Warped Minds

Chapter 5: Kellin's Place

Chapter five: Kellin's Place

That night I dream of what it would be like if my parents were together, if I had never met Kellin, if my life was ok. I don't like it. I'm not me. Nothing is the same. I'm happy but I don't think. I don't have to work, I don't have to take care of anything. I don't have to be anyone. Kellin isn't there. I'm more alone then I ever have been.
When I wake up I'm shaking and crying. I want things to stay the same but I also want them to change and I don't know how but I'm happy and sad at the same time. Tears are running down my pale cheeks and shudders consistently run down my spine but I am also beaming and laughing at the amusing notions. Everything is crumbling down in my mind and reality has become warped. Maybe this is the dream and that nightmare was reality. But then again no. I'm back im here and I'm thinking again. Today I get to leave. Today I get to go away and never come back.
I applied to college. I finally got enough nerves to go and send in an application. It's not even the community college I was planning on going to. I applied for Imperial College London. I want to be an theoretical physicist. I want to explore and be big and do things and go places and now I have a chance. I'm not just a girl who came from a very very broken home and has only one friend in the whole world because now I'm a girl who came from a very very broken home and has only one friend in the whole world who applied for the best school in London. And if I get in, IF I get in, then I will be the girl who against all odds got into Imperial College London. I'm going to tell Kellin tonight after I buy him pizzas to thank him for taking me in. I need to start moving and getting to work because it's already 5:00 am and I still have packing to do. I get up to pick out my outfit, comfortable band tee and jeans, Vans to top it all off. My hair is a nest of tangled red sitting up on my head so I wrestle with it for fifteen minutes before I get it situated in the style I want. All my clothes are already packed away in a suitcase but I still have to gather up all mementos of the good times. A locket my dad gave me when I was born, the dress my mother made me when I was six, a doll from the last vacation we took as a family. Before everything went bad, before my father started drinking, before my mother had issues, before the fights, before the abuse, before the divorce and before everything went bad. Just wisps of memories now, short conversation or statements whisk around my mind and build their own enigma that I can't figure out.
I carry my bags outside and begin to pack them into the car. It's raining again as it has for the past few weeks, the Temperature dropping dramatically. My mother isn't up yet thankfully so I can use her car to get my stuff to Kellin's. He lives alone and pays for his apartment with the money his father sends him each month. He works at a ton of odd jobs, collecting money as he goes. His mother died when he was five from breast cancer and his father starting drinking, at least we have that in common. Don't get me wrong, his father is a good man, but sometimes when he was drunk he would beat up Kellin. Kellin would come over to my place and stay until his dad calmed down. One time he stayed over here for three weeks while his father was in rehab. His father sends him money now so that he doesn't have a guilty conscious, but Kellin has completely forgiven him yet for everything he's done. Some things you just can't forgive.
The ignition starts on the third try, shaking and rattling the poor old beetle. It was once a beautiful pastel blue but has since turned into a murky gray sea of dirt and metal. Kellin lives about 15 minutes away, so I can probably get home before my mother wakes up. A million things fly through my mind as I drive, the rain washing away the slater of filmy grime covering the windshield. College. Mum. Kellin. Dad. Apartments. Moving. School. Friends? Everything is contemplated with each other until I can figure out the hierarchy.
Kellin doesn't answer when I buzz him so he's probably at his latest job, a temp at a software devolving firm. He types on computers and brings the others coffee and helps the new kids get adapted to the scene. He absolutely hates it. The key around my neck is cold, so it's a relief to remove it. Up the staircases, one, two, and three. Climbing and running and sprinting like a child. Apartment 22b. I open the door, trailing my suitcase behind me and imagining what it will be like when this is all over. I can go to college and be someone and I will most likely forget all this ever happening. I'll have a job, maybe even kids. Maybe I can grow up. Maybe.
I walk around the small 2 bedroom apartment, looking for nothing. The kitchen, the bathroom, the hall and the bedrooms. His place in small but tidy. Extremely neat and well kept. His door is closed and I don't want to intrude so I walk timidly into the guest bedroom. The bed is made, a toothbrush and hair brush sitting neatly on the pillow. A note is resting lightly on the bedside table, it's edges waving slightly in the breeze that enters through the half open window. I glide over to it and pick it up.
'Chris, I'll be back around noon. You know where everything is so feel free to make yourself at home. -Kel' he wrote it in a haste, most likely holding the cap to the pen in between his teeth, his hand finding the shape of the letters with slight difficulty as it was quite early in the morning. A pan is in the kitchen sink along with a fork, they are both scrubbed clean but not yet put into his small built-in dishwasher. I walk over to the stainless steel sink and grab the cool metal silverware that still has a few drops of water from their previous washing. Kellins dishwasher is empty but I put the dishes in there anyways. This is a new start, a new life, might as well keep it tidy. I still have another bag back at the house that wouldn't fit in the car so I have to go back to home at some point. Not yet though, my mother won't be awake until at least ten and it's only 6:15 now. I glide into the guest bedroom and curl up on top of the covers, exhausted from a stressful week and no good sleep. My dreams slowly take hold of my conscious, forcing my thoughts into oblivion and my mind into a soft lullaby of mental machinery.