He was still there when I awoke the next morning; after all, he was the one to violently sneeze next to me which interrupted such sleep. I didn’t doubt that he was would be when I felt myself drifting off the night before. He was sitting up resting, his back against my headboard. The bed was completely made beneath him which made me think that he must have fallen asleep on top of them for them to be in such pristine condition the next morning.
“Good morning, sunshine.” He spoke with a smile. The way he sat there, doing nothing else, made it seems as if he had been waiting for me to wake, or else creepily watching me as I slept. I bet I was quite a sight to see, my hair sticking up wildly in every direction imaginable and those pesky little pillow fold impressions on my face. I might have even been drooling at one point because that was known to happen every once in a while. That was all certainly something worth watching.
I looked up at my alarm clock which I had forgotten to set. “You’d better leave. My parents will probably be up to pry me out of bed soon. I don’t think they’d appreciate the surprise.” Stupid rules. Stupid assumptions. Stupid parental worries. They were perhaps the upside to leaving.
“No problems, I already came in through the front door.” In other words that meant that he had been awake for a while. He had gotten up in time to leave without being seen and made his presence official by knocking on the front door to be greeted by my father none the wiser. We had invented this method a while ago. By now it went off flawlessly. “Your mom thought it would be okay if I was the one to wake you, but once I got back up here I just couldn’t do it.” I watched as he lay back down, mimicking how I must have slept on my side, but the then his arms moved and playfully captured me as their own. Hopefully I hadn’t happened do that in my sleep too. His fingers found my side, which was a terrible thing to do to a person as ticklish as I happened to be. I tried to stifle my laughter, but it was a lost cause. He quickly stopped to keep me quiet, but still forgot to let me go.
I didn’t want to move. All I wanted to do was lay there, right beside my best friend. This was home to me. This was one of the few things I was going to miss about the place, one of the things that were making this harder that I honestly should have been. Now it wasn’t the packing that made leaving feel so inevitable, but instead, simply getting out of bed. This was the last time I going to be in my childhood bedroom, the last time I’d wake up like this, at least neither for quite some time. As soon as I got out of bed, that was it. The day began and in a matter of hours, not days, I would be gone.
So I laid there with Finn a little while longer and didn’t say a word. His arms kept me from moving even if I wanted to go anywhere. I didn’t care anymore about my parents’ stupid rules anymore. Chances were that they would come up and see it all and I would let them think what they wanted to think and get angry about it. I was moving out, what could they really do anyway? I was going to be in a different state; they would have to give up eventually. “Are you sure you can’t come with us to
“I’ve got to go on my merry way to school today too…” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Not that I wouldn’t love to spend eight hours trapped in a car with your parents; your father who hates everything about me and your mother who absolutely loves me.”
“My father doesn’t hate you, he hates everyone. Don’t think yourself so special. And I’m sorry about mom, but I’m pretty sure she would jump at the chance to adopt you. I think she’s rather have you than me to call her own.”
“You‘d make her the happiest woman alive if we just up and got married one day.” I was never too fond of the surprisingly plentiful occasions where she had mentioned that every thought in front of us. Despite all that, I had hoped he had overlooked them somehow.
“Yes, but we’d have to tell her about it first. You know, I think she has the whole thing planned already. I wouldn’t have to lift a finger, but dad would positively kill you, you know. There’s no way to make both of them happy simultaneously. I don’t know how they manage to make each other happy, but somehow it works.”
“Kat, just stop talking. You’re ruining it.” He buried his nose in the crook of my neck and laughed doing it, most likely because my wild morning hair was invading his nose.
“Ruining what exactly? The fact that I have to leave is enough.”
“No. Stop thinking about it, not until it’s actually time to go can you mention going anywhere.” I could feel his breath; it was just as bad as the fingers to the side. It made my hair stand on end. I couldn’t help but to twitch and it couldn’t have gone without notice because he continued talking though it was completely unnecessary. “We can do this, right? No worries. Thanksgiving will be here before we know it.”
“Shut it! We aren’t talking about it anymore, remember.”
The vulture-like habits of my parents must have been set a side for the greater good, shockingly, because neither of them had appeared in my doorway with a disappointed expression on their face until I had already willingly gotten myself, and Finn, out of bed. Though a bit later, dad made his first appearance, but for the purpose of carrying boxes out to the car, and perhaps a little bit of spying attached. Then Finn and his constant battle to get on my father’s good side decided he needed to lend a helping hand, but that only served to make the time before we could leave slip away faster. I had so much stuff that even if Finn could have come along there would have been no room for him. There was barely enough room for me to sit comfortably.
I watched as the last box was brought out to the driveway. I could feel the fake smile fall right off my face as the back hatch swung closed. My parents stood motionless, without words, waiting, as if time had stopped for a second. I was surprised really that their impatience hadn’t taken over and shooed me into the car. My dad spoke. “It’s about time we get going,” he tried to word it as nicely as he could. Finn took that as a reason to stand with his arms outstretched in the middle of my driveway with his stupid little grin on his face. I stepped closer, as his stance commanded of me. My arms found their way around his waist in a snake-like fashion, my hold growing tighter on instinct. I wasn’t going to say good bye. We’d already done all that if not in different words. We knew what this could or would mean for us. Saying those two words wouldn’t change anything or make it any better.
He made a move to let go, but I resisted for no other reason other than because I could. He laughed, and I didn’t need to see or hear to know the difference. It was his nervous tick. Chances were, though I couldn’t tell, my face buried at the time, my father was giving his one of those looks again. So I let go, not completely, but just enough. He bent forward and whispered, “Here’s looking at you, Kid.”
It wasn’t the farewell I expected, though something in me probably should have. That kid knew what made me happy more than I did. I spoke back in a low voice, “I wish I didn’t love you so much.” Hopefully he caught the reference; I used my best Ingrid Bergman accent, but my best wasn’t particularly good. And even if he didn’t remember it, it was useless to apologize for stating the truth. Quoting or not, I meant the words the same.
I let go, finally. I let my arms fall lifelessly at my sides as if every bit of energy they once possessed had been expended all at once. I opened the car door and got in. As I struggled to find the seatbelt buckle beneath all the boxes and bedding, he pushed the door shut. As the car moved down the driveway, I could see him waving and I did the same. Once we reached the road, he gave up and headed next door only to leave shortly in the same way.
If you were to have asked me month earlier about that very moment months before it came my way, I would have been more than happy to see the lack luster scenery pass by my car window knowing that I would finally have a chance to live somewhere, anywhere, else. I hated the location, but it was the people and things that made the place bearable for eighteen year that made me question whether moving all the way to Boston was going to be my biggest mistake to date.
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