing her breath in exchange for the city’s restlessness. She missed the drowning.

  ***

“Bella! It’s time to rise and shine, pretty lady!”
Another exaggerated wake-up call. Bella quickly opened her eyes, not daring to linger in bed any longer, for fear of another ebullient call demanding she get ready for the day ahead. Bella carelessly threw her sweaty duvet cover off of her heated body, and sat up, scowling at her open window. She longed to see herself twenty flights above the crowded city, hovering over people consumed in themselves. People in the city never cared to look up one hundred feet into the air to meet her gaze. She liked those people - the same people that would never think to use the phrase ‘rise and shine’.

She walked downstairs, dreading the far too energetic ‘good morning’ her aunt would bid her when she walked into the kitchen. She stood planted on the landing, inhaling the toxic fume of crepes that encompassed the downstairs. Scoffing, she slowly made her way into the old house’s living room.

Despite the aging and over-polished air that the old Victorian home emanated from the outside, its interior was completely modernized. The pricey interior designer Aunt Marge had hired three years past had intertwined a look of decadence and a feel of modernization seamlessly in renovating the downstairs. It was if Bella had stepped through a time warp when she descended the winding staircase that led to the living room- the old, ornately decorated bedrooms were a thing of the past, and the transparent appliances and gray furnishings that rested elegantly before her in the kitchen were a thing of the future.

Bella subtly peeked her head around the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. Her eyes scanned the room for signs of Aunt Marge’s tidy bob or plastic b----, finally finding her sitting at the large island that occupied most of the kitchen’s surface. Her finely toned arm propped up her pointy chin as she furiously typed on her iPad. Bracing herself for the overly jovial greeting that she would inevitably be met with, Bella stepped towards the platter of bland-colored crepes that sat on display on the kitchen counter. Resting on perfectly-painted bluebells that intertwined lovingly across the surface of the china platter, the crepes, to Bella, looked repulsive.

Aunt Marge’s eyes immediately darted from the angry text she had been typing, to Bella’s face as Bella attempted to stealthily grab a crepe off the china platter without distracting Aunt Marge. Sighing, Bella prepared herself;

“Not so fast, little lady!” Aunt Marge screeched as she swatted Bella’s hand away from the platter, “I have special plans for us this morning. We’re going to see Javier. Do you know who Javier is?” She asked, then stopped, raising one craftily threaded eyebrow at Bella, anticipating her to say no so she was free to launch into a well-thought out speech about how ‘absolutely marvelous’ the mystery-man Javier was.

Refusing to inflate Marge’s ego, Bella disobediently grabbed a crepe off the china platter and bit into it ferociously. Smiling sarcastically, she grabbed the orange juice sitting on the counter and unscrewed the cap.

“Bella, if you would please chew with your mouth closed, for a change, I would greatly -”
Cutting off her words like a knife through a breakfast pastry, Bella knocked over the can of orange juice, purposely, onto Marge’s lap. As a stream of orange pulp flooded Marge’s lap, Bella leaned her head back deviously and cackled. Even while Bella ran upstairs, Marge’s cursing echoed throughout the walls of the house. Her empty groans, too, reverberated off the overly-decorated wallpaper that covered the upstairs, and were repeated back to Bella as she darted through the first open doorway she was met with and into the guest bedroom.

Feeling more satisfied than she had all summer, Bella tossed herself haphazardly onto the bed and sprawled out her legs, placing her plate of crepes on her stomach. She paused for a moment, balancing her plate between deep breaths. Sighing contentedly, Bella picked up her barely-eaten crepe. It dripped with old, melted strawberries, oozing citrus. As she devoured the whole crepe without hesitation, moldy strawberries and all, in one bite, a taste of bitterness inhabited the insides of her mouth. It fastened itself inside the crevices of her teeth and spread itself out on the surface of her tongue. Selfishly, the bitter taste haunted her mouth as she rested her head against the dense pillows that framed the old Canadian bed.

She turned towards her alarm clock.

7:58 AM.

Maybe, Bella thought, as she lay back down on the island of her guest bed, 7:58 AM is just as bitter as freshly-cut grass.