Coming Back [boyxboy] [ON HOLD]

Chapter 3: Painful Reminders

Chapter 3: Painful Reminders

You know that empty feeling you get when you go to some familiar place that you haven’t been since way back? That’s what I was feeling when I visited our old tree house after five years. The small house looked so dilapidated; the small wooden door looked pale and the planks were opening up. The snowing settled but the ground was still covered by it. I carefully climbed up and entered. The inside was a bit warmer but didn’t really look any better. A picture of Jace and I when we were five was pinned to a small makeshift bulletin board and some scribbled notes. One even says, “Best Frens Forever!”.  I took the picture off and smiled at the faint memory.

“Jace, Jamie! Stop messing with the other kids’ castle!” Jace’s mom called from the bench. Jace pouted and crossed his arms to show a mock version of being mad. He looked cute then but I didn’t know.

“C’mon Jamie, let’s just go dig for treasure.” Leaning forward to get his blue shovel we dug and dug until we got tired and hungry. Our moms saw our dirty faces and went to wipe it with a moist towelette. My mom offered to buy some hotdogs and we proceeded to wait at the bench. Jace was giddy and kept on talking lively, I forgot what he had rambled but I do remember myself laughing very much. Mom handed the food to us, before we could eat it though Jace’s mom raised his finger and said, “Let me take a picture first.”

Jace moved his hand behind my neck and smiled. I posed with my hand holding the hotdog looking like I was about to shove it to his face. The camera flashed and then we went to sit and eat. Our moms looked at the picture and giggled in excitement.

“Our sons look so cute together.”

I gently replaced the picture and sat back, just looking at the small board. There were LEGO blocks messily pushed at one corner and there were different comic books piled beside it. I looked for the LEGO bucket underneath our table, found it, and pulled it out. The green cylindrical bucket was moist but I continued on cleaning the mess up. I took my phone and placed it on a tiny ledge on the wall, played music and started cleaning the house.

“Have you seen my LEGO bucket, Jace?” I asked him who was busy reading a comic book.

Without looking up he spoke. “Nope!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“As in really, really sure?”

He finally settled his book down and looked at me. “Look, Jamie. The bucket might’ve gone out for a walk or something. Just push the LEGOs to a corner, nobody would react.”

Without much thought, I acquiesced. I never knew where the bucket went, it never came back. Jace said that it maybe was a superhero and that they found its secret lair.

After three and a half songs I finally cleaned the whole tree house and I was surprised at how many litters we had. There was a pile of different chocolate and candy bars alone, some weren’t even opened. I scooped it all up and slowly went down. Some wrappers flew away but as soon as I put the pile down I would catch it. I lit the pile up and watched it burn dark. I’m big on the ozone thing but I was just too lazy to dig a pit for it. As I watched the smoke billow up higher I remembered another fond memory.

Holding two branches I held it like I was holding two swords. Jace was holding big and long branch.

“It’s a giant sword.” He said.

We were stealthily walking across the woods in search of monsters. “Look! There’s one!” Jace alerted.

He was pointing to a low shrub at near a giant tree. To us it wasn’t just a simple shrub, to us it was a flaming wolf that was angrily snapping at us. Jace charged at it and swiped his branch on the shrub. I followed and did the same. When Jace got tired we retreated with me shouting, “It’s coming for us!”