The Boy Next Door

Chapter Two (E)

The next morning found Alex sitting in his yard. He had hidden his bruised arms by the sleeves of his dark blue jacket, while his legs were covered by dark denim. He wasn’t in his treehouse as he was hoping that he would see Tia and Chris. Luck was also on his side today, his dad left for his job early; leaving the house free to Alex to shower and clean the mess that was left from last night, which was done in record time. Being in that house made him go on edge, it didn’t matter if he was by himself, or someone was with him, it made no difference to how he felt in that house.

“Hey Alex.” Chris shouted his greeting as he took the trash out “I was hoping that you were outside. Mum wants to know if you want to join us for breakfast.”

“But I had dinner with you last night.” Alex said, extremely confused at this point, why would they want him over for breakfast.

“Mum likes to feed people.” Chris said, holding back his laughter when he saw Alex’s face, the poor thing looked confused.

“Okay.”

“Alex, is that a… treehouse.” Chris said; staring up at the rope ladder, thus he had looked up the tree, his face light up, making him look more excited than someone his age should have been.

“Yes.”

“Awesome! You know I’ve always wanted a treehouse, but we never could find the right tree for it. Did you and your dad build it?”

“No, a part of it was here when we moved, and I build the rest myself.’

“That’s so cool!” Chris shouted; the way the boy was looking at Alex was like he met the present himself, or someone who was just really important “Can I see it?”

“What about breakfast?”

“That can wait; please Alex?” He stared at him with his only weakness; puppy dog eyes, it made it hard for Alex to say no to him, since his eyes were blue, it made more effective. How in the seven seas someone as big as Chris was able to pull of the puppy dog eyes, was beyond him.

“Fine.” Alex sighed “Follow me.”

Alex led the way up the ladder, when the two were on the platform, Chris looked around and he was impressed by the level of workmanship that was shown.

“Jeez, Alex.” Chris laughed when he saw the pile on blankets in one corner “do you live up here or something?”

“Wouldn’t you if you had a treehouse this cool?” Alex joked back “Chris can I ask you something?”

“You just did.” Chris said; his ever present smile on his face “But you may ask another one.”

“Lily, your mum, is she always emotional?”

“Alex, there’s something you need to understand about my family.” Chris said, his smiling face turning serious, his hand running through his hair, as if think of the best way to say what he was going to say; without bringing anyone to tears “We moved here, because two years ago, our sister; Harmony…… she died from Cancer, she was our age when it happened, after it happened mum went into depression… but she was able to get back on her feet a year later. Dad managed to get her back to herself… but we needed to get away from Harmony’s memoires that seemed to haunt every room that we entered.”

“That’s so sad… I’m sorry Chris… I shouldn’t of….”

“It’s alright, we loved Harmony… but we needed to physically remove ourselves from her memories. You see when my parents adopted her, she was only seven years old and she was already sick, it’s always hard for sick children to get adopted. Mum and Dad fell in love with her, I couldn’t understand, maybe I’ll never understand, how hard it must have been on them. Tia was infant when Mum and Dad took her in. Her mum was my aunt, so Tia was out in their care. She knew her parents loved her, but what happened with Harmony was different; her parents abandoned her, I couldn’t even start to understand how she felt and what it must have been like… I’m sorry we met just yesterday and already I’m telling you our sob story.”