Preface
Albeit misguided, this is a coming of age story. It offers a view into the life and mind of an 18 year old girl named Katelyn as she embarks on a vacation with her somewhat dysfunctional family. Throughout the story, her thoughts and feelings become increasingly erotic. This causes her to act in ways she never imagined, and do things she never thought she would. The story culminates in an encounter she never expected, but had always secretly desired.
Although still a short story by definition, this one is a bit longer than the typical Lit story. There weren't distinct breaking points that would warrant splitting the story into chapters, so it's one long piece.
A quick note on story format. Within this story, a character's inner thoughts are denoted by using italics wrapped in a single quotation like this...
'Hmmm, I wonder if readers would have figured this italics thing out without this instruction... Probably.'
As usual, reader comments are more than welcome... positive or negative. I hope you enjoy this story.
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Just as cool crisp nights giving way to warm sunny days signals the coming of summer, Katelyn's life as a child is giving way young adulthood. This late spring holds a special milestone for Katelyn. This is the year she is growing up. This is the year that she graduates from high school. A day she thought would never come.
School was never easy for Katelyn. She seemed to struggle with every subject. Because of these struggles she often wondered if she would ever graduate, or be stuck in some sort of perpetual high school purgatory. But through hard work and diligence, she did it. She actually graduated.
The morning after her cap and gown ceremony Katelyn is lying in bed, well passed the time she would usually be on the bus. She is wide awake. Staring at the ceiling. Feeling a bit uncomfortable about herself. Wondering what her future might hold.
Katelyn has no idea what she wants to do with her life, but she is sure she doesn't want the life her mother seems to have carefully planned out for her. Katelyn's mother, Laura, excelled in all things scholastic. She had always wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps, but with Katelyn's distaste for school work, it just didn't take.
Katelyn's older brother Jason was different. Laura managed to push him along until he was a carbon copy of her high achieving book smart self. Sometimes it seemed to Katelyn that Jason inherited all the smarts in the family. Other times it just seemed like her mother was just bragging about how mature and successful Jason was because he was her favorite. Most of the time Katelyn just felt that her mother treated Jason like an adult and her like a child.
Katelyn had to admit it. Her brother did seem grown up. In fact, Jason seemed to have this whole adulthood thing figured out well before he graduated from high school. He even had three full ride academic scholarship offers by the time he graduated.
On the other hand, Katelyn had to apply to just about every college she had ever heard of, hoping to find at least one that would accept her. Well it was her mother that sent all of those applications. That was okay with Katelyn. Without college, surely she would have to live at home until she got married. That is, if she ever got married. Katelyn wasn't all that comfortable around boys.
Turns out Katelyn wasn't the complete dullard her mother thought she was. She did get accepted into the nursing program down at the state college. Even though nursing wasn't what Katelyn dreamed of doing with her life, there was no way Laura was going to let her pass up the chance to further her education. So now Katelyn has just one short summer left to be a girl, before she begins attending classes in the fall and becomes a woman.
Laura was surprised when Katelyn got accepted at State, with it being a four year college and all. Because she had always resisted her help, Laura thought Katelyn would have to attend a junior college. Being a teacher of gifted students at Rockville Academy, Laura never could understand why Katelyn didn't like school, or why she always resisted her help and guidance.
It was probably because Katelyn was more like her father Mark, who was more of a doer than a thinker. Because of this, Katelyn naturally forged a tighter bond with her father than with her mother. This bond with her father was something that her scholarly brother never quite had. Parents aren't supposed to have favorites, but in this family it seemed like Mark was closer to Katelyn, and there was no doubt that Laura's favorite was Jason.
Maybe Laura didn't really favor Jason. Maybe her way of showing love was to share her scholastic achievements. To Katelyn this felt more like her mother was trying to compete with her instead of love her, and this was a competition Katelyn wanted no part of. At times this caused Katelyn to outright resent her mother, which made the father-daughter bond between Katelyn and Mark all the stronger.
Mark was oblivious to the tension between Katelyn and Laura, but always enjoyed the closeness he had with his daughter. She was always his little girl and he could hardly believe she would be going away to college in the fall. To him, she certainly didn't seem old enough to be in college.
It felt to Mark as if it was just yesterday that he was helping her fix her bike, or happily choking down one of Katelyn's failed attempts at cooking. Mark wasn't the only one who didn't quite think Katelyn was ready for college. Most people that looked at Katelyn... Anyone that didn't know her true age. Would probably guess that she was about to enter high school rather than graduating from it.
This perception of her age came mostly from the fact that Katelyn is quite short, at just a tic over five feet tall, and a late bloomer. Her light blond hair and the glasses she wears on her cherub like face add to the younger look, as most girls her age have opted for contact lenses. To top it off, she has always been kind of different, awkward, and nerdy. This shy, nerdy awkwardness was something that most saw as immaturity, further hiding any evidence of her real age.
Katelyn didn't see herself as being younger, and she certainly didn't think she was childish. In fact, she feels she has never done anything but act her age. Yet she often was treated like she was younger than she was. She resented this, and like most teens she desperately wished she was years older than she was.
Katelyn didn't ever really feel young. She also didn't feel old. Sometimes she didn't feel much of anything at all. Most of the time she just felt sort of weird about herself. Of course looking up to her older brother didn't help. Her brainiac of a brother took great pleasure in pointing out how weird she was every chance he got.
But now, in her mind, all of that awkwardness and being weird is in her past. Everyone says that being eighteen is the mark of adulthood. Now she desperately wants to show the world that she is not a weird little girl anymore. She wants to show how different she is. She wants people to notice she has grown up.
Of all the people she wants to notice, she especially wants to show her brother that she isn't just his weird little sister anymore. She wants him to notice just how she has matured over the past year while he was away at college.
Even if her brother doesn't see how she has matured, Katelyn definitely does. For months now she has spent hours standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom tracing her fingers along her breasts, and then down along the curves of her hips, admiring her developing body.
This particular day, she is doing just that. As she admires herself in the mirror, she wonders if boys are going to like her new shape. Then her thoughts drift back to a time when her budding young body had just begun to develop, and the teasing she regularly took from her brother. Jason wasn't necessarily mean, but oh how he loved to tease his little sister.
Katelyn stops what she is doing and thinks back, remembering just how her brother used to tease. With their parents both at work the first volley of teasing would usually come from Jason...
