UNHINGED Hormonal Ramblings

The House on Mills Ave.

It all started on a house on Mills Avenue, in a quaint little home in a cheerful little neighborhood that smiled from sunrise to sunset. A happy family of three resided in the address marked by the mailbox bearing the numbers 4587, having lived there for some time now. It was where Mr and Mrs Mayfield had moved into the summer of '08, along with their only child- a son named Devin. As the years went by, the three experienced the same joys and woes the other families on the block did- any suburbanite family, really, but one thing was for certain.

There was a hidden tension in the household that resided amongst them once Devin finally graduated high school.

At first, Devin was none the wiser to his surroundings- his home was merely his home, after all. But sooner rather than later, he noticed something was amiss. The way his parents treated him hadn't changed, but they appeared to become more affectionate towards him once he was officially an adult. After discussing this with his friends, he has concluded that this wasn't an uncommon phenomenon. He would soon move out for college, and his folks would undoubtedly miss him, and wanted to spend more time with him before he had to say goodbye until the occasional holiday.

But even then, he always felt like there was something more to it.

He first began to feel odd when he used the bathroom before his morning jog around the block. He had a bad habit of not even bothering to close the door, and while he fully acknowledged this, he didn't feel it was such a terrible thing. During his early exercise hours, his parents would still be asleep, so what was the big deal? And yet, he could swear that when he went to take a piss, he would hear something like a set of footsteps in the distant hallway, or perhaps a door creaking behind him.

But when he turned to look, no one was there.

The bathroom wasn't the only issue, however. The topic of his clothes was something he was much more interested in- after all, it had even cost him a date. Lately, he couldn't seem to find certain shirts and pants, and maybe even a pair of boxers or two. He had once tried to dress up to go out with a girl he mustered all of his courage to ask out- and she had politely agreed, much to his glee- but had to cancel because his special tuxedo had seemingly vanished into thin air.

It wasn't as if he would never find those clothes again, and if he tried to bring the issue up, his mother would remind him that his room was often a mess so he shouldn't be so surprised. She made sense, but still, it bothered him. At one point, so many of his usable clothes had gone missing- some in the laundry he had forgotten, no doubt- that he had to walk around shirtless, occasionally only pantless. But at least his parents didn't mind. It was the summer, so that was the ideal time for it.

Another strange thing that he had been dealing with was the presence of small sticky stains in his bed of unknown origin- something he would undoubtedly never even bring up to his parents. He'd rather die. Still, the wet spots bothered him. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't intentionally messing his bed up with his hormonal late night activities, and he certainly wouldn't sleep in it. The locations of these spots sometimes didn't even make sense- he would find them on his chest , on his thighs, or even his arm. They didn't appear to look like a certain pearl colored human juice, so it confused him even more. If anything, it just looked like sticky water.

Poor kid spent his time on the internet trying to find a clue, but no such luck. He thus concluded it was sweat puddles forming on his newly muscular body- jogging does that to a man, you see- and perhaps his body was "letting things go" in his sleep, although his dreams hadn't been particularly excited that way lately. Was it an issue to lose your memory if it was only the memories of your dreams? He didn't think so.

All in all, while there was definitely something bothering Devin, he couldn't exactly say anything was truly wrong.

It was then he realized- it was his own nerves getting to him before finally starting college!